The military junta of Burma is planning to build more than 30 hydro-electric power dams. This project will have horrendous consequences for the ethnic minority groups in the country. The military junta will profit from the export of the extra electricity which will be produced, but will not distribute any of the benefits to the people. The cultural consequences for the ethnic minorities are enormous. Ten thousand members of ethnic minority groups will be forcibly removed from their lands because of the huge hydro-electricity project. They are losing their invaluable historical and cultural sites, and with this their identity as an ethnic group. Hardly any compensation will be given out for the loss of their lands and housing. Most probably, forced labour will be used to build these dams. Furthermore, the ecological consequences of the damming up of the rivers are unforeseeable. The rich diversity of animals, fish and plant-life will be hugely reduced. Therefore, the fishermen will lose their livelihood, and the farmers living at the lower end of the river will suffer from the loss of all-year round flooding which makes their soil so fertile.

Particularly severe is the threat which the Myitsone dam project poses to ten thousand ethnic Kachin people who will have to leave their homes. More than 760 square kilometres ( roughly equivalent to the area of Hamburg ) of fertile agricultural lands and forests will be flooded so that the dam can be built. The Kachin people are one of the ethnic minorities in the multi-cultural state of Burma which is ruled by a military dictatorship. As early as this month (June 2007) the displacements of people will begin. If the gigantic project is finished, as planned, by the year 2017, it will be one of the fifteen largest in the whole world. The power produced, however, will not be used for the local people, but for China. The whole project will be financed by the Burmese military government, the ‘China Power Investment Company’ and the ‘China Southern Power Grid Cooperation’.

Ecological risks continue to be disregarded. The dam is planned to be built in an area prone to earthquakes. The nearby provincial capital of Myitkyina could be flooded in the event of the dam being breached. The wilful ignorance being shown with regard to this danger, and the treatment of the Kachin people, are symptomatic of the military junta’s overall treatment of ethnic minority peoples.

More than a dozen ethnic minority groups in Burma (for example the Shan, the Karen, the Chin, the Karenni and the Rohingya) have been campaigning for more rights since 1948. But these demands have been rejected. Arbitrary arrests and shootings, torture, rape, forced labour as well as evictions are regular experiences for the ethnic minority people living in the mountain areas. More than 700,000 members of ethnic minority tribes in Burma have become refugees. Several hundred thousand more people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Please call upon Piero Fassino, the EU’s special representative for Burma (officially Myanmar), to demand an end to the human rights abuses of ethnic minority peoples, and particularly a halt to the forced evictions of people to make way for grand projects, as well as adequate compensation for those who have already suffered from displacements.

Link for the On-line appeal

Translated from Charlie und Gisela Russell