Burma Shelves Controversial Dam Project

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BURMA

Burma shelves controversial dam project

Naypyitaw - Burma said Friday it will stop construction on a controversial hydroelectric dam in the north of the country, in a move expected to ease tensions with ethnic minorities.

"I have just received a letter from President Thein Sein," Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann told parliament. "Briefly, he has decided to stop the hydroelectric dam project in Mitzone, in keeping with the wishes of the people."

The 6,000-megawatt plant was to be built in the Kachin State, at the start of the Irrawaddy River, which flows the length of the country to the rice-growing delta region.

The dam was opposed by the Kachin people, conservationists, farmers who depend on the Irrawaddy for irrigation and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi last week said a decision to shelve the project would encourage unity in the country.

"If we can pursue with unity one issue that we all believe in, there will be more unity on other issues," she said at a function.

Members of the Lower House greeted the decision with applause.

"This is not just about unity. This is getting us closer to peace and national reconciliation," said Doibu N’Brang, a parliamentarian for the Unity and Democracy Party.

N’Brang’s constituency is in the Mitzone region in Kachin. The Kachin are one of a dozen ethnic minorities who have been fighting for autonomy for more than five decades.

She said that the project had not yet created much environmental damage. The dam project was to be built by China Power Investment Yunnan International, which signed the construction deal with the former ruling Myanmar junta in December 2006.

The junta went into retirement after the general election in November, which brought to power the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Some 90 per cent of the electricity would have been exported to China, 10,000 to 20,000 people would have been displaced and 10,000 Chinese labourers would have been employed on the project, which would have had an inevitable impact on the Irrawaddy.

The project has been hotly debated at Myanmar’s first session of parliament and has been front-page news in the country, where the state-controlled press is usually heavily censored.

"The people have spoken and the members of parliament have listened to them, and so has our president," said Ko Gyi, Union Solidarity and Development Party elected representative for Mandalay.

Last month, President Thein Sein met with Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw in their first-ever talks. Suu Kyi was released from seven years of house arrest on November 13.

-- The Nation 2011-09-30