China should halt Myitsone Dam Project in Burma

March 4, 2011

Ethnic Kachin people in Kachin State, northern Burma and their fellows in Thailand, Japan, US and UK in early February held a world-wide prayer service seeking to halt the unwanted Myitsone Dam being built in their hometown by the governments of Burma and China. Back in their homeland, particularly Tang Hpre Village which locates at the construction site of the Myitsone Dam, over a hundred participants from Baptist, Roman Catholic and other Christian denominations joined in the February 9th prayer in the hope of escape from forced relocation and halting the dam project, a local media Kachin News Group has reported.

The dam that the people in northern Burma are opposing is the largest among seven dams currently implemented on the Irrawaddy River by the Burmese military regime’s Burma’s Ministry of Electric Power No 1 and China state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI). The dam is reported to be 152 m (about 500 foot) in both height and width, locates about 3.2 km below the confluence of the Mali Hka River and N’Mai Hka River and about 42 km north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. It is estimated that Myitsone Dam would produce 3,600 megawatts of electricity by 2017 for China’s Yunnan province. Research by environmentalists suggested that the dam will inundate 300 square miles, flooding 47 villages and displacing more than 10,000 native people including their historical heritages sites and farm lands.

One may wonder why these people in northern Burma conducted such unrealistic or superstitious prayer to seek halt the unwanted dam in their hometown, instead of holding a public demonstration to expression their opposition views to the regime and China. The fact is that freedom of speech; the rights to protest are forbidden and punishable if conducted in Burma (Myanmar), the military-ruled Southeast Asian. Yet here people still come up with different forms of expressing their views which is to hold a prayer service quietly and tell the media that they are doing this because they don’t want such plan of the government.

According to news reports, these native people learnt about this huge hydropower dam to be built right at their village only after when they witnessed several groups of Chinese engineers began to drill their surrounding lands with huge machines and the government deployed a army battalion for security in early 2007. The Burmese regime and China state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) including several contractors signed agreement for the construction of these dams several years ago, without revealing any information about the plans to native people in the affected areas. “Villagers even find difficult to figure out what is going on their surroundings. Many people simply thought it was another kind of mining,” a pastor in Myitkyina told the author on online interview. From media reports and my direct observation with people in the affected areas, there has been no transparency, no consideration of human rights, respect for stakeholders interest, and respect of international norms of business behaviors by the Burmese regime, Chinese government and their contractors with regard to these dams. According to ISO 26000’s Principle No.2, “an organization should be transparent in its decisions and activities that impact on society and the environment.” Business enterprises are expected to disclose information of the purpose, nature and location of their activities, their impact on society and the environment, and the relationships with their stakeholders. However none of these principles have been taken into consideration by the Burmese government and Chinese companies.

Worse, the Burmese and Chinese governments not even bother to respond when the local community leaders and human rights organizations sent letters in May 2007 asking Chinese companies operating in Burma to conduct environmental and social impact assessments, publicly release information, and include affected communities in the decision-making process.

In early February three bombs exploded in the Myitsone dam construction site leaving 4 Chinese workers dead and 12 other injured, it is reported. The explosions also caused severe damage to a construction company’s two-storey office and several company-owned trucks and bulldozers. Burmese authorities arrested several suspects of youths and community leaders. Authorities released some of the arrested youths, nevertheless warned that all youth and communities leaders in Tang Hpre Village would be held responsible if there is such accident in the future, without giving any solution to the community’s concern. After such warning, the government’s Burmese prime contractor Asia World Company together with the military authorities began forcing villagers to a designed area. According to Naw La of the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG) which published a report “Damming the Irrawaddy” in October 2007, Tang Hpre villagers are set deadline to move from their homes by the end of this month which had prompted them to hold prayer service since they have no other option.

Giving the fact of Burma’s poor human rights record and ongoing internal civil war conflict, Human rights and environmentalist activists warned China that it should not engage in such huge and controversial project. They also claimed that citizens will not benefit from the hydropower project since the military will only use income generating from the project to future grip on the country’s political power. From the side of Chinese government and companies, one may reason they have business interest because of profit and power hungry demand of China’s growing industries. However as a growing super power I realized that China’s involvement in the Myitsone Dam can undermine its reputation because the project involved extreme environmental consequence and human rights violation. It can be also costly because the dam construction site is right in the middle areas of political conflict between Burmese regime and the Kachin Independence Army which is one of Burma’s largest ethnic armed forced and which controls much areas of Kachin State. The KIA had officially stated to the Burmese regime that it did not want Myitsone Dam to be built because of huge social and environmental impact, and demanded to halt this plan. This also clearly signaled to Chinese government and companies involved in the project that such controversial plan could nowhere be completed amid such vulnerable arm conflict while majority of population in Kachin State oppose the Myitsone Dam likewise.

Other dam projects may be optional, but due to above mentioned reasons, China and Burmese regime should really consider if they are to precede the Myitsone Dam. The best solution is to halt this plan.