While working on dam projects for hydroelectric power in northern Burma, Chinese companies are secretly spiriting away unidentified minerals to their country, said local sources.
Two or more sub-Chinese companies in the Chinese government’s China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) have been taking away different kinds of minerals to their country from areas around N’Mai River (N'Mai Hka in Kachin) hydropower project in Chipwi (Chibwe) east of Burma’s northern Kachin State since the CPI’s hydropower inspectors arrived in Chipwi in 2007, according to residents of Chipwi.
Local eyewitnesses told KNG, that some unknown minerals are tidily put in wooden boxes and some are not. The trucks are covered with opaque plastic when minerals are loaded in the trucks and transported to China mostly at night, added the eyewitnesses.
Local Kachin villagers always see the Chinese taking away mineral from the areas around them but they have no idea what kind of minerals are being taken away by the Chinese, local villagers told KNG.
According to businessmen on the Sino-Burma border, minerals like Aluminium, Silver and Lead are found in the hydropower project site in Chipwi.
The project site is protected by Burmese army soldiers and no one is authorized to go inside the projects site or watch the activities of Chinese workers, said sources in the Kachin ceasefire group in the area, the New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K).
A NDA-K officer told KNG recently, Chinese trucks loaded with unidentified minerals from Chipwi hydropower project site cross the Sino-Burma border which is controlled by the NDA-K. However, both NDA-K and Burmese military authorities are not authorized to check Chinese workers’ activities in the project site and trucks crossing the two countries’ border.
In December last year, the number of Chinese workers in the Chipwi hydropower project site increased from over 300 to about 1,000, said residents of Chipwi.
Under the agreement between the governments of China and Burma, the Chipwi hydropower project in N’Mai River is being implemented by Asia World Company in Burma and CPI.
The project is one of seven hydropower projects in Mali and N’Mai Rivers, and the Mali and N’Mai Rivers’ Confluence called the Mali-N’Mai Zup in Kachin or Myitsone in Burmese and it is estimated to generate 2,000 MW of electricity.
