A Chinese mining company will begin copper production at a
controversial site in central Myanmar in May, a month after the new
government led by the opposition party comes to power, a corporate
spokesman said Friday.
The large mine project operated by China’s Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd.
Company and Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (UMEHL), a Myanmar
an army-owned conglomerate, in the town of Letpadaung in Sagaing region
has come under fire by local farmers who have long protested the
company’s land takeovers in the area.
“We will start copper production in May, a month after the new
National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government takes power,” Dong
Yunfei, Wanbao’s spokesman, told RFA’s Myanmar Service.
He added that Wanbao expected to benefit from good relations with the
NLD government because party leader Aung San Suu Kyi would make policy
decisions based on the rule of law and national reconciliation.
“So we believe the country will be more developed,” he said.
The mine is one of several Chinese operated megaprojects under way in
the Southeast Asian nation that have come under fire from locals
because of environmental damage and expropriated land.
Such protests prompted the ruling Union Solidarity and Development
Party (USDAP) led by President Thein Sein in 2011 to suspend
construction of the Myitsone Dam and hydroelectric power development
project by the China Power Investment Corporation [CPI] in Kachin state
for five years.
Dong Yunfei, however, said he wasn’t concerned that a similar fate might befall the Letpadaung project.
“Huge projects like this one are planned, agreed to and signed by
both sides under the full extent of the law and legalities,” he said.
“So, everything will proceed according to the law.”
Inquiry commission
Aung San Suu Kyi, whose NLD party won general elections last November
by a landslide, had led a parliamentary inquiry commission on the
Letpadaung project, calling for more transparency in the project’s land
appropriation process and for police riot control training in the wake
of a violent raid on protesters at the mine site in 2012.
In 2014, she accused the government of ignoring the commission’s
recommendations to improve conditions at the mine, which she said
sparked clashes that December between police and farmers trying to
prevent Wanbao employees from fencing off land for the project. The
incident left one farmer dead and dozens injured. The USDP, however,
rejected her claims.
In response to continued protests, Wanbao canvassed local villages in
2014 and 2015 and met with farmers one-on-one to try to resolve the
issue, Dong Yunfei said.
“We are still trying to meet the demands of local people,” he said,
adding that Wanbao wanted to compensate villagers who had not accepted
money the company previously offered them for land it had taken for the
mining site.
“Our doors are open all the time for compensation,” Dong Yunfei said.
“We suggest that those who haven’t taken the compensation come
forward.”
Wanbao offered money to the family of Khin Win, the farmer who was
shot and killed during the December 2014 protest, to compensate them for
their loss, but they never showed up to collect it, he said.
“We heard there was division of opinions among the family members,” he said. “We don’t know the latest situation now.”
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