Villager's voice should reach policy makers

Published on Dec 18, 2002

As countries upstream and downstream plan many large-scale river diversion and water management projects on the Mekong river, little thought has been
given to the impact on communities living along the river, according to the recent dialogue of civil groups from the six countries in the Mekong region. Major among these projects are dam building in China's Yunnan province and the planned blasting of more rapids in Burma, Laos and Thailand for navigation.
Civil groups who gathered in Ubon Ratchathani recently recalled the problem of being excluded from the decision making on these projects. All too often
communities are forced to make sacrifices for the so-called national interest. They don't have legal power to negotiate. This need to be changed and people brought into the decision-making process as well as their needs and rights evaluated, the participants proposed. They also urged projects with severe ecological and social impacts to be reviewed.
Of particular concern is the dam building upstream by China and its impact on the water and communities downstream. Dams upstream pose an international relations problem as they affect the flow of the river, said Yu Xiaogang, director of the non-government organisation Green Watershed in Yunnan.
China's Yunnan province wants to create good relations with Southeast Asian countries, but dam building is controversial in this direction, he said.
Xiaogang said that over 86,000 dams had been built in China during 1949 to 1990, of which 22,000 were large ones. In the next 10 years, it was
estimated that the country will build 1.3 dams per year.
Indigenous Cambodian communities living along the Se San river also continue to face the threat of flooding and loss of livelihood from the river after the building of Vietnam's Yali Falls dam , 80 kilometres upstream of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. "Because of the floods, we are unable to live close by the river. We don't know when the floods will come or when the river will dry up," said Dam Chanty, from Cambodia's Ratanakiri province. "Sometimes the floods are so strong that many people have drowned, our fishing gear was washed away, and we lost our vegetable gardens along the riverbanks. Gone were several kinds of fishes, particularly those that taste great," she said. "What has also been flooded along with our rice fields, houses, barns and
cooking utensils is our livelihood," said Chanty. The impact was particularly severe for eight indigenous groups who depend on the Se San river. "Who will solve this problem, the Mekong River Commission (MRC), the Vietnamese or the Cambodian governments?" she said, adding that villagers from 59 villages have mobilised to find a solution which is not yet in sight. According to Kim Sangha, of the Se San Protection Network, the Se San river belongs to two countries, thus, the major question is how to avoid conflicts.
Vietnamese representatives from the Vietnam National Mekong River Committee said there are working groups from the four countries that will draft the
Basin Development Plan. Therefore, the problem can be solved bilaterally by governments. Vietnam plans to build the Se San 3 dam further downstream of the Yali Falls dam. In October, it has also approved initial plans for more dams, including the Se San 3A. A recent study conducted by human rights lawyer Michael Lerner said that dam construction and operation in Vietnam has led to the deaths of up to 39 Cambodians and threatens the livelihoods and human rights of thousands more. There had often been reports of drownings and damaging floods along the Se San river during and after the construction of the Yali Falls dam in Vietnam, he said. Lerner said Vietnam built and has operated the Yali Falls dam in ways that violate international law. The MRC and the Mekong Agreement that were meant to guard against these abuses have failed to protect the Cambodians, he said. Construction started before the environmental impact assessment (EIA) had been even agreed to, Lerner said.
Participants at the civil groups discussion considered the EIA to be just a tool of the government that often failed to consider and evaluate the needs
and rights of the affected communities. A case in point is the EIA for the Yali dam, Sangha said. This EIA, conducted by a Swiss company, indicated that people living downstream do not depend on the river, and therefore, no impact. In fact 59 villages in Cambodia's Rattanakhiri province and 30 villages
along the river totalling 55,000 people were to be affected. Most are indigenous people, Sangha said.
