Ko Htet has been getting up at 4am every morning since he was 17 to scour the massive slag heaps of Hpakant for a few precious pieces of jade.
Like countless others who have flocked to this region some 150km west of the Kachin State capital Myitkyina, he lives for the day that he will finally strike it rich. In fact, it was just two years into his now decade-long quest that he first hit the jackpot with a block of jade that fetched him 40m kyat (more than $22,000).
That find left him well off enough to support his family of seven while he continued to pursue his dream of even greater riches. Now 27 years old, he believes he still has a few good years left in him to reach his goal.
But becoming unbelievably wealthy (or at least financially secure enough to ensure a comfortable future for himself and his family) is no longer the focus of all his energies. Since the coup in February, he has found a new reason to start his days early: the fight to restore civilian rule.
“I actually went hunting for jade when the protests started,” he recalled. “But it felt weird just trying to make a living when the country had been taken over by dictators.”
So he joined the protests. Before long, however, he realized that they would not be enough to bring down the regime. In March, when soldiers started killing people in the streets, he decided that more drastic measures would be necessary.
But before making his next move, he decided to return to his hometown in Taze, Sagaing Region, to tell his mother that he wanted to join the armed resistance against the junta.
She tearfully begged him to change his mind, so he stayed in Taze and joined the protests there.
‘He didn’t have to die’
It was on April 7—the day that regime forces gunned down at least 10 Taze protesters in cold blood—that Ko Htet finally decided that he had to set all other considerations aside and take up arms.
He stopped trying to persuade his mother to accept his decision and made his way to an area under the control of an ethnic armed group. After a month of military training, he was ready to start fighting.
“My mother didn’t want me to go because I was her only son, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch as defenceless civilians were slaughtered by the military. We can’t win against them by doing nothing, so I decided to fight,” he said.
Ko Htet was not the only person in Hpakant who gave up their million-dollar dreams to engage in armed struggle.
Twenty-two-year-old Poe Sone Kyu (“Firefly”), who also hails from Taze, is another jade hunter who decided to join the resistance after witnessing the regime’s atrocities.
My mother didn’t want me to go because I was her only son, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch as defenceless civilians were slaughtered by the military– a jade hunter
On March 14, he was taking part in a protest at Mashika Htaung ward in Sate Mu, a village in Hpakant Township, when junta troops opened fire and shot 30-year-old Kyaw Lin Hteik in the stomach. Instead of providing treatment for the injured man, his captors tortured him and left him to die an agonizing death.
“They didn’t let him get medical treatment for a long time. Rescue vehicles were not allowed to go through traffic, so he had to spend more than two hours on the road,” Poe Sone Kyu recalled.
“He didn’t have to die at all,” he added.
‘They chose violence’
It took Poe Sone Kyu a month to convince his parents that joining the armed resistance was the right thing to do. They finally accepted his decision, but only after he promised to never use his military training against innocent civilians.
“I will contribute to this battle against the dictatorship in any way I can. They chose violence instead of accepting their loss. They forcibly took power away from the people and terrorized those who peacefully protested against this injustice. That’s why I had to take up arms,” he said.
This view was echoed by Ko Sein, another jade hunter-turned-revolutionary.
“I couldn’t just keep hunting for jade while they gunned down innocent civilians. I knew that if I didn’t do something, it was just a matter of time before I met the same end. So I gave up my job and decided to take part in the battle to end the dictatorship. I can resume my work after that,” he said.
In the first six months after the coup, there were a total of 227 clashes in Kachin State between regime forces and newly formed resistance groups, according to the Kachin Political Interim Coordination Team, a group that monitors the conflict.
Ko Htet, Poe Sone Kyu, and Ko Sein (who all used aliases for this story) say they have each engaged in at least one battle. They also say they are prepared to fight many more. They will keep fighting, they said, even if it costs them their lives.
“Protests could only get us so far. They aren’t going to give up easily, so we had to choose a more efficient path,” said Ko Sein.
