Ethnic Kachins, in Burma’s Northern Kachin State are anxious that the Chinese Prime Minister’s Wen Jiabao’s visit to the military-ruled country would provide a fillip to the Myitsone dam project, said sources among the Kachin community.
The Chinese Premier arrived in Burma yesterday on a two-day visit. He is the first Chinese PM to visit Burma since 1994 and met junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe. They discussed elections later this year and energy issues.
Kachin villagers in the dam site and local anti-dam activists are extremely worried that the regime will step up forced relocation of villagers and expedite the dam construction after the Chinese PM leaves, said sources among anti-dam activists.
Currently, China’s state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) has stepped up work on the huge dams at the river confluence called Mali-N’Mai Zup in local Kachin or also called Myitsone in Burmese in Irrawaddy River, 27 miles north of Kachin’s capital Myitkyina.
The Myitsone dam is one of nine projects in Kachin State--- CPI is implementing seven projects in Mali Hka River, N’Mai Hka River and the Myitsone on the Irrawaddy River; and two projects in Ta Hkaw Hka, also called Dapein River in Bhamo district by the China Datang Corporation (CDT).
On May 28, five days before Wen arrived in Burma, a Kachin village Mazup Mare housing over 100 people in the Myitsone dam site was forcibly relocated by the junta. Three more villages--- Hkang Bu, Dawng Pan and Lahpre are also in the process of forced relocation, said local villagers.
The Myitsone dam construction is underway despite strong opposition by the Kachin people, because it will damage the natural beauty and famous tourist spot of the Confluence, which has historical links with the Kachin civilization. If the dam collapses due to an earthquake, millions of people downstream will face devastating floods.
The villagers in the dam site complained that they were having to put up with more and more harsh treatment and were being intimidated to force them to relocate on their own by the junta authorities in the wake of the mysterious serial bomb blasts in the construction site on April 17, which killed four Chinese CPI workers and injured a dozen.
Following the bomb blasts, villagers in the dam site and members of the Education and Economy Development for Youth (EEDY), the youth-wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), which has steadfastly refused to accept the junta-proposed Border Guard Force, are mainly being targeted by the junta. There have been rampant arrests and interrogation by police and military intelligence.
Now, over 60 KIO youth have been detained in No. 1 Police Station in Myitkyina after they were tortured and interrogated in the Myitkyina-based Northern Command by the military intelligence, said the KIO sources.
Meanwhile, the CPI is also constructing dams in two other places--- Chipwi in N’Mai Hka River in Waingmaw Township and Dinghpang Rum, or Dinghpang Waterfall in Mali Hka River in Puta-O district whereas CDT is constructing two dams in Dapein River in Bhamo district, near border with China’s southwest Yunnan province.
Since early April, eight Kachin villages around the Dinghpang Rum dam site have been forcibly relocated by the local Burmese military units, according to local villagers.