Vietnam, with its special position being located at the end of the Mekong river and having the northern part of the country in the upper part of the river also faced the same threat. The impact will reach the Mekong delta soon, said Professor Le Thac Can of the Vietnam Environment and Sustainable
Development Institute. He urged regional institutes and local people to co-operate in monitoring these impacts. His colleague, Nguyen Huu Chiem of Cantho University in Vietnam said the unusual floods in the Mekong delta might be caused by the development upstream. Local fishing communities have also been affected by salty water and a lack of fish, their major food source. As a result, farmers have resorted to intensive cultivation which involves heavy use of insecticide. This has greatly reduced water quality, he said. "Ironically, Vietnam, a major rice exporter, has the to face the problem of not having enough rice for the 18 million people in the Mekong delta," he said.
The civil groups also discuss of how civil society can work together to encourage the accountability of regional institutes like the MRC and the ADB to support sustainable Mekong basin development.
Dave Hubble of the Toward Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, a Bangkok-based non-government organisation, also questioned the role of the
MRC that it never acts for the affected communities. He said as Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese and Vietnamese face great difficulties in opposing the
building of the dams by China, it's the Thais who at least can voice their concern.
However, the MRC's Ian Campbell said the MRC was not in a position to stop governments from doing things or change. "A lot of people are angry or frustrated about several issues [on the Mekong basin development]. They want someone to provide them with a simple solution. Having a policeman come from outside and give them a quick and simple solution would be very nice, but life isn't like that. There isn't a simple solution," he said.
Mukdawan Sakboon
THE NATION

The rape of a river
THE MEKONG: China is using a mixture of misinformation, money, and marketing politics to have its way with the Mother of All Rivers and turn it into a canal
Jaime Cabrera
China is leading the way in "regulating" some parts of the 4,480-km-long Mekong River with explosives in order to export more golds. Almost all approve of increased trade, but many oppose removing the river's natural features. `China is carrying out the projects to dam the Mekong in almost total secrecy," Chris Lang says in a World Rainforest Movement (WRM) report, pointing out the absence of an independent environmental impact assessment (EIA) two years ago. Last year, "Consultants working on an Asian Development Bank report complained that they did not have access to data on the proposed dams," Lang reports. At the World Commission on Dams (WCD) meeting in Hanoi early in 2001, Chinese representatives kept quiet about plans to build the Xiaowan dam. Downstream countries are increasingly alarmed by China's attempts to "improve" the Mekong River, which flows through six countries from Tibet to Vietnam. Thailand is examining plans to protect its Mekong water reserves for its northeast territories. Vietnam's investments and projects in the Mekong delta will be affected by any reduction of the Mekong's waters. Cambodians worry that a lower Mekong level will kill the Tonle Sap, a huge inland lake, which depends on the Mekong's backflow in the flood season. China's sheer mass, its upstream location and its control of almost half of the Mekong River gives it an edge. It knows it can call the shots, and it has.
The plan to blast a Mekong channel for Chinese ships is part of an agreement which Burma, China, Laos and Thailand signed in April 2000. Joern Kristensen, chief executive of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), has remained quiet on China's continued refusal to join the Phnom Penh-based
water-management body. "We would like to avoid confrontation in the region," Sin Niny, the Cambodian official who heads the MRC joint committee, was quoted in the Herald Tribune earlier last year. "Cooperation between the upstream and downstream countries is vital," he said.
However, the MRC paid for several independent reviews that found the Mekong blasting project proceeding "too quickly, without adequate studies of the
changes it could cause." In his 2002 report to the Mekong River Commission, Brian Finlayson of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Environmental Hydrology, described the Mekong River Navigation Improvement Project (MRNIP) as aiming to "improve the navigability of the Mekong River over a 331-km stretch between Boundary Marker 243 on the China-Myanmar border to Ban Houei Sai in Laos." Finlayson says the first stage will "remove 11 major rapids and 10 scattered reefs and shoals by dredging and blasting" so that 150-tonne ships can travel the Mekong.
A second stage involves "further channel improvement" for 300-tonne vessels, and a final stage will "canalise the river" to allow 4x500 tonne Chinese barge trains on the Mekong.
Concerns about opening national boundaries to foreign vessels have prompted national security officials to think up protective and preventive strategies.
