The hydropower project in Mali River’s waterfall has begun to take its toll on the populace. Eight Kachin villages in Puta-O district in Kachin State, northern Burma are being forced to relocate by the Burmese military junta, said hapless victims near the project site. They have to fend for themselves.

The project is coming up at the Ding Htan Waterfall, or Ding Htan Rum in Kachin, 10 miles south of Machyangbaw town on the river bank of Mali River, near Lungsha Yang village. It is being implemented by Burma’s Asia World Company (AWC), said local villagers.

Since April, five villages east of the river in the project site--- Hpawang Daru, Dingma Ga, N’Hka Ga, N’Hti Ga and Htinggai Yang and three villages west of the river --- Hpagan Yang, N’Loi Yang and N’Hkrang Ga were forcibly  shifted by the Burmese Army’s Infantry Battalion No. 138 based in Munglangshidi, villagers told the Kachin News Group.

In an arrogant display of lack of concern, the regime has not bothered to provide alternative places for relocation or compensation to villagers. Villagers have to construct houses on their own, they said.

Each village identified for relocation boasts about 60 households and they are being pressurized to shift from the hydropower project site since early this year, added villagers.

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The Asia World Company is owned by Burma’s notorious drug lord Lo Hsing Han. The company signed an agreement with the Chinese state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) in 2006 to construct seven hydropower projects in Mali River (Mali Hka in Kachin) and N’Mai River (N’Mai Hka in Kachin) in Kachin State - offshoots of the country’s longest river the Irrawaddy.

The electricity to be generated from the projects is to be sold to neighbouring China’s Yunnan province, for its upcoming industries.

Even as pressure mounts for relocation, the junta is making rampant arrests and torturing people in Kachin villages near the Irrawaddy Myitsone hydropower project site in the wake of the serial bombs blasts in the site on April 17, which killed four and injured 12 Chinese workers, said local villagers.

Villagers and anti-dam activists believe that the junta is behind the bomb explosions to help it to enforce relocation of local people by way of scaring them through arrests and torture in the wake of the blasts