| Hpakant ဖားကန့် |
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Hpakant
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Burma |
| Division | Kachin State |
| District | Myitkyina District |
| Township | Hpakant Township |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | |
| Population (2005) | |
| • Religions | Buddhism, Christianity |
| Time zone | MST (UTC+6.30) |
Hpakant (Burmese: ဖားကန့်; also Hpakan and Farkent), is a town in Hpakant Township, Kachin State of the northernmost part of the Union of Myanmar. It is located on the Uyu River 350 km north of Mandalay in the middle of one of the world's most inhospitable and malaria infested jungles, cut off for several months a year during the monsoons. It is famous for its jade mines which produce the world's best quality jadeite.[1][2]
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Located 48 miles from Mogaung, Hpakant is accessible by a toll road, recently rebuilt by Asia World Company. Asia World Company was founded by the former drug baron and war lord Lo Hsing Han.[3]
Like an old mining town of the American West, Hpakant has been dubbed "the wild wild east" replete with alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and opium dens. Since after the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) came into the area before negotiating a cease-fire agreement with Burma's military government in the early 1990s, heroin is no longer openly on sale on the streets of Hpakant. Both addicts and drug dealers were rounded up, taken to the nearby Uru River, shot and dumped in the river.[2]
Concerns have been expressed regarding the encroachment on and destruction of the environment from deforestation and landslides resulting from mining activities and consequent flooding. The Uru River has also been affected by the dumping of soil. There have been instances of locals being forced to leave their homes when upland areas were bulldozed by the big mining companies.[4]
The KIA however lost control of the jade mines once the cease-fire had been arranged, and firms from China, Hong Kong and Singapore started to operate in the area after winning concessions from the government.[5] More recently however the mining contracts went to the well known Burmese tycoon Tay Za's Htoo Group and also to Myanmar Dagaung Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the Hong Pang Group headed by Wei Hsueh-kang, a former drug trafficker and leader of the Wa insurgent group UWSA turned entrepreneur after the cease-fire deal.[6]
Maran Brang Seng, former chairman of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) from 1976 until he died in 1994, was born in Hpakant in 1930.[7]
One thousand miners apparently drowned in 2000 when flood waters of the Uru River rushed into the underground mines, but the news was hushed up by the authorities according to the locals. An explosion at Hpakant Gyi mine on New Year's Eve 2008 killed 2 miners and injured 7. It is owned by another one of the ethnic cease-fire groups, the Pa-O National Army (PNA) headed by Aung Kham Hti.[8]
More than 30 (and up to 70) people are believed to have been killed in a massive landslide near Hpakant, Kachin State in early July 2009; official figures are not available. The flood waters swept away homes, blocked roads and cut communications. The disaster is being blamed on jade mining, which creates large deposits of debris that block heavy rain from reaching natural rivers and drainage, including the Uru river.
About 100 jade mining companies operate in the Hpakant area. The Kachin Environmental Organization, based on the Sino-Burmese border, says that people living in the Hpakant area had appealed to the companies not to dump waste near the Uru River and to avoid environmental damage. The companies enjoy government backing, however, and local complaints are regularly ignored. [1]
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