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SALWEEN WATCH HOTMAIL OUT Salween Watch Update February 2003, Volume 13 XXxx<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<o0XxxX0o>>>>>>>>>>>>>>xxXX Residents advised to move S.H.A.N. February 14, 2003 As excavations by foreign firms on both sides of the projected dam site continued, some Burmese officers were counselling a preemptive departure of local residents in the vicinity, said sources coming to the border. One militia leader, named withheld for his security, told villagers of Wan Sala in Mongton Township, 12 km south of Tanghseng, the Tasarng dam site, recently that he was deeply moved by the death of at least ten villagers who were killed in a series of discharges that had been going on since last month. "If you continue to stay, you will be forced to work for them with little or no pay," he said. "And in the end, after the dam is finished, you will still be thrown out of your homes anyway. You should therefore move while you still have time." Sources said villagers nearby were sent for by the Burmese security forces in the area to haul out the earth from the holes. According to a Shan environmentalist, who visited to the site in 2000, there were 2 holes being dug out of the cliff on each side of the river, each at least 8ft in circumference and about 40ft deep. Sources who were there lately say the foreigners - Thai and Chinese - were digging further into the upper holes. It was during the diggings and blasting the death of the forced laborers occurred, they say. Among the dead, 1 was from Palao, and 2 from Hsophsim, both villages
further upstream, and the rest from Sala downstream. The Thais are also repairing the logging road leading from Sala to Palao, they said. Thai Sawad, a Burma-based Thai company that had been contracted to build the road confirmed the report. Bangkok-based MDX and Burma's Ministry of Energy signed an agreement
on 20 December to build the Tasarng Dam, located between Mongton and Mongpan
townships of Shan State. |