Agriculture and industry officials worry that Chinese dams on the Mekong will give China the upper hand in controlling water supply to industries, farms, plantations, and vital food production and supply centres. Trade and security officials will not elaborate but have held closed-door conferences on how China could use this combination of river access and water control as a bargaining power to force the Mekong-dependent countries to bend to its future wishes. What they do not say is that it is already happening: Thailand, Cambodia, Burma and Laos are already dancing to China's tune. But China was planting seeds long before to push the plan through. Despite environmentalists' protests, it's the governments of the Mekong river countries that have the
final say, and to a large extent China has them all eating out of its hands. China's vast influence lies in its value as a trading and investment partner. For instance, the same year when the Mekong plan was signed, China imported more than US$20.2 billion of goods from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. All parties know that in the future China's economic importance in the region will only grow.

THE THAIS THAT BIND
A major reef near Chiang Rai will be blasted in March to clear the upper Mekong River for large Chinese cargo ships. Thailand's MRC representative
Suphot Tovichakchaikul would only say that the blasting was approved by the four countries. He did not say how this flaunts Thai laws on public
participation. In regard to large-scale projects such as this, the Thai Constitution specifies that proper Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) be made, and grants to the public the Right to Information, the Right to a Public-Hearing, the Community Right to Environmental and Resource Management, the Right to a Decent Environment and the Right of Local Authorities in the Management, Maintenance and Use of Natural Resources. Ignoring these laws and the rights of its citizens, Thailand signed the riparian agreement in April 2000.
Public protests have increased, but the government has refused to take a strong position either for or against the Mekong project. There are several
reasons, and one is that Thai investments in China run in the billions of baht. For instance, the Charoen Pokphand Group has over US$4 billion in assets in China. Its 173 companies and over 60,000 employees run more than 100 feedmills in 29 of China's 31 provinces.
The Thai government continues to invest millions in China. Two months ago, a Cabinet meeting approved a 30-year, 1,385-million-baht loan for the
construction of the Chiang Rai-Kunming road via Laos, as well as the rush opening _ within the current fiscal year _ of a 38.4-million-baht investment office in Shanghai.
China also invests millions in Thailand. Last year China initiated a US$110 million cement factory project in Thailand. The Thai Board of Investment
approved 12 projects worth US$194.7 million _ including three from China Worldbest Group _ in textiles and citric acid manufacturing.
In the 2001 paper China & Thailand: A New Era of Investment Alliance, the Thai Farmers Research Centre (TFRC) says that China is "a country which
could put a huge amount of money into Thailand" and that Chinese investment is "a boon to Thailand, as it brings capital investment into the country,
jumpstart purchases of real estate, create domestic jobs and generate revenue for the country's export-oriented sector." The report points out that in 1998 Thailand ranked seventh among countries with investments from mainland China.
On the Mekong, trade between the southern Chinese province of Yunnan and the Thai ports of Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong reached US$88 million in
2001, more than double the previous year.

CUDDLING CAMBODIA
The Cambodia Daily recently reported the start of a US$5.3-million project that will build dikes and remove shoals on the Mekong River, including the
Sambor Rapids, starting from the China-Myanmar border to Ban Houayxai in Laos. There has been little opposition. "China does exercise a great deal of influence in Cambodia," James Borton of the Washington Times quotes Loh Swee Ping, general manager of Cambodia Sin Chew Daily, Phnom Penh's largest-circulation Chinese-language paper, as saying. China-Cambodia relations bloomed in 1997 when Prime Minister Hun Sen endorsed a one-China policy and shooed out the Taiwanese legation.
Borton describes a strong China presence in Cambodia, from the Mao Tse-tung Boulevard in downtown Phnom Penh to the new sewer system, as well as
"highways, bridges, and the Phnom Penh Market" all paid for by China. The new $30 million hydropower station and the "interest-free loans and grants to rebuild Cambodia's Senate and National Assembly building" cannot be ignored either. Thus, it is rare to find anti-Chinese voices in Hun Sen's government. In November 2000, when the $26-million Kampong Speu power plant was being considered, the Cambodia National Assembly hotly debated the deal with
China, even questioning the bidding process, but the the deal was approved. The 12-megawatt plant now powers the entire Kampong Speu province and the capital Phnom Penh. "China has built a dozen or more Chinese-language schools across the country. Beijing's assistance and community-based public-relations campaign includes providing textbooks and Chinese teachers," a recent Asia Times report says.
