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Thein Sein Enjoys Myitsone Praise as Dams on Salween Secretly Proceed
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Zomi for Federalization and Democratization of Bur
May 9, 2013, 9:53:49 AM5/9/13
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====
The Brutal Bamar Buddhist Fascist Mercenary Terrorist Rapist
(BBigBFMTR) USDP Government has been deceiving the whole Burma and the
whole world. While being successful in deceiving the world and
gaining the praise of world governments when the USDP cancelled the
Myitsone Dam, the USDP secretly has been authorizing the Salween Dams.
====
Thein Sein Enjoys Myitsone Praise as Dams on Salween Secretly Proceed
By WILLIAM BOOT / THE IRRAWADDY| Thursday, May 9, 2013 |
President Thein Sein’s surprise suspension of the Chinese-led
hydroelectric dam on the Irrawaddy River at Myitsone in northwestern
Burma secured him widespread praise at home and abroad and seemingly
dismayed China.
This was a project that would help solve power shortages in China’s
Yunnan Province by generating up to 6,000 megawatts of electricity to
pump north across the border.
But away from the mass media spotlight, environmentally questionable
large hydro dams further east in Burma on the Salween River are
quietly going ahead with the approval of the Thein Sein government.
Approval for a clutch of dams on the Salween which collectively will
generate much more electricity than the Myitsone project has been
given in the old-fashioned military regime way—without any public
consultation, independent environmental impact assessments, or regard
for the simmering military-ethnic conflicts in their midst.
Apart from a brief announcement earlier this year by the Ministry of
Electric Power, the Naypyidaw government has so far failed to identify
who will build the Salween dams, who will benefit from the electricity
generated and how the local communities will be compensated.
The ministry said approval had been given for six projects on the
Salween in Shan and Karen states.
==
Image:
6.-WB-090513-Business-e1368077337950.jpg
A map shows the location of the dam sites situated along the Salween
River in eastern Burma (Photo: Salween Watch)
==
A map shows the location of the dam sites situated along the Salween
River in eastern Burma (Photo: Salween Watch)
They include hydro dams at Tasang and Hatgyi which have been debated
for years and have had a number of Chinese and Thai backers, including
the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, or EGAT. They would
have a combined installed capacity of 15,000 megawatts, according to
the US-based environmental lobby group International Rivers.
That is about four times Burma’s present total electricity producing
capability.
“These projects are proceeding in areas where conflict is continuing
between ethnic resistance forces and the Burmese Army, and are
shrouded in secrecy,” says International Rivers. “Investment for these
projects will come from five Chinese and three Burmese corporations,
and Thailand’s Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.”
The Beijing-based environment lobby group China Dialogue has
identified three large Chinese state-owned companies it says now have
contracts from the Burmese government to proceed with dams
construction on the Salween.
They are Sinohydro Corporation, China Three Gorges Corporation and
China Southern Power Grid.
The Three Gorges Corp developed the world’s biggest hydroelectric
system on the Yangtze River in China which has caused considerable
environmental problems since its completion. China Southern is not a
dam builder but an electricity transmission infrastructure builder
responsible for all power supply in southern China.
“Tensions remain high around China’s role in developing dams in
Myanmar largely due to questions about who will benefit,” says China
Dialogue, which also has offices in London.
“In a country where energy shortages occur daily and about a third of
people live below the poverty line, many criticize the development of
natural resources for the sake of providing energy to neighboring
states.
“Local communities and internally displaced persons are concerned that
the dam plans will lead to increased militarization, human rights
abuses, environmental destruction and loss of local livelihoods,”
China Dialogue noted.
The risk of armed conflict around two of the Salween dam sites has
heightened recently with demands by the Burmese Army for local
militias to move away.
The army’s Southeast Command ordered Karen militia forces to leave an
area near the Hatgyi dam site they are occupying by May 4, but the
Karen have not complied.
This follows an earlier order by the Burmese Army to the Shan State
Army-North to vacate their base beside the Salween which they have
occupied under the terms of a ceasefire agreement.
