Karenni people oppose new Salween dam plans by SPDC and Chinese investors 21.08.

10 13:19

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Karenni people oppose new Salween dam plans by SPDC and Chinese SPDC with Chinese

investors investors likely to go

Thank you for vote! +6 +2 ahead dam on Salween

August 9, 2010 New China-backed

Kachin dam signed off
Joint Statement during
Statement by the Karenni Development Research Group (KDRG)
the visit of Chairman,
Karenni people oppose new Salween dam plans by SPDC and Chinese investors
State Peace and
Development Council
On the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the Karenni national resistance movement, the KDRG strongly denounces the of Myanmar
new plans by the Burmese military regime and Chinese investors to build a giant hydropower dam on the Salween River Myanmar and China
in Karenni State.
agree to develop

The SPDC regime and Datang (Yunnan) United Hydropower Developing Co. signed a memorandum of understanding Kachin hydropower
(MOU) on January 7, 2010 to build a 600 megawatt dam on the Salween River at Ywa Thit village. Since then two plant
surveys have been carried out at Kyauk Kyin near Ywa Thit, hundreds of workers from central Burma have been sent to
construct roads and construction materials have begun to be transported to the dam site.
TRANSLATE TO
There has been no transparency and no consultation with the local Karenni people about this project, which will
submerge large tracts of land along the Salween, the original homelands of thousands of Karenni refugees sheltering in
Thailand who have fled the regime's scorched earth campaigns in this area. Select Language

Under the same MOU the SPDC and Datang have also agreed to dam the Thabet and Pawn rivers in Karenni State to
produce 110 megawatts and 130 megawatts respectively. RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The Karenni people already have bitter experience of the damaging impacts of giant dams, since Burma's first major Protecting Rivers & Rights
hydropower project was built at Lawpita in Karenni State 50 years ago, forcibly relocating over 12,000 villagers. 95% of
the electricity produced from Lawpita has been exported to other parts of Burma, and 18,000 landmines laid around
the project for security remain a bane for local people.

These new dam plans are a further violation of the rights of the Karenni people, who have been suffering systematic
human rights abuses by the Burma Army for decades, including mass forced relocation, burning of villages, killing,
torture, and rape of innocent villagers. The lack of basic rights was what led the Karenni people to start their national
resistance movement 62 years ago, on August 9, 1948.

KDRG therefore strongly denounces these new dam plans, and urges the SPDC and Datang Company to immediately
suspend all their dam plans in Karenni State. To download:English
Salween WatchVol.2,No.1
For further details of the impacts of the Lawpita Hydropower Project, please see KDRG's 2006 report "Dammed by
Burma’s Generals” at www.burmariversnetwork.org

Contact:
Khu Thaw Reh
Phone: 08 9835 6128

To download: English | Burmese

To download: English
Resisting the Flood

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