Cambodians are favourably disposed towards China, not the least for past kindnesses. "China had offered sanctuary to King Sihanouk in 1970, and the
king still travels regularly to Beijing for medical attention," Asia Times points out. "Probably the most significant offer from China in recent years was the
announcement of a $200 million interest-free loan in the form of a line of credit that could be tapped for future projects, and Chinese contractors have been bidding to rebuild several national roads," Asia Times quotes Yum Sui Sang, chairman of the Phnom Penh-based China, Hong Kong and Macau
Business Association, as saying.

MANIPULATING BURMA
Though investments of Asean countries in Burma plunged to zero early this year, Burma remains unperturbed. In December 2001, China's President Jiang
Zemin visited Rangoon and promised $100 million worth of investments on top of existing trade worth over $500 million since 1997. Chinese investment in Burma is grossly underestimated as it does not go through the National Investment Board. However, China Daily reports that behind Singapore and Thailand, China is Burma's third-largest trading partner, with $600 million of trade each year. Reuters adds that the last fiscal year saw Burma importing $293 million of Chinese goods and exporting $104 million to China.
Virtually no foreign journalists are allowed to live in Rangoon, with sole exception of the representative of China's official Xinhua News Agency.Xinhua reports that China has built dozens of projects in Burma, including sugar, paper, textile, plywood, thermal power and rice processing industries, as well as a highway-railway bridge.
A meeting of Burmese experts in Washington, DC early in 2001 raised concerns of "Chinese military assistance, extensive construction of infrastructure, unrecorded investment, (increasing) but undervalued overland trade and large-scale informal migration." China is building roads and communication links in Burma to open Yunnan to Southeast Asia, a United States Pacific Command Headquarters (USPCH) report says. Last month, 52 Burmese organisations submitted a petition to Thai Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Praphat Panyachartrak and the Laotian ambassador in Bangkok to end the blasting of the Mekong rapids. The letter, addressed to the Chinese ambassador in Bangkok, strongly opposes the Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project.
The Akha, Lahu, Loi La, En and Shan remain impoverished, the letter says, while the junta allow militias business such as drug production. The project will benefit only the military and business elites who alone control trade in the area, the petition said. The minister and the ambassador cannot do anything to stop the project. Burma's ties to China are too strong.
Burma was the first to recognise the People's Republic of China in 1949. When the Burmese junta killed thousands of people during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, China refused to break ties with Rangoon. When Burma ignored the results of its 1990 election, only China continued to give economic, military, and advisory aid to it. Furthermore, Chinese immigration to Burma is extensive. About two million Chinese are now in the country. One-quarter of Mandalay is said to be Yunnanese Chinese, as is one-half of Lashio. BBC's Larry Jagan says visitors to Mandalay find it's almost like a Chinese colony: "Chinese business has extensively penetrated northern Burma," he says.
The past two years saw Rangoon visits by top Chinese leaders such as Vice President Hu Jintao and Chief of Staff General Fu Quangyou, not to mention
trade, railways, narcotics, border controls and police officials, the USPCH report says.
Jagan confirms that since the army seized Rangoon in 1988, China has been Burma's closest ally. "Beijing supplies it with most of its military hardware and training. They are also in reality Burma's most important trading partner, although much of that is unofficial cross-border trade." He said Beijing is presently paying for "overhauling oil wells and building a new dockyard for repairing ships as well as helping build a major highway that would connect the southern Chinese province of Yunnan with the Indian Ocean through Burma."

