Burma dams would flood rebel territories

(06-08) 04:00 PDT Mae Hong Son, --

Thailand - In the dry season, the Salween River cuts a multicolored gash of green, gray and beige as it carries Himalayan snowmelt through steaming jungles along the Thailand-Burma border en route to the Andaman Sea.

On the Thailand side, villages of thatched huts and hardwood homes dot the landscape, while the Burmese portion houses only military outposts, the legacy of forced evacuations.

Now, Burma's energy-hungry neighbors - China and Thailand - are pushing the military junta to embark on a huge dam project along the Salween, one of Southeast Asia's last untamed rivers, which stretches 1,700 miles through China, eastern Burma and Thailand.

The $8 billion project would not only generate electricity but give the government justification to flood the heart of rebel territory of Karen, Shan and Karenni minorities fighting for independence in eastern Burma.

The region has been spared the severe damage caused by Cyclone Nargis, which flooded vast stretches of Burma's southern coast May 2-3, killed 78,000 and left as many as 56,000 people missing. But residents along the river, including ethnic minorities who have resisted government rule, have had struggles of their own.

In past decades, the Burmese military junta has confiscated their lands, forced villagers to work as laborers and restricted movement as part of the 60-year-old civil wars. The conflicts have created at least 500,000 internally displaced people, according to a 2007 report by Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a British charity organization. Another 140,000 are living in refugee camps near border towns like Mae Hong Son.

Although the dam project is decades old and many elements remain secret, Thailand's new prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, said in March that Chinese, Thai and Burmese energy companies would invest in the project. Construction is expected to begin next year on two of five proposed dams along the Salween.

For Burma's neighbors, the dams are expected to provide cheap electricity and lucrative contracts for hydropower companies in China and Thailand. Burma, also known as Myanmar, will receive billions of dollars in badly needed foreign investment and a small undecided percentage of the 14,000 megawatt project.

But perhaps more noteworthy, the project will divide rebel territories in the eastern states where three major guerrilla groups still operate.

Rebel strongholds

The Ta Sang and Upper Thanlwin dam sites are in Shan state, where the Shan State Army South has long battled the Burmese military. The proposed Dagwin, Wei Gyi and Hat Gyi sites are in Karen state, home to the Karen National Union, or KNU, one of the largest groups fighting the government.

The Ta Sang site alone has already displaced 35,000 people, according to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium.

"The dams would be the end of the KNU," said Ko Shwe of the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The Dagwin and Wei Gyi dams will also flood most of Karenni state's two river valleys that lie upstream where the armed Karenni National Progressive Party is active. An estimated 30,000 residents would lose their homes and farms to a 250-square-mile reservoir, according to the Karenni Development Research Group, a nonprofit group based in Mae Hong Son.

"If there are no villages, there is no way for the rebels to survive," said Sai Sai, coordinator of Salween Watch, an environmental organization in Chiang Mai that opposes the dams. "The Burmese are using this policy to control the land."

Officials at the Burmese Embassy in Washington denied numerous requests for an interview to speak about the dam projects.

The projects could also cause an influx of refugees into Thailand that would strain local resources, according to Pa-Korn Kangwanpong, chief executive of the local government where the Dagwin dam is expected to be built. "More refugees would lead to deforestation," he said, referring to timber needed for fuel and clear-cutting of trees needed for farming. "We can do many things to get power. Why do they need to build these dams?"

A senior official of Thailand's state energy company, Electricity Generating Authority, said public opposition has kept his country from investing in hydro and nuclear energy projects.

Electricity shortage

"We have a shortage of electricity, and we need to buy electricity from our neighbors," said the official, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job.

The Salween hydroelectric project is part of a larger set of collaborations among Burma, China and Thailand. China is a top arms supplier to the junta and a strong supporter on the U.N. Security Council. Thailand is one of Burma's largest trading partners.

Both China and Thailand also rely heavily on Burma's relatively unexploited forests, mines, gas and oil fields and rivers, says Sean Turnell, an economist at Australia's Macquarie University in Sydney.

In recent years, the junta has gone on a dam-construction spree, with China currently investing $30 billion to build 20 dams, according to the Bangkok Post. Chinese companies are also involved in numerous oil and gas projects in Burma.

"China is looking to Burma as a sort of gas station," Turnell said.

Meanwhile, Burma's economy, impoverished after years of mismanagement by its military leaders, depends heavily on foreign extraction of its resources. All but $1 million of the $622 million direct foreign investment in Burma over the first 11 months of the 2006-2007 fiscal year came from oil, gas and other power projects, according to a study by the research arm of the Economist magazine, Economist Intelligence Unit.

Such dependence on natural resources bodes poorly for the people along the Salween who believe the river is a deity. Before crossing, many people pray to the river, whose turbulent waters regularly swallow boats and their crews.

A life force

The river is a life force as well, supporting more than 70 species of fish and depositing fertile silt for agriculture during the dry season.

Pai Roj, a Karen who lives in the Thai border village of Tha Ta Fang near the proposed Dagwin dam site, says even though the dams will not flood his home, they will keep fish from migrating between the upper and lower parts of the Salween.

"The river is the blood of our people. Our life has been intertwined with the river for generations," he said, while sitting cross-legged on a neighbor's wooden floor. "They want to build the dams to control the area, to control the people."

Twenty-five miles downstream, lies the site of the proposed Hatgyi dam, which Thai energy officials say is likely to be the first to go online with construction expected to begin in 2009. The site is also in territory where neither the Burmese military nor Karen rebels have full control. Last September, preparatory work was suspended after rebels killed a Thai surveyor.

The anonymous Thai energy official, however, brushed off any security concerns.

"If you take that kind of thing seriously, you can't develop," said the official. "Myanmar will take care of them."

E-mail Nicholas Kusnetz at foreign@sfchronicle.com