The third type involves military units' developing sites to generate private in- come for their own battalions. They simply plant a flag in the area, which indi- cates that no one else is permitted to mine there, and soldiers are later posted to the site and fences erected to prevent anyone from approaching. Existing trench mines and small open areas, often seasonally cultivated as gardens, are frequent targets of military-owned backhoes and bulldozers. More enterprising units have forcibly evicted entire villages. In two affected villages, the in habitants were not only denied compensation but were also forced to pay for their transportation to a new location. The military units additionally rehsed to allow the villagers to disassemble their wooden homes or to harvest food from their gardens and fruit trees before moving. They were, however, allowed to work for the state-owned company that gained the mining rights to the area as day laborers (keeping 25 percent of the value of the gems they mined), or as salaried workers paid by the month.
All of these conflicts are common in Shwegyin as well, but with one additional complication. Karen horticulturalists whose cus,tomary land-tenure practices are not recognized by the state still inhabit most of the land around Shwegyin. But Tatmadaw battalions, rather than seizing the land outright, instead force its own- ers to "buy" their existing property or risk forfeiting it without compensation. As one displaced Karen villager explains, "In March 2003, the military came and took all the land around [the village]. They posted signposts and told the villagers that they had to buy the land if they wanted to grow anything on it or look for groundnuts. If you didn't buy your own land, you lost it. Other outside people bought the deeds and took over the villagers' land."
Those independent miners that remain pursue different strategies to preserve their livelihoods. In Mogok, independent miners often form small mining co- operatives, ones typically organized along ethnic lines. These groups practice what might be termed "guerrilla mining." That is, they use their tactical advantage- size, mobility, and flexibility-to locate sites in remote areas on the fringes of, or outside, concessions to avoid regular patrols looking for illicit mining opera- tions. Should a site prove to be productive, these miners seek to rapidly extract as many gems as possible and then quicldy sell their permit to another group before military intelligence, Tatmadaw units, or a cease-fire group seizes it along with their equipment and supplies. Additional bribes are often needed to avoid jail time. People caught mining in restricted areas claimed by military units face a mandatory three-year prison sentence. Some of these people later opt to become "prisoner-porters,)) who carry supplies for Tatmadaw units into front-line combat areas in exchange for a reduction in their sentence-a decision that underscores the severe conditions inside Burmese prisons.
For miners with little or no capital, there are two other options. The first is to become a laborer for outside mining interests. Given the high cost of living, high rents, and the low return on one's labor, this option is not attractive. Addi- tionally, working conditions have significantly declined with the introduction of hydraulic mining and the area's militarization. Miners regularly risk drown- ing from flash floods and landslides during the rainy season, while workers who sort gems after they are removed from the pits do so under the tropical sun since much of the surrounding area is deforested. Workers also report that work breaks are rare and that they regularly face verbal harassment and physi- cal abuse from the soldiers who provide on-site security for the companies. Theft, nonetheless, remains widespread and companies have resorted to body searches at different stages of the mining process to reduce losses. The second option is to leave Mogok and seek employment elsewhere, which is what a significant number of people have chosen to do since1997. When asked why he left, a Shan miner, mixing traditional proverbs, explained: "We stay under the mango tree, but aren't allowed to eat mangoes. The people may own the land in Mogok, but we don't get any benefits. It's like the deer that has many fawns, but the tiger will always get them. Here, the tiger is the military. Mogok people don't want to stay anymore.. Now, the only rich people in Mogok are not from Mogok