Addiction to Natural Resources: Jade, Poppy, and the Political Economy of Conflict in Burma’s Northern Border

​Freelance miners scavenge for jade rocks as the discarded tailings from Kayin Gyaung Jade Mine are dumped in Hpakant, Myanmar on 18 January, 2017. Kayin Gyaung Jade Mine is owned by Hong Pang Company which is owned by Wei Hsue Kan, Southern Commander of the Wa State Army and known drug lord wanted by the US. ​© Daniel Dean

​Freelance miners carry a jade rock as they scavenge for the discarded tailings from Kayin Gyaung Jade Mine are dumped in Hpakant, Myanmar on 18 January, 2017. ​© Daniel Dean

​Freelance miners scavenge for jade rocks as at night in Hpakant, Myanmar on 19 January, 2017. ​© Daniel Dean

​A Burmese dealer arranges pieces of jade on his stall outside the Mandalay Jade market in Mandalay, Myanmar on 20th July, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

​Jade dealers count money as they buy small, cut, jade stones for use in jewelry at the Jade Market in Mandalay, Myanmar on July 12th, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

A saleswoman waits for customers at a ‘Beijing Colourful Yunnan,’ a luxury jade emporium specialising in jade from Myanmar, in Beijing, China on 9th August 2014. Chinese demand for Myanmar jade drives the market in Myanmar. ​​© Daniel Dean

​Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an ethnic rebel army fighting for autonomy, and its militia recruits are seen in the barracks in a two-month basic training course in Laiza, Kachin Occupied Territory, Myanmar on Feb. 9, 2012. ​© Daniel Dean

Kachin Independence Army (KIA) soldiers from Headquarters Unit travel towards the front lines between Laiza and Maijayang, near Damhpawng Kawng in KIA controlled territory of Kachin State, Myanmar on Jan. 9, 2012.​ ​© Daniel Dean

​Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and civilian militia trainees during a three-month basic military training course on a base near Laiza in KIA controlled territory in Kachin State, Myanmar on Jan. 4, 2012. ​© Daniel Dean

Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and civilian militia trainees patrol past a family including children on January 4, 2012. ​© Daniel Dean ​

​Opium resin runs down a poppy head in a field in Long Douay Village in a Shan State Army - South controlled area of Shan State, Myanmar on 6th December, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

A farm worker harvests opium from poppies in Long Douay Village in a Shan State Army - South controlled area of Shan State, Myanmar on 6th December, 2014.​ ​© Daniel Dean

​U Sent, 54, who has been growing poppies for 8 years, harvests opium from poppies in Long Douay on 6th December, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

Mist hangs over the hills of southern Shan State near Loi Lehm, Myanmar on 7th December, 2014. The hillside, sunshine and cool, morning fog found in Shan State make it ideal for poppy growing and opium production.​ ​© Daniel Dean

​A villager walks along a new road built by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to help them access markets and move away from poppy production in Bang Laem Village in a Shan State Army - South controlled area of Shan State, Myanmar on 7th December, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

Poppy farmers who have been selected for a program run by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to help them grow coffee instead of poppies in an attempt to reduce opium production, listen to UNODC staff in a meeting on 7th December, 2014.​ ​© Daniel Dean

​New arrivals wait in a Baptist Church IPD camp for Kachin people who have had to escape the recent flare in fighting between the Burmese Army and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Bhamo, Myanmar on Dec. 9, 2011. Despite government reforms, there is still ongoing conflicts between the government Army and armed ethnic groups such as the Kachin. ​© Daniel Dean

Hkawng Lum, 35, (2nd from right) a freelance jade miner and heroin addict from Hpakant who worked in the mines for 10 years warms himself by the fire with other drug addicts at Wauk Wain Drug Rehabilitation facility run by the Lhaovao Baptist Church in Waimaw near Myitkyina, Myanmar on January 23, 2016.​ ​© Daniel Dean

​A poppy farmer shows journalists a package of 1.5 kg of opium he has recently harvested in Long Douay Village in a Shan State Army - South controlled area of Shan State, Myanmar on 5th December, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

​Drug users inject themselves with heroin at an undisclosed location in Kachin State, Myanmar on 14th July, 2014. Kachin state, where most of Myanmar’s jade comes from, has some of the highest rates of heroin use and HIV in Myanmar. ​© Daniel Dean

An HIV positive man, 52, who worked as a jade minor in Hpakant where he used to inject heroin, rests at home in Myitkyina, Myanmar on 18th July, 2014. ​​© Daniel Dean

​Recovering heroin addicts wash at a residential rehabilitation facility run by the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) near Myitkyina, Myanmar on 16th July, 2014. ​© Daniel Dean

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​© Daniel Dean

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Addiction to Natural Resources: Jade, Poppy, and the Political Economy of Conflict in Burma’s Northern Border

Authors: Adam Dean, Dr. Alexander L. Fattal • Resource type: Art

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Adam Dean’s photo-essay on northern Myanmar (formerly Burma) shows how political conflict between Myanmar’s military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an ethnic rebel army fighting for autonomy along Myanmar’s border with China, is interlaced with the illegal trade of both heroine and jade. Dean’s visually stunning photographs should help to draw attention to this dizzyingly complex conflict. The Kachin political project spans the geopolitically complex terrain of Burma, China, and India, in a way resonant to the deeply fraught transborder politics of the Kurdish people. The scenario becomes even more complicated as the United States has worked to bring Myanmar into its sphere of influence in its regional gamesmanship with China in east and southeast Asia. China, for its part, has a large stake in the region’s natural resources and concerns about ongoing instability. The United Nations has worked to try to make legal crops more viable by building roads and incentivizing peasants to plant alternative crops, like coffee.

Local villagers must navigate the shifting economic and political forces as best they can. Most often that means relying on the unregulated trade of jade and heroine. This is not only grueling work, it also has second and third order consequences, like local addiction and the costs of rehabilitation. Dean has managed to get rare access to this world and document it compellingly. His eye moves beyond the deep green of the jade stones and the sappy scars of the poppy flower to also focus on the quiet moments of communities eating together, displaced people bewildered by their new surroundings, former addicts struggling to get clean, and elders grappling with how to guide their communities amid the increasingly mercenary and militarized context. Through his images we can begin to glimpse the complexity of a conflict over natural resources, illegal drugs, ethnic autonomy, and great game geopolitics.

— Alexander L. Fattal

Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego

Copyright information: Photos are copyright ​© Daniel Dean.