Political Economy
Like an old mining town of the American West, Hpakant has been dubbed "the wild wild east" replete with alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and opium dens. Since after the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) came into the area before negotiating a cease-fire agreement with Burma's military government in the early 1990s, heroin is no longer openly on sale on the streets of Hpakant. Both addicts and drug dealers were rounded up, taken to the nearby Uru River, shot and dumped in the river.
Concerns have been expressed regarding the encroachment on and destruction of the environment from deforestation and landslides resulting from mining activities and consequent flooding. The Uru River has also been affected by the dumping of soil. There have been instances of locals being forced to leave their homes when upland areas were bulldozed by the big mining companies.
The KIA however lost control of the jade mines once the cease-fire had been arranged, and firms from China, Hong Kong and Singapore started to operate in the area after winning concessions from the government. More recently however the mining contracts went to the well known Burmese tycoon Tay Za's Htoo Group and also to Myanmar Dagaung Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the Hong Pang Group headed by Wei Hsueh-kang, a former drug trafficker and leader of the Wa insurgent group UWSA turned entrepreneur after the cease-fire deal.
Maran Brang Seng, former chairman of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) from 1976 until he died in 1994, was born in Hpakant in 1930.
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