A local arrested in connection with the serial bomb blasts in the Irrawaddy Myitsone dam project site in northern Burma, which killed four Chinese workers and injured 12, was released yesterday by Burmese junta authorities, said sources.
Marip La Ram, a Kachin villager of Tang Hpre at the Irrawaddy River’s confluence (Myitsone in Burmese), 27 miles north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, was freed yesterday at about 9 a.m. local time. He was detained for more than a couple of weeks, said relatives of La Ram.
La Ram is the chief organizer of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in his village. He was picked up and detained at the office of Burma’s Asia World Company, constructing the dam, said villagers.
Sources close to La Ram said, he was interrogated and tortured by Burmese security agents during detention for over a couple of weeks in the company’s office.
According to Tang Hpre’s villagers, the security agents for the dam project are now detaining at least three villagers in the company’s office. The military authorities are making rampant arrests and releasing villagers, added the villagers.
Burmese troops from Infantry Battalion No. 29, based Pah-Lah-Nah village, 10 miles south of Tang Hpre are deployed in the village and dam project site, said locals.
There are over 300 villagers from over 100 families in Tang Hpre, the village near the Irrawaddy River’s confluence. They are stopped from going to the dam project site after the serial bomb blasts in the dam site on April 17, a villager said.
Awng Wa, Chairman of the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG), the peaceful anti-Irrawaddy dam and Kachin dam watchdog group told KNG today, “To implement the Myitsone dam project, the junta is trying to relocate villagers of Tang Hpre using brutal means like rampant arrest and interrogation of villagers”.
Since the bomb blasts, Tang Hpre’s villagers are under severe pressure by the Burmese military authorities. They are restricted from going out of the village and use telephones. The entire village seems to be under house-arrest, said Awng Wa.
There are no sellers outlets any more at the Myitsone (confluence), one of the most popular tourist spots in the country because local and foreign visitors to the confluence are being restricted by three military checkpoints, said villagers of Tang Hpre.
A suspect in the bomb blast, Marip Tu Ring, a member of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) was arrested from his home in Myitkyina on May 1 and put in prison cell in No. 1 Police Station.
On the day of Tu Ring’s arrest, Maj-Gen Soe Win, the junta’s Kachin State commander released Red Posters in Myitkyina announcing rewards to those providing exact information on the perpetrators of the blasts.
The hydropower project on the Myitsone in Irrawaddy River in Kachin State will be generating 6,000 MW of electricity and is being jointly implemented by Asia World Company, the Ministry of Electric Power-1 of the junta, and the Chinese state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI).
