Burma’s ruling junta is constructing new houses for residents who will be expelled from the Myitsone dam project site on the Irrawaddy River, in Burma’s northern Kachin State, at the same time local residents are celebrating Christmas, the local sources told the Kachin News Group.
This full-scaled construction of houses for relocated civilians started soon after the inaugural ceremony on the dam construction was celebrated on Dec. 21, said ethnic Kachin residents at the dam project site.
The new houses for local ethnic Kachin residents, who will be forcibly removed from the flood zones of the dam, are being constructed at two new relocation sites on the east and west sides of the dam project, located over 18 miles north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, according to local residents.
On the west of the dam site, the two-storey uniformed-houses are being constructed on a newly ploughed space near Chyinghkrang village, 18 miles north of Myitkyina. Each house is being constructed on 60 x 80 sq-ft plots, said local eyewitnesses.A local dam project watchdog’s source said the junta has planned to relocate over a hundred households in Tang Hpre, the small Kachin village at the confluence (Myitsone in Burmese) of Irrawaddy River, or Mali Hka in Kachin State, 27 miles north of Myitkyina.
In two locations, houses for 500 households will be constructed under a contract between the junta and the Burma-based, Asia World Company, said local sources close to the company.
The company has set the construction cost per house at 6.5 million Kyat (est. US$6,770). However, sources close to the company have told the Kachin News Group it has offered sub-contractors only around 3 million Kyat (est. US$3,125) per house.
According to local people, the houses will be constructed of wood, with zinc roofs. However, the residents in the predicted flood zone of the dam have not been officially informed by the military authorities, said residents of the dam site.
A Baptist preacher, La Tawng, in Tang Hpre, told KNG early this week, all the villagers have decided that they will not relocate from their historic village, despite pressure to do so by the junta.
Sources say, the junta’s Snr-Gen Than Shwe, granted gold mining permits in the predicted flood zones of the Myitsone dam, early last month, to two ethnic Kachin armed groups based in Kachin State, which have been disarmed by the junta. They are the New Democratic Army-Kachin and Lasang Awng Wa Peace Group.
In response to the issuing of the mining permits to the two former Kachin armed groups, Tsa Ji, General Secretary of the Thailand-based Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG), which issues reports on the dam project said, “The Burmese junta’s tactic is to use Kachins to expel Kachins in the Myitsone dam site. Before this, Kachin residents in the dam site would be expelled at gun-point by Burmese soldiers”.
He added, Kachin residents in the dam sites are crying out for help, because the junta is stepping up the implementation of its plans for the dam project, against the objections of local and all Kachins.
The Myitsone hydropower project is being implemented by China’s state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) and the Asia World Company.
It is one of seven projects on the Mali Hka River, N’Mai Hka River and the Myitsone River in Irrawaddy, Kachin State. It is intended to generate up to 6,000 MW of electricity, said the two companies’ sources.
The energy from the project will be transported to China’s southwest Yunnan province, on the border with Kachin State, where electricity will be badly needed for the intended industrialization of the area.
