President Thein Sein stopped work on the dam as much as a concession to public outcry as to the first step towards distancing the regime from continued dependence on the next door Communist big brother. When completed as planned in 2019, the dam could have met the electricity demand in China’s Yunnan province, and fetched Myanmar $ 17 billion for 50-years.
Located at the confluence of the Mali and N’Mai rivers, Myitsone dam will be the largest of seven dams (total capacity 13,360 MW) planned along the Irrawaddy, Mali Hka, and N’Mai Hka rivers. It would have been the 15th largest hydropower station in the world, with installed capacity at 6,000 MW under an agreement signed in March 2009 between Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power and China’s National Energy Administration. The main dam is approximately 152 meters long and 152 meters high. Its reservoir of about 766 square kilometres will have a depth of 290 meters deep. Cost of the project is pegged at USD $3.6 billion dollars
The anti-dam movement got a shot in the arm when democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi took up the cause of dam displaced families. She disputed the official claim that just over 2,100 people from five villages have been hit. In a letter to President Thein Sein last August, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate pointed out that 12,000 ethnic Kachins from more than 60 villages had been severed from their homes and traditional way of life. She warned that the Myitsone project posed serious environmental risks, made worse by nearby fault lines that “raise the spectre of horrendous devastation” in the event of an earthquake.
Myitsone Dam is located 37 kilometers away from Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. The area is one of the world’s eight hotspots of biodiversity. The dam site is less than 100 kilometers from the earthquake prone Sagaing fault line. The dam will submerge a number of historical churches and temples besides the sacred Banyan tree at the confluence of the Mali and N’mai Hka rivers.
Suspension of the work on the dam is a blow to China politically and financially. Politically because China was the main patron of the military junta regime of Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP); financially because China Power Investment Corp claims to have spent on $25 million on resettlement of dam displaced. The Myitsone project site is about 35 km north of Myityina, the capital of Kachin province that borders China.
Kachin has been in a state of unrest for decades with hostilities between the army and rebels led by Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), which has a well armed military of its own. In 1994, both sides entered into a Ceasefire Agreement but tensions remain as key issues are still to be resolved. The rebels are also opposed to damming rivers as they believe that the dam constructions threaten the traditional livelihoods of the Kachin people.
The fighting has displaced an estimated 75,000 people; ten thousand of them fled to China and are living in camps along the Chinese border in rebel-controlled territory. The remaining refugees are housed in camps around Myitkyina itself. People evicted by the Myitsone project live in a sprawling Chinese¬-sponsored resettlement camp ringed by fences.
Myanmar activists and environmentalists say that the area has seen rapid deforestation. Unregulated mining and erosion have also taken a heavy toll on the Irrawaddy ecosystem. They fear that the Myitsone project moves forward, its impact will extend far beyond the project site, to communities downstream that rely on the river flow.
Going by reports in the regional media, the Chinese appear to be lobbying hard to resume construction. Will they succeed? There is no definite answer as yet but the Kachin residents don’t rule out the possibility of Chinese ultimately having their way. “This is the sense we are getting’, the locals are quoted as saying.
The fear may not come true. This confidence stems from the exit of First Vice-President General Tin Aung Myint Oo from the government early July. He is a pro-dam champion besides being anti-market reforms. Geo-political and economic reality also doesn’t give much hope for a fresh lease to Myitsone Dam, more so after President Thein Sein has unleashed a wave of political and economic reforms and the West has responded by lifting the economic sanctions which in the first placed pushed Yangon into the Dragon’s embrace.
