Pa-O organisation calls for termination of Russia-backed steel plant

By DMG 05 Oct 2022

DMG Newsroom
5 October 202, Sittwe

The Pa-O Youth Organization (PYO) on Monday called for the earliest possible shutdown of Pinpet Steel Mill in Shan State’s Taunggyi, citing environmental concerns.

The plant is a joint iron exploitation and processing project between the Myanmar military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and the state-owned Russian company Tyazhpromexport.

The project, which began in 2004, was expected to produce 200,000 tonnes of pig iron and 720,000 tonnes of iron ore. It is built on 5,260 acres of land near Nam See Village in Pinpet, some eight miles from Taunggyi.

Until it was suspended in early 2017, the plant was run under a contract between the MEC and VO Tyazhpromexport, a subsidiary of Rostec (Russia’s State Corporation).

Following a meeting between the Russian foreign minister and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw in August, the regime forced residents from five nearby villages to move as it attempted to resume the project.

“We are concerned that we might lose our livelihoods as we are robbed of our farms,” said a resident of Nam See Village.

Some 20,000 residents from more than 50 nearby villages were forcibly relocated since the project was launched in 2004. Some activists who demanded the termination of the project due to its environmental impacts were detained.

Nan Kyi, a PYO official, said: “After the project started, the soil drained in nearby villages, and the waste dumped by the plant also caused water pollution in nearby rivers. And activists who advocated for termination of the project were detained.”

The project dumped waste into Namtetbet Creek, which is the major source of drinking water for locals. When rocky mountains were bulldozed to make way for the plant, arable lands were damaged by stones that fell onto villages, said environmentalists.

“The worst part is that the plant has dumped iron waste and other waste into Namtetbet Creek,” said an environmentalist.

The Pinpet mine and the iron-processing factory have had a severe, adverse impact on the ethnic Pa-O people living in the area and on the environment, as documented by the local Pa-O Youth Organization in their 2009 report “Robbing the Future”.

The steel mill will have an impact on Hopong Plain, which is home to some 35,000 people from over 100 villages along Namtetbet Creek and Thanlwin (Salween) River, said the PYO, which called for terminating the project that only serves the interests of the regime and not locals.