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Myanmar suspends dam project after rare outcry
Agence France Presse - September 30, 2011
Opposition to the Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy River has been building as pro-democracy and environmental activists test the limits of their freedom under the new nominally civilian but army-backed regime.
President Thein Sein told lawmakers in the capital Naypyidaw that work on the project in northern Kachin state would be suspended during the term of the current administration, a government official said.
"The president decided to stop the dam project because the government is elected by the people and the government has to respect the will of the people," said the official, who did not want to be named.
In March Myanmar's junta handed power to a new government whose ranks are filled with former generals.
Environmentalists warn the dam project would inundate an area about the size of Singapore, submerging dozens of villages, displacing at least 10,000 people and irreversibly damaging one of the world's most biodiverse areas.
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is among those who have urged the authorities to review the project, which is backed by energy giant China Power Investment Corp.
"It's something that we're all concerned about because the Irrawaddy is very important for the whole country, economically, geographically, ecologically and emotionally," the Nobel laureate told AFP in a recent interview.
"I think there's a growing consciousness of the need to protect the Irrawaddy," she added.
Police last week arrested a man who staged a rare solo protest against the project outside a Chinese embassy building in Yangon.
They also blocked a rally this week by people seeking the release of political prisoners and an end to the Myitsone project, electricity from which is destined for neighbouring China. No arrests were made on that occasion.
"For the contract with the Chinese company, both sides will discuss it based on goodwill," the official said.
Protests are rare in authoritarian Myanmar, where pro-democracy rallies in 1988 and 2007 were brutally crushed by the junta.
Friday's announcement marked an unexpected U-turn by the regime. Local media had quoted the minister for electric power as saying earlier in September that construction of the dam would go ahead despite public concerns.
For the people of Kachin, the Myitsone dam has come to symbolise the struggles they have faced for decades as a marginalised ethnic group in the repressed nation under almost half a century of military rule.
In recent weeks fighting has erupted between ethnic rebels and government troops in the area, where Chinese companies are involved in the construction of a clutch of dams to provide energy for the booming Chinese economy.
In April a series of bomb blasts at the site of the Myitsone Dam destroyed cars and buildings and left one man wounded.
And in August state media accused ethnic fighters of shooting dead seven people, including civilian workers, at a different Chinese-run dam.
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