Their base is near the sites of two planned dams. One is at Nong Pha
and one at Man Tung on the Nam Ma tributary of the Salween and they
will have a combined electricity generating capacity of 1,200
megawatts, according to the Burma Rivers Network NGO.
“To my knowledge, EGAT International is actively involved in the
Hatgyi dam, but has tried to keep itself more behind the scenes,”
International Rivers’ Thailand coordinator Pianporn Deetes told The
Irrawaddy on May 8.
“EGAT International and Sinohydro are taking advantage of the conflict
situation [along the Salween] to proceed with their investment. Most
local ethnic people have already been forced to flee to the border and
were not given a say in the decision to build the dams.
“Dams on the Salween including Hatgyi, Tasang, and others, have been
used as a weapon to control the conflict areas.”
The Bangkok government is anxious to reduce the country’s dependence
on natural gas to fuel electricity generation. Thailand’s own gas
resources in the Gulf of Thailand will decline after 2021 without new
discoveries and the Thais already import about 30 percent of their
needs from Burmese fields.
There is a virtual moratorium on new dam construction within Thailand
because of vocal public opposition and EGAT is already co-financing
development of a highly controversial hydro-dam directly on the Mekong
River inside Laos.
EGAT is the main financial backer of the US $3.7 billion Xayaburi dam
and Thailand will buy most of the electricity generated by the 1,260
megawatt capacity operation.
The Xayaburi project is going ahead despite objections by the
governments of Cambodia and Vietnam, which share the Mekong
downstream. They argue that the dam will disrupt river water flow and
levels and undermine agriculture and fisheries.
EGAT has for a long time eyed the lower Salween’s potential to provide
electricity to also help solve Thailand’s future power needs. It flows
parallel to the Thai border and electricity could easily be
transferred across it by power grid cable.
Meanwhile, at the upper end of the Salween in Burma, China could yet
get the electricity it needs for Yunnan Province—without the Myitsone
dam project.
====
One Response to Thein Sein Enjoys Myitsone Praise as Dams on Salween
Secretly Proceed
==
Richard Aung-Myint Thursday, May 9, 2013 - 5:40 am
I wonder if these kinds of double dealing is being made known to
the US, EU etc…, who are so optimistic about MM Reforms.
==
Reply
====
http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/34103
====
The Brutal Bamar Buddhist Fascist Mercenary Terrorist Rapist
(BBigBFMTR) USDP Government has been deceiving the whole Burma and the
whole world. While being successful in deceiving the world and
gaining the praise of world governments when the USDP cancelled the
Myitsone Dam, the USDP secretly has been authorizing the Salween Dams.
====
Thein Sein Enjoys Myitsone Praise as Dams on Salween Secretly Proceed
By WILLIAM BOOT / THE IRRAWADDY| Thursday, May 9, 2013 |
President Thein Sein’s surprise suspension of the Chinese-led
hydroelectric dam on the Irrawaddy River at Myitsone in northwestern
Burma secured him widespread praise at home and abroad and seemingly
dismayed China.
This was a project that would help solve power shortages in China’s
Yunnan Province by generating up to 6,000 megawatts of electricity to
pump north across the border.
But away from the mass media spotlight, environmentally questionable
large hydro dams further east in Burma on the Salween River are
quietly going ahead with the approval of the Thein Sein government.
Approval for a clutch of dams on the Salween which collectively will
generate much more electricity than the Myitsone project has been
given in the old-fashioned military regime way—without any public
consultation, independent environmental impact assessments, or regard
for the simmering military-ethnic conflicts in their midst.
Apart from a brief announcement earlier this year by the Ministry of
Electric Power, the Naypyidaw government has so far failed to identify
who will build the Salween dams, who will benefit from the electricity
generated and how the local communities will be compensated.
The ministry said approval had been given for six projects on the
Salween in Shan and Karen states.
==
Image:
6.-WB-090513-Business-e1368077337950.jpg
A map shows the location of the dam sites situated along the Salween
River in eastern Burma (Photo: Salween Watch)
==
A map shows the location of the dam sites situated along the Salween
River in eastern Burma (Photo: Salween Watch)
They include hydro dams at Tasang and Hatgyi which have been debated
for years and have had a number of Chinese and Thai backers, including
the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, or EGAT. They would
have a combined installed capacity of 15,000 megawatts, according to
the US-based environmental lobby group International Rivers.
