Monks hurt in Burma mine protest

Activists said at least 50 people had been injured and 23 were in hospital yesterday, some suffering burns after incendiary devices were hurled into their camps by police.

After decades of oppression, the Monywa mine has become a test of Burma’s reforms as protesters explore new-found freedoms, including a relaxation of laws on protests since July.

It also illustrates growing resentment towards Chinese companies that have expanded in the country in recent years.

Witnesses said truckloads of police arrived at six camps near the mine in the Sagaing region in Burma’s north-west, where thousands have demonstrated against a $1 billion expansion of the project and what they call the unlawful confiscation of more than 7,800 acres of land.

Security forces began using water cannon and other weapons from about 3am, Shin Oattama, a Buddhist monk who had helped the villagers, said by telephone. “They shot some sort of canisters that caused fire at the camp,” he said.

Myo Thant, a political activist, said 22 monks were wounded in a crackdown in which some officers fired incendiary devices against protesters. “The stuff from these canisters got caught on the clothes and bodies of the victims. When they shook their robes to remove this stuff, fire started.”

But Zaw Htay, a spokesman for president Thein Sein, said police had used only water cannon, tear gas and smoke bombs to disperse the protesters. “No chemical weapons were used by the police,” he said.

Land disputes are a growing problem in Burma. Protests were suppressed under a military junta in place until last year ,but have become more common as Thein Sein opens up the country and pushes through reforms including the right to strike.

“This is an example of the skin-deep nature of Burma’s reforms,” said Mark Farmaner, of London-based advocacy group Burma Campaign UK. “The new right-to-protest law was hailed as a major reform, but it is clear there is still no right to protest in Burma.”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi offered to  mediate between the two sides.

Addressing a crowd of about 10,000 people near the mine, she said she had met company officials. “I’d like to meet the respective villagers and those who are opposing this project and mediate between the two sides,” she said. “I would like to ask the people to co-operate with patience.”

The copper mine, Burma’s biggest, is run by a unit of China North Industries Corporation, a prominent weapons manufacturer, under a deal signed in June 2010 after Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines pulled out in 2007.

It is backed by the military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, which operated extensively under the military regime that ruled for almost half a century until 2011.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by China’s Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, said in an editorial yesterday it would be a “lose-lose situation for China and Burma if the project is  halted”.

“We must not give up on the project,” it said. “Even if it is eventually stopped, Chinese companies should receive compensation according to the contract and international practice.”