The Salween River the longest free-flowing river in Southeast Asia is being literally "cut" to pieces. The river is to be dammed in more than four places by Salween countries Burma, Thailand and China. The proposal envisages constructing dams to generate hydroelectric power from the entire river basin and divert water to Thailand. The plans involve a series of large dams along the meandering course of the river, in southern China and the eastern states of Burma.

The dams will irrevocably change the lives of local ethnic people. They will be displaced and dispossessed. For decades these people in Burma, have been suffering unabated and brutal conflict. Now being added is further indignity, blatant human rights violations and massive displacement of the population with authorities gearing up for construction of the dams. The sites have been identified and clearing of areas that will be flooded has begun. The ongoing civil war has cloaked much of this hectic activity even as the fear of the unknown haunts a massive section of the populace.

World Commission recommendations on dams were ignored when the plans were being drawn up. The negative impact of the large dams on several fronts has made it unacceptable to the people and environmental groups. The Burmese military dictatorship, however, could not care less because it clearly stands to gain.

Given that oppression of an already beleaguered populace will continue urgent action is called for, to halt the Salween dam project. 

Looking at it from any conceivable aspect makes the construction of the dam hardly feasible.

Civil war rages in the area around the dam sites and hundreds of thousands of locals have been displaced at gunpoint. The project is also being used as a military strategy against ethnic people of Burma. Torture, rape, and killings of villagers continue as more and more soldiers are deployed and more landmines laid. The dams will provide huge financial back up to the military junta. Massive corruption is inevitable given the sheer lack of transparency. The dams will for ever degrade Southeast Asia 's longest free flowing river, the fisheries, flood the plains, teak forests, wildlife habitats, villages and fertile agricultural soil.  

Geo-political conflicts in the future cannot be ruled out by the reservoir that would be created by the Hutgyi dam because it would change the width or deepwater channel of the Salween River, which currently acts as the demarcation between Thailand and Burma.

The Thai contracting company MDX, signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Burmese Department of Hydroelectric Power in April 2006 for joint development of a 7,110 megawatt dam in Tasang at an estimated cost of US $ 6 billion.  The investment will provide a fillip to Burma's foreign direct investment.

A report "Warning Signs: An update on plans to dam the Salween in Burma's Shan State" prepared by the Shan Sapawa Organization details how preparations are afoot to have a giant hydropower dam at Tasang on the Salween River in southern Shan State. Among the four dams planned on the Salween River, preparations for the Tasang Dam, 130 kilomteres north of Chiang Mai, are in a most advanced stage.

The report reveals how MDX has been building roads, staff buildings and local power generating facilities near the site of the 228-metre-high dam, which will have the largest installed capacity and will be the tallest in Southeast Asia.

The dam site is bang area of conflict in Shan State. In the past decade the Burma Army has tripled the number of battalions around Tasang, and over 60,000 villagers have been forcibly relocated from areas adjoining the dam site and the projected flood zone. Villagers found in hiding have been tortured, raped and killed. The majority have fled to Thailand.

People including environmental groups who have been opposing the project sent a desperate appeal to the Prime Minister of Thailand less than a couple of months ago, requesting withdrawal of cooperation with the Burmese junta for the construction of hydropower dams on the Salween River. The appeal was forwarded through the offices of the Thai Minister of Energy.   

The petition signed by scores of individuals and organizations from Burma, Thailand, and other countries expressed grave concern about the likely environmental and social impact of the proposed hydropower projects on the Salween River. The appeal pointed out that ecological balance, human security, and local livelihood will be thrown into jeopardy if the series of dams is built from Shan State down to Mon State along the Thai-Burma border. Northern NGO-CORD, the Salween Watch Coalition and groups and individuals signed the petition urging the current Thai government to withdraw from the project.

It was pointed out that there was a total lack of transparency in Implementation of the project. The entire decision-making process has been shrouded in secrecy. There has been a total absence of public participation among the dam-affected communities in Burma already suffering the fallout of civil war, or the over 50 ethnic Thai-Karen villages living along the Salween River in Thailand's Mae Hong Son province.