That is about four times Burma’s present total electricity producing
capability.
“These projects are proceeding in areas where conflict is continuing
between ethnic resistance forces and the Burmese Army, and are
shrouded in secrecy,” says International Rivers. “Investment for these
projects will come from five Chinese and three Burmese corporations,
and Thailand’s Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.”
The Beijing-based environment lobby group China Dialogue has
identified three large Chinese state-owned companies it says now have
contracts from the Burmese government to proceed with dams
construction on the Salween.
They are Sinohydro Corporation, China Three Gorges Corporation and
China Southern Power Grid.
The Three Gorges Corp developed the world’s biggest hydroelectric
system on the Yangtze River in China which has caused considerable
environmental problems since its completion. China Southern is not a
dam builder but an electricity transmission infrastructure builder
responsible for all power supply in southern China.
“Tensions remain high around China’s role in developing dams in
Myanmar largely due to questions about who will benefit,” says China
Dialogue, which also has offices in London.
“In a country where energy shortages occur daily and about a third of
people live below the poverty line, many criticize the development of
natural resources for the sake of providing energy to neighboring
states.
“Local communities and internally displaced persons are concerned that
the dam plans will lead to increased militarization, human rights
abuses, environmental destruction and loss of local livelihoods,”
China Dialogue noted.
The risk of armed conflict around two of the Salween dam sites has
heightened recently with demands by the Burmese Army for local
militias to move away.
The army’s Southeast Command ordered Karen militia forces to leave an
area near the Hatgyi dam site they are occupying by May 4, but the
Karen have not complied.
This follows an earlier order by the Burmese Army to the Shan State
Army-North to vacate their base beside the Salween which they have
occupied under the terms of a ceasefire agreement.
Their base is near the sites of two planned dams. One is at Nong Pha
and one at Man Tung on the Nam Ma tributary of the Salween and they
will have a combined electricity generating capacity of 1,200
megawatts, according to the Burma Rivers Network NGO.
“To my knowledge, EGAT International is actively involved in the
Hatgyi dam, but has tried to keep itself more behind the scenes,”
International Rivers’ Thailand coordinator Pianporn Deetes told The
Irrawaddy on May 8.
“EGAT International and Sinohydro are taking advantage of the conflict
situation [along the Salween] to proceed with their investment. Most
local ethnic people have already been forced to flee to the border and
were not given a say in the decision to build the dams.
“Dams on the Salween including Hatgyi, Tasang, and others, have been
used as a weapon to control the conflict areas.”
The Bangkok government is anxious to reduce the country’s dependence
on natural gas to fuel electricity generation. Thailand’s own gas
resources in the Gulf of Thailand will decline after 2021 without new
discoveries and the Thais already import about 30 percent of their
needs from Burmese fields.
There is a virtual moratorium on new dam construction within Thailand
because of vocal public opposition and EGAT is already co-financing
development of a highly controversial hydro-dam directly on the Mekong
River inside Laos.
EGAT is the main financial backer of the US $3.7 billion Xayaburi dam
and Thailand will buy most of the electricity generated by the 1,260
megawatt capacity operation.
The Xayaburi project is going ahead despite objections by the
governments of Cambodia and Vietnam, which share the Mekong
downstream. They argue that the dam will disrupt river water flow and
levels and undermine agriculture and fisheries.
EGAT has for a long time eyed the lower Salween’s potential to provide
electricity to also help solve Thailand’s future power needs. It flows
parallel to the Thai border and electricity could easily be
transferred across it by power grid cable.
Meanwhile, at the upper end of the Salween in Burma, China could yet
get the electricity it needs for Yunnan Province—without the Myitsone
dam project.
====
One Response to Thein Sein Enjoys Myitsone Praise as Dams on Salween
Secretly Proceed
==
Richard Aung-Myint Thursday, May 9, 2013 - 5:40 am
I wonder if these kinds of double dealing is being made known to
the US, EU etc…, who are so optimistic about MM Reforms.
==
Reply
====
http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/34103
====
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