Kachin News Group

The inaugural ceremony for construction of dams on the Irrawaddy River confluence in Burma’s northern Kachin State will be held on December 28 by the junta, said local sources.

The ceremony will be held at the dam project site at the confluence (or Myitsone in Burmese) of Mali Hka River and N’Mai Hka River, 27 miles north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, said people in the dam project site.

A large hall is speedily under construction on land between two Kachin villages in the dam project site--- Lungga Zup and Tang Hpre. The inaugural ceremony will be held there, said local villagers.

Eight representatives from each quarter in Myitkyina Township have been invited to the ceremony by the junta’s Myitkyina Township Administration Office the Myitkyina Township Peace and Development Council (Ma-Ya-Ka) this week, said sources close to officials.

In Tatkone also called Dapkawng quarter, the hand-written invitations dated today were distributed this morning to senior members of the junta-sponsored Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), said sources.

Full scale gold mining commenced in the predicted flood zones of the dam by at least seven companies early this month. The move is to dig out the gold from the flood zones before dam construction starts, said local residents.

About 2000 Chinese workers were secretly transported to the dam project site and housed in the labour camp in the forest to keep them away from the public eye, said native Kachins in villages around the confluence.

During the junta No. 2 Vice-Senior General Maung Aye’s state visit to China last June, Burma and state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) signed an agreement to implement hydropower projects in Kachin State including the hydropower project at the Irrawaddy confluence.

Since the latest agreement, native Kachins around the dam project site have been increasingly persuaded and pressurized to relocate by the military authorities, said sources.

Earlier, the CPI and Burma-Asia World Company carried out a series of inspection activities at the Irrawaddy confluence since 2006.

The Irrawaddy Myitsone hydropower project is estimated to generate a total of 3,600 MW of electricity.

The Kachin Nationals Consultative Assembly based in Myitkyina, as a representative of native people in the dam project sites and on behalf of all Kachins, officially appealed to the junta supremo Senior General Than Shwe to halt the Myitsone dam project in May, 2007.