Brig-Gen Lun Thi, Minister for Energy of the Burmese military junta visited the proposed hydropower project site at the Irrawaddy River Confluence in Kachin State in Northern Burma on September 20, said local sources.

Brig-Gen Lun Thi, accompanied by Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, Minister of Post, Communication and Telegraph, Brig-Gen Tin Naing Thein, Minister of Commerce and Maj-Gen Soe Win, commander of the Northern Regional Command based in Kachin State's capital Myitkyina, also met residents on the project site, who were summoned to attend a meeting by the local military authorities, said residents.

A worker house for China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) is being constructed near the Confluence hydropower project site

A worker house for China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) is being constructed near the Confluence hydropower project site
During the meeting held in Tang Hpre village at the Confluence, 27 miles north of Myitkyina from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, also the junta's chief organizer of Kachin State and commander Soe Win told locals that compensation will be paid in a home delivery system to each house in the zones to be affected by floods caused by the dam, according to participants.

Church leaders of different denominations in Tang Hpre were invited to attend the meeting but some refused because it was a Sunday, a local Baptist pastor told KNG today.

In the evening following the Burmese ministers' visit to the Confluence hydropower project site, the Kachin Baptist Church and Roman Catholic Church in Tang Hpre were gifted three sacks of rice and a tin of cooking oil (ground nut) each by the local military authorities, said sources.

Currently, the project contractor Burma-Asia World Company (AWC) is claiming that it will pay compensation to the residents. However it will have to displace the residents, who have refused to move to other places without taking the company's compensation, according to residents on the project site.

The construction of the Confluence hydropower plant is a joint-project of the AWC and the Chinese government-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI). Inspection started since 2006.  The project will generate electricity estimated at 3,600 MW.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar on June 21 reported that Burmese Ambassador to China U Thein Lwin and CPI president Mr. Lu Qizhou officially signed an agreement to implement hydropower projects in Mali Hka River, N'Mai Hka River and the Irrawaddy River Confluence in Kachin State in the Chinese capital Beijing on June 16.

The country's famous Irrawaddy River Confluence, also called Mali-N'Mai Zup in Kachin and Myitsone in Burmese, is formed by the joining of two rivers--- Mali Hka and N'Mai Hka.  It is also one of the major tourist attractions in the country given its natural beauty.

Native Kachins have opposed the construction of the hydropower plant at the Confluence because they see it is as their invaluable nature-given-heritage and an important pillar in the history of Kachin civilization in Northern Burma.

On August 17, Zahkung Ting Ying, supreme leader of Pangwa-based New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) in an unusual gesture met villagers of Tang Hpre and promised that he will talk to the companies for giving regular compensation to residents, in the zones to be affected by floods, from regular sale of electricity from the project.

Rev. Dr. Lahtaw Saboi Jum, former general secretary of the Kachin Baptist Church (KBC) and current director of the NGO Shalom Foundation (also called Nyein Foundation) said that the Myitsone hydropower project should be implemented if it benefits civilians, according to KBC pastors.

The Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the largest Kachin ceasefire armed group has requested the contractors to stop the hydropower project on the Irrawaddy River's Confluence, according to KIO high ranking officers.

During the last week of August when civil war was about to be resumed between the junta and the KIO after Burmese troops captured the Kokang ceasefire group's capital Laogai in Northeast Shan State on August 24, most Chinese CPI engineers, workers and inspectors in the Myitsone hydropower project site fled to their homes in China, said local eyewitnesses.

Now some Chinese workers have come back to the project site after military tension between the KIO and the Burmese military have eased since early this month, added local eyewitnesses.