LURING LAOS
The mountainous, landlocked country of Laos has only one waterway: the Mekong. China released a budget of US$5 million (about 209 million baht) and two out of 11 areas in the Burma-Laos section of the river had been cleared, according to the September 2001 Report on Environmental Impact Assessment: The Navigation Improvement project of the Lancang-Mekong River from China-Myanmar Boundary Marker 243 to Ban Houei Sai of Laos.
The report was prepared by the "Joint Experts Group on EIA of China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand."
Finlayson says the report is misleading: "The `tone' of this EIA throughout is that this is a minor operation to make the river safer for navigation and that it will have almost no impact. Data are presented which show that only 3 km out of a total length of 331 km will be directly affected by the works." He points out that "the works planned are non-reversible; the removal of rock bars from the river channel will make a permanent change to the river environment" and that opening the river to larger ships will bring "population increase, new and expanded economic activities" which in turn will seriously affect water quality.
Although the EIA concludes that the project is acceptable in regard to the environment protection laws of Laos (and the other participating countries), it treats Laotian hydrology, geology and topography very superficially, only with "notes indicating what should be there."
Item 2 of Article 12 of the Science, Technology and Environment Agency Assessment Regulation of the Lao PDR states that an EIA should "identify and describe the environmental impacts of the project and compare them to the impacts of one or more reasonable alternatives to the project" such as
roads and railways. The EIA also ignored Item 4 of Article 12 which requires an EIA to "identify all Lao laws, regulations, and international treaty obligations, and land-use plans that are relevant ... and explain in detail how the project activities will comply with these governmental directives." The tolerance of the Lao government for gross violations of its regulations can be explained in economic and socio-cultural terms.
In 1999 Chinese investments reached US$87 million in construction materials, plantation and animal cultivation, medicine production and lumber including Chinese-run projects worth US$500 million. China established TV satellite ground stations in Laos, as well as the Namgao River hydroelectric station and electricity grid station. The construction of the Vientiane Culture Centre and the second stage of the Vangvieng Cement Plant, as well as the projected Luang Prabang Hospital, are all funded by China.
Laos has supported the One China policy on the Taiwan issue and the reunification of China. China's People's Daily reports that in 2001, Chinese firms invested US$997 million in 74 projects in Laos. Since 1992, China has offered Laos "considerable amount of non-interest and low-interest loans, and donations." In 1999, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a US$ 250 million loan to help China build a 147-kilometre, four-lane toll expressway and upgrade 540 kilometres of feeder roads in Yunnan. The project will be completed next year, connecting Yunnan to Laos, Burma and Thailand.
Finlayson says the Lao government is likely to suffer as larger ships carry more fuel oil. "An accident could spill this into the Mekong ... any pollution incident caused by shipwreck will be felt most severely in Laos since the largest proportion of the project reach is either wholly or partly in Lao territory.
"Cargoes such as fertiliser and agricultural chemicals can be spilled and pollute the river. Whose responsibility is this? What emergency response
facilities are needed? The EIA is silent on these critical matters," he says.

SURPRISING CONCLUSIONS
Finlayson points out that although joint survey teams with representatives of the four countries collected data for the EIA, only the Chinese members of the team kept the data. If they had not, "the other affected states could have undertaken their own independent analyses," he said. So where is this leading to?
China's major rivers have long been tamed for transportation routes. Many observers feel that China wants to do the same to the Mekong. Despite the
velvet gloves, they say, the intention is unmistakable. China has also long been condemned by the international community for human rights and environmental abuse in connection with its dam projects.
The Vietnamese government complains that China's dams on the Mekong reduce the volume of water and allow seawater into the Mekong Delta, which
produces half of Vietnam's food supply.
The reality, however, is that protests and petition letters will probably have little effect on the Chinese hold on the politics and commerce of Mekong region.
The lower Mekong countries are unlikely to refuse Beijing the right of way through their sections of the Mekong River, for fear of economic retribution.
It seems that only a miracle _ nothing short of a four-country rebellion against China's machinations _ will save the Mekong River from becoming a
free-flowing, and likely very polluted, international canal.
January 5, 2002