China has been urged by a Kachin watchdog group to put a halt to the dam project in Burma's natural heritage and historic site of ethnic Kachins through a report published today.
The report "Resisting the flood" on the implementation of the Myitsone (confluence) dam project on the Irrawaddy River was published by the Thailand-based Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG). It demanded that the Chinese government's China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), the main investor and contractor stop the project.
The dam project will create undesirable impacts like social, environmental, livelihood, cultural and security problems for tens of thousands of people around the dam site and hundreds of thousands of people downstream of the dam.
The report stated that over 15,000 people in over 60 villages around the dam sites are being forcibly relocated without proper resettlement plans being drawn up by the Burmese military regime. They people will lose their means of livelihood such as farming, fishing and collection of non-timber forest products.
Besides, over 150,000 people in Kachin's capital Myitkyina, 27 miles downstream of the dam, will have to live under the constant threat of floods from the dam if there is an earthquake. The dam is less than 100 kilometers from a major fault line in an earthquake-prone area, warned the KDNG report.
In terms of environment, the blocking of the confluence will prevent seasonal migration of fish, impacting the number and diversity of fishes, and the habitat of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin.
The report said some 15,000 people will be forcibly relocated in October for the dam and its flood zones.
Currently, the military authorities are clearing land with power shovels between Chyinghkrang and Lungga Zup village, about 10 miles south of the dam site for its resettlement plan.
The dam is being constructed by CPI jointly with the Burma-Asia World Company and the Burmese military government’s State Peace and Development Council. The ground inspection started in 2006 but the Memorandum of Understanding for constructing the dam for the hydropower plant was signed between the CPI president Mr. Lu Qizhou and Burma's ambassador to China U Thein Lwin in Beijing on June 21.
The project is estimated to generate a total of 3,600 MW of electricity.
The Irrawaddy River, Burma's longest river is born after joining the two rivers--- Mali Hka and N'Mai Hka at the Tanghpre, 27 miles north of Kachin's capital Myitkyina.
On behalf of all Kachins, the Myitkyina-based Kachin Nationals Consultative Assembly (KNCA), however officially appealed to the junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe to stop the Myitsone hydropower project on May 21, 2007 because it is linked with the Kachin cavitations, identity and the invaluable natural- heritage of the country.
Ah Nan, who headed the publishing of the report, told KNG today, "Chinese and Burmese governments will be oppressing ethnic Kachin people if they do not stop implementing the Myitsone dam".
At the same time, hundreds of followers in both Baptist and Roman Catholic Churches in Tanghpre village on the confluence and all Kachin people in Burma are praying to Almighty God to stop the Myitsone dam project, according Kachin church leaders.
