Local residents submitted the letter of objection to the Pyithu Hluttaw and the Amyotha Hluttaw in Naypyidaw on August 23 to halt the dam project, which will be built in Kyaukme Township in the northern Shan State.

“We submitted the letter to the Amyotha Hluttaw, Pyithu Hluttaw, and 30 departments today. It was submitted together with the signatures of local residents from Eastern Tar Long Village and Western Tar Long Village. We have been demanding the halting of this project since 2014,” said Nan Lao Kham from Tar Long Village.

“We have submitted to the State Hluttaw MPs, the state government, and respective departments several times, but there haven’t been any effects. Now, we have made the demands to Naypyidaw,” she continued as she talked about making demands to the state authorities in the past.

The local residents submitted the letter to the parliaments after 11 MPs visited this project in Tar Long Village, Hsipaw Township on August 11.

The Upper Yeywa dam project, which is under construction in Kyaukme Township, is located between Eastern Tar Long Village under Hsipaw Township and Western Tar Long Village under Kyaukme Township.

“This dam is still under construction in Kyaukme. Our two villages will be affected directly at the moment. We are going to lose our homes, plantations, farmlands, and orchards. If something happens to this dam, not only nearby villages but also Hsipaw may become flooded. That’s why we are calling on the suspension of all dam projects on this Namtu River,” Nan Lao Kham said.

The letter from the local residents describes lack of transparency since the implementation of the dam project and failure to consult with local residents before the construction of the dam started in 2008. It also stated that the local residents have opposed strongly as they were only informed in 2014 about resettlement.

Since then, the residents of Tar Long Village have been opposing the dam and they have repeatedly submitted appeals to the State Hluttaw MPs and the Amyotha Hluttaw under the previous U Thein Sein administration and the existing National League for Democracy (NLD) government, but their appeals have been ignored, the local residents claimed.

The Action for Shan State Rivers (ASSR) also released a statement yesterday to support the local residents for submitting the petition on halting the dam projects on the Namtu River, also known as Myit Nge River or Dokhtawaddy River, to the Pyithu Hluttaw and the Amyotha Hluttaw in Naypyidaw on August 23.

“Action for Shan State Rivers fully supports the Ta Long villagers’ demands for the halt of the Upper Yeywa dam project, which would destroy their ancestral homes, farmlands and renowned orange orchards,” the ASSR said in its statement.

The ASSR’s spokesperson Sai Khur Hseng said the Upper Yeywa dam will be built by the same company that built the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Dam, which collapsed in Laos on July 23.

“The demands from the local residents and demands for halting the dam have been collected to oppose the dam. Also, by taking the incident in Laos as example….the same company which built [the dam] in Laos is building the dam in Namtu. That’s why we aim to halt all dams on the Namtu [River] together with the concerns of the local residents,” he said.

The ASSR has been working on halting the dam projects in accordance with the desire of the local residents who are living along the Namtu River, obtaining compensations for the losses suffered by the local residents who had to resettle due to the project, and meeting with local residents living along the Namtu River from the northern Shan State to the Mandalay Region to collect surveys and raise public awareness on the negative effects of the dam projects.

The Upper Yeywa dam project is designed by the Swedish firm AF Consul, which designed the dam in Laos, so local residents are worried over possible dam collapse like the dam in Laos.

The Upper Yeywa dam is the most advanced of four planned dam projects on the Namtu River. The Upper Yeywa dam is situated in Kyaukme Township, northern Shan State, and involves companies from China, Switzerland, Germany, and Japan.