Inside Occupied Myanmar with Clare Hammond

In this episode of The Intelligence Spotlight, we sat down with Clare Hammond, investigative journalist at Global Witness and author of On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar. Known for her deep, incisive work on natural resource exploitation, corporate accountability, and hidden histories, Clare brings a distinctive voice to the global landscape of investigative journalism.

Her journey into journalism, however, wasn’t conventional. Raised in a household that celebrated stories of life abroad—her parents having worked in Zambia—Clare grew up with a sense that travel could be more than leisure. “It wasn’t just about holidays,” she recalls. “You could go to places to work and learn.” That early exposure, combined with a later awakening to Britain’s colonial history while studying in Dublin, set the groundwork for a career focused on empire, extractivism, and the environments they devastate.

A formative trip through the Middle East in 2010, guided by a worn copy of William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain, introduced her to narrative non-fiction. But instead of taking the usual route into journalism, Clare was drawn to travel writing, eventually finding her footing in Hong Kong, where she began reporting—and later, found herself immersed in Myanmar.

“I didn’t initially see it as a conflict zone,” she said of Myanmar. She arrived in 2013, at a moment when the country seemed poised for change. Aung San Suu Kyi had just been released from house arrest. Political reforms were under way. But what began as excitement soon shifted into long-term commitment, as she spent years reporting on the Rohingya genocide, environmental degradation, and the fragile democratic transition.

Her recent investigation at Global Witness exposed how rare earth mineral mining in Myanmar’s Kachin State is fuelling the military junta. Rare earths are crucial for electric vehicles and wind turbines, yet their extraction in Myanmar—through a destructive process called in-situ leaching—has devastated local ecosystems and empowered militia groups aligned with the military.

“We found pools of blue, chemical-soaked water appearing all across the mountains,” she explained. Using satellite imagery and social media analysis, Clare and her team mapped the expansion of these sites. With the help of Facebook, still widely used in Myanmar, they located videos showing mining in action, often posted by workers themselves. Through company databases, name-matching, and trade data scraping, they tracked how Chinese investment quietly backed much of the operation—while front companies allowed military-linked actors to profit from environmental ruin.

Satellite OSINT proved central. “We couldn’t go there—it’s too dangerous,” she said. But high-resolution imagery and metadata told a story no regime could fully conceal.

Her book, On the Shadow Tracks, arose from a different but equally powerful investigation. It began with a railway map. Built secretly by Myanmar’s military in the 1990s and 2000s, these tracks cut through regions where forced labour was used and colonial legacies were still keenly felt. “I had no idea what I would find,” she said. The result is a travelogue that uncovers the echoes between British colonial occupation and the modern junta’s brutal infrastructure expansion.

Clare’s advice to young journalists and OSINT investigators is rooted in humility. “You’re never the first to tell a story,” she says. “Local journalists, activists, and civil society groups have been navigating these stories long before you arrived. Collaborate.”

When asked about her go-to tool, she didn’t hesitate. “The Wayback Machine. It’s invaluable. Companies say things online and then erase them. Old snapshots can reveal everything from contacts to original business goals.”

As the world races toward a green transition, stories like Clare’s remind us to ask hard questions about what powers that transition—and who pays the price. Through OSINT, fieldwork, and fearless storytelling, her work helps ensure that Myanmar’s struggle for justice is not forgotten.