CNI News

9 Sept 2022

Action would be taken against illegal gold miners in the confluence area in Kachin State, Social Affairs Minister U Win Ye Tun of the Kachin State Administration Council told the CNI.

No licenses were issued for the gold mines and the issue would be tackled in accordance with policy of the government.

U Win Ye Tun said, “We have never issued licenses to them. The government issued licenses only for legal gold mine. The issue must be tackled in accordance with the policy of the government. There are illegal mining and panning for gold. In such cases, action is taken in accordance with the law by detaining them.”

Current gold mining in the confluence area has moved from the manageable level to the commercial scale by using machinery, a member of the Tanphe confluence local protestors group told the CNI.

Gold mining in the confluence area.

He said, “They recently built fences around their gold mines and security guards were employed. As they built fences, local residents cannot know what is happening inside and how worse the situation is inside. One thing that is sure is that they are mining gold with the use of backhoes.”

In the past, they panned for gold traditionally at the manageable level but some businessmen rent the land and mine gold on a commercial scale.

Therefore, local residents made complaints to local authorities but they were indifferent to those complaints. Gold mining can damage the environment in the long-term and even destroy the livelihoods of local residents.

The Kachin State Government officially approved 58 small-scale gold-mining sites for 18 companies and two mining sites for poor local residents in six townships in Kachin State including Waingmaw, Machanbaw, Sumprabum, Shinbweyan, Momauk and Shwegu on 20 February, 2020.

However, it is unclear how many mining sites were approved for how many companies at present.