"How the Kachin public overturned a rare earth mining project in KIO territory" 2 May 2023

On April 15, in response to public protests, the Kachin Independence Organization cancelled controversial plans to allow new rare earth mining in the eastern district of its territory, in Kachin State’s Mansi Township.

KIO chairman, General N’Ban La, made the announcement to more than 1,500 people gathered from 10 villages at the organisation’s eastern headquarters of Mai Ja Yang. The mining, he said, had been intended as a way to fund development projects and procure weapons for its war against the military junta. But after listening to the concerns of residents, who feared it would poison their water and destroy their land, the KIO decided against it.

The decision – made before the mining companies had broken ground – marked an abrupt U-turn by the KIO. It came after more than four months of escalating tensions, as a local protest movement gained the support of activists, civil society organisations and much of the Kachin public amid allegations that the KIO had attempted to intimidate and pressure communities into accepting the mining. [...]
These factors collided over the rare earth mining issue. Eventually, the protest movement reached a scale and intensity that drew a response from the KIO which is likely unprecedented in the organisation’s 62-year history, according to anthropologist Dr Laur Kiik, who studies the intersection of Kachin nationalism and environmental movements.

The protest movement, he said, reflects the culmination of more than two decades of environmental activism in Kachin, which after the coup, converged with a broader movement directed towards reforming the KIO. [...]