Civil Society and Community Groups Condemn the Violent Crackdown on Protest Against the Letpadaung Copper Mine in Burma

We, the undersigned civil society and community based organizations, condemn yesterday’s brutal crackdown against protesters who have been calling for the suspension of the Letpadaung copper mine near Monywa, Sagaing Region in Burma. This violence is the latest example that reforms in Burma are only superficial […]

Freedom House Condemns Crackdown on Peaceful Protesters in Burma

Freedom House condemns the violent crackdown against peaceful protesters at the Letpadaung copper mining site in Sagaing Division, Burma and calls on the government of Burma to immediately halt its use of violence and arbitrary detention against peoples exercising their right to peacefully assemble […]

President U Thein Sein: Immediately Investigate and Bring to Justice the Police Responsible for Grave Crimes Committed Against Peaceful Demonstrators

AAPP strongly condemns the use of excessive force and brutality by police officers in response to peaceful protestors in the early hours of 29 November, 2012. The government of President U Thein Sein must ensure […]

BURMA: Absurd and Offensive Pretext to Remove Demonstrators Opposed to Mining Project

In the latest turn of events in the struggle against the Letpadaung copper mining project in upper Burma, about which the Asian Human Rights Commission has been campaigning since mid-2012, the government has issued an announcement ordering that demonstrators abandon their protest sites or face criminal action […]

Authorities Arrest Mine Activists

Police are on the hunt for four others as Burma cracks down on protests at a controversial copper mine.

Burmese authorities have arrested at least six activists and are searching for four others who organized protests at the site of a China-backed copper mining venture, which villagers say had been set up on their illegally confiscated land.

The government has also ordered protesters to leave the Letpadaung Copper Mine’s premises in northwestern Burma by midnight or face legal action […]

Both Sides File Suits in Mine Protest

Over 1,000 villagers staged a symbolic demonstration on Tuesday at a graveyard to dramatize their struggle against a Chinese co-owned mine in the Letpadaung mountain range near Sagaing Division’s Monywa city.

The villagers are protesting their displacement from land following months of confrontations with the company and the authorities […]

Mining, Repression and Imprisonment, an Uncertain Future

Burma has been internationally praised for moving in a more democratic direction recently. Sadly for many citizens these changes are a world away. Their interactions with the Burma government are characterized by the same repressive, corrupt, strong armed tactics that made Burma an international pariah for decades.

In the Letpadaung mountains, huge amounts of land have been forcibly confiscated by the government, environmental degradation has occurred and a policy of arrest and detention of peaceful protestors has been implemented. The Monywa Copper Project is located in central Burma’s Sagaing Division with four large deposits: Sabetaung, Sabetaung South, Kyisintaung and Letpadaung. The project covers almost 8,000 acres of land, the majority of which was forcibly taken from villagers.

Resource extraction has been the cause of some of Burma’s largest human rights violations and land confiscations. The Monywa Copper Project is the country’s largest mine in terms of recovery rates, production and revenue. Protests over the project and national attention have been growing, as have the number of arrests and detentions in association with those protests and land confiscation cases.

Ivanhoe Received US $103 Million from Burma’s Copper Mines

Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines has announced early today in its press release that it received US$103 million from Burma asset it held through Monywa Trust.

Ivanhoe owned a 50% operating interest in a joint venture with Burma’s state-owned company and transferred its asset to a third party Monywa Trust in 2007 […]

Ivanhoe Mines claims stake in Monywa not sold, refuses to show any proof

In a tersely worded statement posted on the firm’s website, Ivanhoe Mines claimed its 50% stake in the Myanmar Ivanhoe Copper Company (MICCL), a joint venture it created with the Burmese regime to run the Monywa Copper project, was not sold.

Ivanhoe’s statement claimed that a CFOB press release which reported that the MICCL stake was sold to junta cronies in collaboration with Chinese weapons firms Norinco was “part of a discredited, long-running disinformation campaign by the Canadian Friends of Burma non-governmental organization, assisted once again by the India-based Mizzima News Agency” […]

Did Ivanhoe secretly sell Burmese stake to cronies connected to Chinese arms firm?

A trusted source has told the Burmese opposition website Mizzima News Agency that Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines’ so called “independent trust” secretly concluded a deal last year to sell Ivanhoe’s stake in Myanmar Ivanhoe Copper Company Limited (MICCL), the joint venture created by Ivanhoe Mines and the military regime which operates Burma’s largest mine, the Monywa copper project […]