World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Myanmar/Burma : Kachin

By:UNHCR web
Current issues
Events after 1994 are a mixed bag, with some economic projects being initiated in Kachin State and some degree of latitude granted by the SPDC to the KIO – at least initially – which began to permit the emergence of local Kachin NGOs and even the tentative involvement in the area of some international NGOs. However, over the past 13 years, unsustainable and unaccountable logging and mining activities have taken their toll on the natural environment of Kachin State, with reports in 2007 pointing the finger at Burma's military junta which, for example, has given permits for gold-mining in the Hugawng Valley Tiger Reserve in northern Kachin State leading to the displacement of thousands of local inhabitants. These and other similar activities appear to favour selected companies and individuals closely connected to the ruling regime, and at the same time have an ethnic component as ethnic Burman are encouraged to work and settle in some of the areas where the mining and logging activities occur.

Throughout the state, Kachin women and children are being driven by increasing poverty into the sex trade in Yangon (Rangoon) and China.

The Burmese military presence has in fact increased dramatically, from 26 battalions in 1994 to almost 50 in 2007, bringing at the same time an increase in the allegations of human rights violations and atrocities such as land confiscations (with little or no compensation), forced labour and sexual violence. The SPDC appears to be appointing ethnic Burman to almost all administrative positions in towns such as Danai, leading to the virtual elimination of any use of the Kachin language in local affairs. In early 2007, four Kachin schoolgirls who claimed to have been gang raped by Burmese soldiers were found guilty of prostitution and jailed.
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