Padip Gam Awng (also Padip Gam Aung), the second highest ranking member of a Burmese government backed Kachin militia is behind the recent expropriation of large tracts of land in Kachin state. The land was taken from local farmers to carry out lucrative gold mining operations, the Kachin News Group has learned.
This operation also involves Asia World, a firm controlled by the Steven Law and his late father Lo Hsing Han. Han who passed away peacefully last week was dubbed the 'Godfather of Heroin' by US authorities.
Land has been seized north of Myitkyina along the shores of the N'Mai Hka that further downstream merges to form the Irrawaddy River, according to residents. Over the previous year dozens of families have been driven of their land to make way for mining operations. Most were given little or no compensation, according to a researcher that recently visited the area.
Padip Gam Awng’s younger brother Padip Tu is also actively involved including the taxation of small scale artisanal miners. The artisanal miners working at the site are taxed about 150,000 Kyat each per day.
The gold mining process involves the use of mercury, cyanide and other toxic chemicals. Run off from the riverside mines flows directly into the local river. Environmental activists from Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG) say this will have serious and long term repercussions on the ecosystem.
Padip Gam Awng, who will profit handsomely from the gold project, was part of a small faction that split from the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in 2004. The split was prompted by a power struggle between his close ally the KIO's intelligence chief Colonel Lasang Awng Wa (also spelled Lasan Aung Wah) and other KIO leaders. Padip Gam Awng was a Lt-Col before leaving the KIO.
The splinter group that came to be known as the Lasang Awng Wa peace group was embraced by Burma's military regime. Within a year the faction group was granted territory north of Myitkyina, in the Gwe Htu (also Gwi Htu) Valley; the area was previously controlled by the KIO.
Lasang Awng Wa's group was officially transformed into a government backed people's militia force in October, 2009 and renamed the Lawa Yang after the area they are now based in Waingmaw township (roughly 20 miles north of Myitkyina).
Residents told the KNG that the Lawa Yang militia is not only pushing people off their land for the gold operations but also extorting money from various checkpoints. The militia also worked closely with the China Power International and the aforementioned Asia World. Both firms were involved in the officially stalled Myitsone dam project.
In September last year the Myanmar Times reported that Lawa Yang militia, still commonly known as the Lasang Awng Wa group, was behind the forced eviction of 2000 people from a 15-acre site in Mandalay Division.
