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DAM-L LS: Oversea-Shans Protest Building of Salween Dam (fwd)



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Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 11:59:27 -0800 (PST)
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subject: LS: Oversea-Shans Protest Building of Salween Dam
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 >
 >  No: 12 - 7
 >
 >  Oversea Shans Protest Building of Salween Dam
 >
 >  The Overseas-Shan Organization yesterday sent a letter to Japan's
ministry
 >  of finance requesting to reconsider financing the Tasang Dam Project on
the
 >  Salween.
 >
 >  The letter, dated 11 November, and signed by Sao Noan Oo of Lawkzawk, who

 >  resides in the United Kingdom, appealed to Mr. Miichi Miyazawa of the
 >  Ministry of Finance, "to refrain from supporting and giving aid to the
 >  Burmese military regime, particularly in financing the Tasang Dam
Project."
 >
 >  Since the project came into being, she said, "the area around the site
has
 >  been increasingly militarized, resulting in increased forced labour and
 >  force relocation... The dam will not only have a devastating social and
 >  environmental impacts: large area of farmlands will be inundated and
 >  countless more people will be displaced with little hope of compensation.

 >  Even if not submerged, forcests in the area will inevitably be depleted,
 >  when logging companies move in to use the infrastructure built to serve
the
 >  dam."
 >
 >  Sao Noan Oo, a scion of one of the former princely states of Shan State,
 >  previously known as the Shan States before the formation of a union with
 >  Burma "proper" in 1947, maintained that the people of Shan State "are
 >  resolutely opposed to the building of the dam on the Salween. The fear
that
 >  if the river ceases to flow the Shan State as we know will be lost
forever.
 >  The Salween or Nham Khong River is as important symbolically to the Shan
as
 >  Mount Fuji is to the Japanese people."
 >
 >  She also stated that since joining Burma, the people of Shan State "have
 >  lost all the human rights taken away from them: the right not to be
 >  massacred, the right not to be raped and the right to refuse to work like

 >  draught animals."
 >
 >  The International Labour Organization on 16 November passed a resolution
 >  urging members to re-evaluate their relations with the military regime in

 >  Rangoon.
 >
 >  The Salween flows down from the foothills of the Himalayas, rushes down
 >  from north the south along the whole length of the Shan State before
 >  flowing through the Karenni, Karen and Mon states into the Indian Ocean
at
 >  Moulmein.
 >
 >  The GMS Power, a subsidiary of the MDX company from Thailand, has been
 >  conducting studies since 1997. Human Rights watchers have reported that
at
 >  least 300,000 people from the area have been forced relocated since.
 >
 >  A Shan academic in North America also commented the Japanese were making
a
 >  seemingly needless mystery out of the project.
 >
 >  "The Japanese are up to their eyebrows in it, but very cagey about - like

 >  they are committing a crime..."
 >
 >  He said reasons being given: to supply Thailand with electricity and to
 >  bring water down to supply dams "all these seems like a big smoke screen
 >  (because) Thai experts say there is enough water and that the decrease of

 >  water in Thai dams is seasonal. As for electricity, Thailand now has gas
 >  from the junta which it now doesn't want and can't use...."
 >
 >  S.H.A.N.
 >
 >  ///END\\\
 >  For further information, please contact S.H.A.N. at:
 >  Shan Herald Agency for News.
 >  e-mail: <shan@cm.ksc.co.th>
 >  www.shanland.org
 >
 >  S.H.A.N. is a non-profit, independent Shan media group. It is not
 >  affiliated to any political or armed organization.
 >
 >
 >  _________________________________________________________________
 >  View all previous messages to mong_tai!
 >  Click: http://archive.coollist.com/showmon.cgi?l=mong_tai
 >
 >





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