U Myint Lwin has lost count of the times he and his family have fled their home. Like the rest of their village, they are on constant alert for the approach of junta troops from the Chinese-run Letpadaung copper mine, just a mile away.
The 47-year-old is a resident of Hnin Taw village in Salingyi Township, Sagaing Region. He is among thousands of civilians living around the mine who have been terrorized by marauding junta soldiers stationed there since the 2021 coup.
“We can’t count how many times we have been forced to abandon our home,” U Myint Lwin told The Irrawaddy.
The junta terror campaign is just the latest threat from the mine, which has displaced locals and poisoned farmland for over a decade, leading to protests and violent crackdowns by authorities.
Now, the surrounding villages face regular shelling and raids by regime troops, who kill civilians, loot property, and torch houses. Villagers who venture near the mine report being fired upon by soldiers, who also extort money from them at gunpoint.
Troops have killed at least 31 civilians living around the mine since the coup, according to a Sept. 20 press conference held by local strike committees. Another four residents have died while fleeing the raids.
“We can’t even live in our own house. Our lives are almost ruined,” said a Salingyi resident of a village near the mining project.
Civilians from 22 villages around mining operations in Salingyi have fled since 2021 amid frequent raids.
“We run for our lives to escape the bullets,” said a resident who lost her house to an arson attack in 2022.
Chinese mining firms
Salingyi is home to three Chinese-run copper mines – Letpadaung, Sapetaung and Kyesintaung. The mines are run by Wanbao Mining, Ltd and its two subsidiaries – Myanmar Wanbao Mining Copper, Ltd and Myanmar Yang Tse Copper, Ltd – in partnership with the military-owned Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd.
Wanbao is a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned defense firm China North Industries Corporation (Norinco).
Norinco is among the biggest suppliers of arms and equipment to the Myanmar military, according to advocacy group Justice for Myanmar and publicly available information. The US imposed sanctions on Wanbao Mining and its entities in 2021 for supporting Myanmar’s military regime.
The three copper mines affect around 25,000 people living in more than 30 villages in Salingyi and neighboring Yinmabin township. Wanbao has been operating the controversial Letpadaung mine since 2010.
Large protests against the mine began in 2012 when villagers demanded compensation for land seized and environmental damage. In December 2012, Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government formed a commission led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to investigate the project.
However, the dispute between the mine operators and locals went unresolved.
Following the 2021 coup, the Chinese companies claimed they had halted operations at the mines to seek a resolution to the long-standing dispute over land and compensation.
However, locals report that the mines continue to operate with support from regime troops, who have launched a terror campaign to destroy civilian life and property across the region.
Junta atrocities
Wanbao has allowed regime troops to use Letpaudang mine as a base, providing food and resources as well as vehicles for the soldiers to raid villages in the locale. It has also approved the deployment of artillery on its premises, which are being used to shell surrounding villages, according to residents.
In April last year, resistance groups from Salingyi and Yinmarbin warned the mines to halt operations and called on miners to down tools and join the civil disobedience movement (CDM).
A local resistance chief estimates there are now 200 regime troops based in the mining compound. A unit of around 100 soldiers recently raided villages along the Pathein-Monywa road while accompanying a convoy carrying copper from the mine.
“The regime has sent troops by river and road from Northwest Regional Command and the 28th police battalion to reinforce Wanbao,” a resistance chief told the Irrawaddy.
Wanbao also uses the river route to ship copper, and civilians like U Myint Lwin who live along the riverbank must endure constant fear of being tortured, arrested or killed by troops guarding the mining convoys.
On Dec. 7, 2021, troops from the mine burned alive 10 villagers including five teenagers aged between 14 and 17 in what became known as the Don Taw village massacre.
“The military kill civilians, torched houses, and rape the women,” said a Don Taw villager who lost her husband and nephew in the massacre. “Wanbao and [subsidiary] Myanmar Yang Tse are enabling this vicious and cruel army. We are living in fear.”
This year, troops stationed at mine have escalated their campaign of atrocities.
In late June, they tortured and killed two residents of the township’s Moe Gyo Pyin North village.
In August, six villagers were brutally killed by the soldiers in Yinmabin and neighboring Pale township.
“Since the coup, junta troops based at the Chinese mine projects have been openly destroying the lives and property of local people,” Ko Lwan Thu, the head of the Yinmabin-Salingyi multi-village strike steering committee, told last week’s press conference.
Troops based at the Chinese mines have torched almost 2,000 houses in Salingyi Township alone, he added. According to the locals, over 1,000 houses in 17 villages around the three mines have been incinerated in raids.
“We returned to a devastating scene in our village after one raid,” a resident said through tears. “There were no houses left. We are still grieving the loss.”
Her village was torched by troops in January this year.
Land seizures expanding
Amid the series of atrocities, Wanbao has seized farmland and fenced-off property in Wethmay village to the west of the mining compound, forcing out more than 30 families.
This month the Chinese miner also seized the farms of 46 residents near Moe Gyo Sulfuric Acid Factory, which supplies the copper mines. Some 148 acres of the residents’ farmland has now been fenced-off, said strike committee chief Ko Lwan Thu.
In addition, junta troops plant mines in the farms of local villagers, according to local aid group Anyar Pyitinehtaung.
“Residents don’t dare to go to farms out of fear of stepping on a mine,” a representative of the group told The Irrawaddy.
She also confirmed reports that soldiers at the mine compound frequently shoot at passing residents.
‘Life would be fine without Wanbao’
Salingyi residents say they want the mining firms to close and regime troops to halt their terror campaign.
“Our life would be fine without Wanbao. And we will never forgive the junta,” said one resident.
U Myint Lwin said that lives of locals have worsened immeasurably since the 2021 putsch.
“Before the coup, we had land problems, but now our lives our being threatened by soldiers,” he told The Irrawaddy.
At the very minimum, he wants Wanbao to withdraw permission for troops to be stationed in its compound.
Last month, 17 local strike bodies in Monywa, Salingyi and Yinmarbin townships called on Wanbao and Yang Tse to halt their collaboration with the military regime.
Local resistance forces have warned the company that it is a legitimate target for hosting junta troops that are committing atrocities against civilians.
Local residents are calling on the international community to intervene in the terror campaign being waged by the regime in collaboration with Myanmar Wanbao and Myanmar Yang Tse. They have also urged the parallel civilian National Unity Government and relevant organizations to hold the perpetrators to account.
“We can no longer endure the violations of junta troops supported by Wanbao. We want the mining firms to halt operations forever,” a Salingyi resident said.
