{"id":6969,"date":"2026-07-20T05:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T05:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/?p=6969"},"modified":"2026-07-20T05:19:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T05:19:31","slug":"myanmars-blood-copper-the-letpadaung-chronicles-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/2026\/07\/20\/myanmars-blood-copper-the-letpadaung-chronicles-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar’s Blood Copper: The Letpadaung Chronicles (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before the Mountains Disappeared \u2013 A Young Doctor’s First Journey into Burma’s Largest Copper Mine (1982)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

By Dr. Abdul Rahman Zafrudin (Ko Ko Gyi)<\/strong>
Myanmar Muslim News Network (MMNN)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Every time I hear the name Letpadaung<\/strong>, my mind travels back more than forty-four years.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

Long before the world associated Letpadaung with land confiscation, environmental controversy, burning monks, international documentaries and geopolitical rivalry, I knew it simply as a dusty workplace where I spent one unforgettable month serving as a young doctor.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

None of us imagined that those quiet hills would one day become one of Myanmar’s most controversial places.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A Journey I Never Expected<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Around April 1982, while serving as a Demonstrator and Assistant Surgeon at the Institute of Medicine, Mandalay, I received instructions from the Director-General of Medical Education to accompany a group of matriculation students participating in a voluntary labour programme at the Letpadaung Copper Mine in Sagaing Division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young doctor, I considered it just another temporary assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had no idea that the experience would remain vivid in my memory for more than four decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My responsibility was straightforward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I established a temporary clinic and looked after the health of hundreds of student volunteers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most had grown up in towns and cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few had ever carried construction materials, worked under the intense central Myanmar sun, or lived on a large industrial worksite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every evening they arrived with blistered hands, cuts, puncture wounds from nails, strained muscles, heat exhaustion, diarrhoea, respiratory infections and countless minor ailments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, there were no major injuries during my stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back today, those cheerful young students remain one of my happiest memories of Letpadaung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

My First Encounter with Heavy Industry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There was something else that amazed me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myanmar in 1982 was still a largely agricultural nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside a few factories in Yangon and Mandalay, most Burmese had never seen truly large industrial machinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I certainly had not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first entered the mining area, I stopped in astonishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Credit Hitachi EH5000 trucks<\/a> as an example<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gigantic dump trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Massive bulldozers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huge excavators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machines unlike anything I had ever imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember standing beside one of the mining trucks and looking up at its enormous tyres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I stood about 5 feet 7 inches tall<\/strong>\u2014considered relatively tall among Burmese at that time\u2014the tyres were still taller than I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a young doctor who had spent most of his life in classrooms, hospitals and city streets, it felt as though I had stepped into another world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time, I understood the scale of modern industrial mining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was fascinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time, politics never crossed my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many young Burmese, I admired engineering, technology and human ingenuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Conversations with Engineers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During my stay, I often spoke with Burmese engineers supervising the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One conversation has remained in my memory for more than forty years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I visited the mine’s equipment warehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its reinforced concrete roof appeared unusually thick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One senior Burmese engineer jokingly remarked that the foreign architects had designed it strong enough to carry the weight of heavy snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is central Myanmar,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t have snow here.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If my memory serves me correctly, one of the foreign architects\u2014whom I remember as being from the former Yugoslavia\u2014smiled and replied that such a robust design could also withstand heavy dust and provide additional strength under demanding industrial conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only many years later did I wonder whether another reason might have existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The warehouse had been built behind a natural hill, separated from the main operational area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the hill itself, together with the strong construction, also offered additional protection against accidental blasting or flying rock fragments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cannot say this with certainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is simply a reflection based upon my memory of the site’s layout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Mountains Before They Changed Forever<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every day I heard explosions echoing across the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blasting came from Kyay Ni Taung<\/strong>, where mining had already begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Sabetaung<\/strong> still stood proudly beside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The engineers told me that one day mining would eventually reach Sabetaung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that moment, none of us imagined how completely those mountains would one day be transformed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also mentioned something that caught my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides copper, geological surveys had reportedly identified traces of gold within the ore body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, however, the project remained entirely under Burmese management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese companies had not yet entered Letpadaung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Looking Back After Forty-Four Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Today, when I watch the documentary Blood Copper<\/strong> and study recent satellite images, I realise that I unknowingly witnessed the beginning of a remarkable chapter in Myanmar’s modern history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quiet hills I first visited as a young doctor have become internationally known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The villages surrounding them have experienced protests, controversy, displacement, armed conflict and immense human suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet when I close my eyes, I still remember a different Letpadaung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember eager young students laughing after work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember dressing blistered hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember the smell of dust after the afternoon blasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember standing in silent amazement beside machines larger than anything I had ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History often begins quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only years later do we realise we were witnessing its opening chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(To be continued in Part II: “From National Mine to International Controversy”)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before the Mountains Disappeared \u2013 A Young Doctor’s First Journey into Burma’s Largest Copper Mine (1982) By Dr. Abdul Rahman Zafrudin (Ko Ko Gyi)Myanmar Muslim News Network (MMNN) “Every time I hear the name Letpadaung, my mind travels back more than forty-four years. Long before the world associated Letpadaung with land confiscation, environmental controversy, burning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,30,6,133,2,127,1,11,10,16,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-health","category-history","category-human-rights-constitution-federal-democracy-social-nets-minority-rights","category-international-news","category-islam-hope-allah-swt","category-local-news","category-myanmar-muslims-history","category-news","category-opinion","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6975,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6969\/revisions\/6975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}