Hpakant is notorious for totally unregulated mining, the miners virtual slaves addicted to heroin.
According
to a democracy advocate who had been there, at night the sound tracks
fr porn flicks are broadcast from giant loudspeakers.
In my novel Wolf, a mining student is sent to the mines.
The deputy PM of the Burmese exile govt based in DC was from the mine town, Mogok.
He told me in 2009, "Other than the gem trade, there's nothing to do in Mogok, so the people are suffering greatly."
The junta took over the mines at least since the mid-1970s.
That's why US at one time, due to activism by US Campaign for Burma, passed the Jade Act.
I don't know if it is still in force.
One Burma expert has said, "Well, gems, it's easy to move them around the deck."
If
you read of all the major gems of the world, for instance Marie
Antoinette's ear rings, now in the Smithsonian, they are all smeared
with major blood and power lust.
That's why I prefer arts and crafts to gemstones.
KMKaung
7-2-2020