The MoU between the Thai Ministry of Energy and Burmese Ministry of Electric Power was signed in May 2005 for the development of five hydropower projects on the Salween and Tanaosri river basins, including the Ta Sang Project (7,000 MW), Hutgyi Project (600 MW), Upper Thanlwin (Salween) Project (5,600 MW), Lower Thanlwin (Salween) Project (900 MW), and Tanintharyi Project (600 MW). In December 2005, a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed for joint-investment and implementation of the Hutgyi dam construction between EGAT Plc and Burmese Department of Hydropower stating that the construction would commence in late 2007. Subsequently, EGAT and Sinohydro Corporation, a state enterprise from the People's Republic of China signed a MoU in June 2006 for the development of the first of the series of dams to be built, the Hutgyi dam.

The Salween hydropower projects were conceived based on double standards and legal loopholes to avoid compliance with relevant environmental laws in Thailand, the appeal alleged.    

The energy forecast is grossly distorted, the petition points out.  

Previous energy demand forecasts in Thailand have been inaccurate, particularly because of the tendency to overestimate the energy demand by simply basing the figures on the 'over-forecasted' economic growth rate. In the latest Power Development Plan (PDP) issued last April for the next 10 to 15 years, the projection of energy demand exceeds the actual demand by at least 900 megawatts, it said.

The project will help fund brutal oppression of ethnic groups by the Burmese junta notorious for its severe human rights violations. It has over the past several decades been waging a civil war against ethnic peoples in various parts of the country which has led to burning and looting of villages in ethnic areas, forced relocation, forced labour, systematic rape, extra judicial killings, and repeated military onslaughts. At least 540,000 people in Burma have been displaced and many more have fled across the Thai border. Over 140,000 refugees are now seeking shelter in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, a large proportion of them from the areas where the dams are planned. The one billion dollar joint-investment with the Burmese junta for Hat Gyi dam will provide revenue for more military resources for the Burmese Army to enable further military occupation of ethnic areas, which in turn will lead to further human rights violations, the petition said.  

Thailand thus stands accused of being hand in glove in the grave human rights violations being committed by the Burmese junta. In addition, Thailand has to bear the cost of increasing waves of refugees who seek shelter in Thailand from violent oppression. Many will have no home to return to should these hydropower projects on the Salween River come in to being.

The petition requested the Prime Minister to look at the heavy cost in terms of suffering of hundreds of thousands of ethnic people alone. The Thai government should stop these hydropower projects as they directly aid the Burmese regime's efforts to consolidate their stranglehold over contested ethnic territory in the world's longest running civil war.

The appeal pointed put that it was a high risk investment because all the proposed dams are situated in areas of the ongoing civil war. For instance, the Hutgyi dam site is located in an area with thousands of land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). EGAT lost one of its employees to a landmine explosion in May 2006 during a survey of the site for the Hutgyi Dam. The death speaks volumes of the lack of security and the volatile situation in the area.

Local ecosystems, including pristine teak and other hardwood forests, rare and endemic plants and fish will adversely affected by the dams and future reservoirs. It would also increase seismic risk. Local livelihoods on both sides of the Salween River and tributaries will be thrown into disarray. The dam-related infrastructure and disruption of the livelihoods of many will lead to increased encroachment of forests, logging and wildlife hunting around the reservoir area as has been the case with all previous hydropower plants and dams in Thailand. The Salween dams will create vast reservoirs, with a loss to flooding of up to 2,000 kilometres and certainly no less than 1,000 kilometres of villages, forests and arable land.

The Salween dam in Shan State will create an estimated minimum of 800 square kilometer reservoir whilst the Upper Border Salween Dam will flood approximately 960 square kilometers. This will permanently destroy the rich and unique ecosystem in the Salween river basin including rare and highly endangered species of fauna and many of the local fish which are economically important for local people. At least 10,000 people in Thailand and 73,000 in Burma will be directly affected, the appeal took pains to explain.  

The Hat Gyi project in Burma about 30 kilometres downstream of Sop Mouie, Mae Hong Son district is likely to flood the Thai-Burma border in Ban Sop Mouie, Mae Hong Son Province. The planned Salween River hydropower projects will also affect downstream ecosystems along the Salween River, all the way down to the delta area in Pa-an, Moulmein and Mataban, including the rich estuarine and offshore fisheries.

The appeal requested the Prime Minister of Thailand and relevant agencies to withdraw from all the planned hydropower projects on the Salween River, and from related cooperation with the Burmese junta. There are many more power development alternatives that can be explored under the principles of sufficiency economy, it said.

So far the appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Chances are remote that the appeals will be heeded by the countries, who see themselves as "partners in progress" turning a blind eye as they do to the ongoing sufferings of a massive section of the people of the region and the agony, and the pain awaiting them for the rest of their lives.