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Green groups fear Salween
workshop spells danger for local inhabitants
The Nation, 13.Sep.1999
A GROUP of 35 Thai and
Burmese civil and environmental organisations
yesterday expressed their grave concern that the four-day ''closed door,
confidential'' workshop on the Salween River basin would be a forum ''to
legitimise'' gigantic economic developments which could adversely effect
the
livelihood of many thousands of multi-ethnic people as well as damage the
environment.
In an open letter distributed yesterday, the group demanded that any
planning for large scale hydroelectric and water diversion projects on the
river remain ''fully open, transparent and honest'' about all
controversial
issues that had dogged the planned development in the basin areas.
They also demanded that planning must ''fully recognise and respect the
human, civil and political rights of all the development-affected people,
ensuring their informed participation and fully compensating them for any
losses incurred''.
''Any such plans or projects that fail to meet the conditions must be
abandoned without delay,'' they added.
Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, Chainarong Sretthachau,
director of the Southeast Asia Rivers Network (SEARIN), said his
organisation had rejected an invitation to attend the workshop starting
today on the grounds that it ''deliberately excludes the participation of
affected indigenous people, the real stakeholders'' in any
multi-million-dollar projects on the Salween.
He charged that the workshops would be attended by representatives of Thai
and Burmese government agencies, major international financial
institutions
such as the World Bank and the Manila-based Asian Development Bank and
private developers, all of whom ''are virtually supporters of constructing
dams''.
He said that a giant Thai construction firm, which has won nearly all
major
construction contracts here and in neighbouring countries, was believed to
be attending the workshop.
It is still unclear who or which agency is organising the workshop in
Chiang
Mai and what the objectives are of those attending. The forum has been
kept
confidential and the venue of the meeting remains unknown.
In the open letter, the group said academics, government officials,
business
consultancy groups and multilateral banks were invited to attend the
workshop which was ''ostensibly to promote dialogue among representatives
of
the various interests of the Salween Basin''.
''However, conspicuously absent from the participants list are the
indigenous people who would inevitably bear the costs of such development
of
the river. Instead the listed participants of the meeting are members of
an
elite that in no way represent the interests of local communities,'' it
added.
The letter said the gathering seemed closely linked to plans aimed at
damming the Salween to produce hydroelectricity and divert water to
Thailand.
The Thai and Burmese governments, with assistance from Japanese, Thai and
Norwegian consultants, had been preparing development projects on the
Salween for the past decade, ''carefully concealing them from the people,
particularly those living on the river basin'', the letter added.
It said these communities had suffered years of warfare and human rights
abuses by the military and that thousands of them had already been
displaced
by the Burmese regime from their rightful property.
''Some of the largest recent displacements have been taking place
precisely
in the same areas and at the same time when surveyors began studying the
site of a potential dam on the river in the Shan State [of Burma],'' the
letter added.
The letter said at least five sites had now been studied for dams in the
river basin without the participation of the people living in each area
and
that these plans had advanced well beyond the point where environmental
and
social impact assessments should have been carried out.
''In the meantime, there has been absolutely no consultation with the real
stakeholders in the projects: the indigenous people who stand to lose
their
land forever,'' it said.
The open letter, which is signed by groups such as SEARIN, Salween Watch,
Wildlife Fund of Thailand, Shan Human Rights Foundation, Forum of the
Poor,
and Karen, Karenni, Shan and Burmese groups and exiled elected Burmese
MPs,
said the damming of the Salween would lead to the flooding of large areas
of
forest and farmland and would drown villages, disrupt agriculture and
fisheries both above and below the dam.
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