On March 12, residents of the Aung Myin Thar relocation camp overwhelmingly voted in a secret ballot referendum to oppose to the dam. The voters were given a ballot on which they could indicate their approval or disapproval of the dam project.

According to the Kachin community group Mungchying Rawt Jat (MRJ), who helped organize the referendum, among the 1,160 adults who voted 1,086 disapproved of the project, while 43 people voted in favor of the dam. An additional 33 ballots were declared invalid.

The 152-meter high dam, which was being built on the upper Irrawaddy River in Kachin State, was suspended in September 2011 by a decree from President Thien Sein. Ever since its suspension, however, the developers of the project—China Power Investment (CPI) and its Burmese subsidiary—have put pressure on the Burmese government to allow the dam project to go forward.

Activists say that the referendum is strong proof that local residents do not want the dam project to continue. “We protested many times against the building of the Myitsone Dam. Now, again, we local people have clearly shown…that 93% of us oppose the dam,” said Daw Ja Hkawn from the MRJ community group.

CPI has repeatedly claimed that local residents actually want the dam to be built, but this claim is strongly disputed by displaced villagers who were forced to move to the so-called “model village” of Aung Myin Thar, which was constructed by CPI and its Burmese partner, Asia World.