Is the Myitsone Dam Burma’s WMD?

For the last several years, there has been rumors and speculation that Burma’s military junta was attempting to secretly build or acquire a nuclear weapon. But now the country’s new quasi-civilian government is unapologetically charging ahead with the construction of a potential weapon of mass destruction right in front of everybody’s eyes—the Myitsone Dam.

Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].

Located on the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State just 1.6 km below the confluence of the Mali and N'Mai rivers, the Myitsone Dam project has already displaced thousands of residents and will displace many more once it is completed and 766 sq km are flooded to create a giant reservoir. In addition, the negative environmental and social impacts of building a dam at the source of Burma’s most important waterway will harm the lives of millions of people not just in Kachin State, but throughout the country. Last but certainly not least, because the dam is being built less than 100 km from a major tectonic fault line, if an earthquake causes the massive dam to break then the loss of life would be catastrophic.

As a result, protests against the Myitsone Dam have been growing, with activists inside and outside of Burma coordinating their efforts and joining the Kachin Independence Army and the people of Kachin State—who have been fighting against the construction of the dam since its conception—in a push to stop the joint China-Burma hydropower project .

In what has now been coined the “Save the Irrawaddy” campaign, many scholars, publishers, journalists, activists and public figures have been at the forefront, actively educating the public and advocating a halt to the dam project, which was begun without any public participation in the decision making process. The movement has gained momentum through the use of Internet social networking sites such as Facebook, and last week in-person events were held around Rangoon, with many of Burma’s prominent intellectuals, politicians, students and activists gathering to show campaign solidarity.

At the “Save the Irrawaddy” art exhibition, more than 100 photographs, paintings, drawings and cartoons were displayed, although Burma’s censorship officials inspected the show in advance and removed some cartoons that were critical of the government.

Burma’s Pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi attended the exhibition, and told those present that, “People need to unite if they are to achieve what they want,” a message implying that the campaign to stop the Myitsone Dam could also become a rallying point for Burma’s opposition forces and ethnic minorities in their efforts to bring democracy and human rights to the country.

The “Save the Irrawaddy” campaign was recently fueled by Zaw Min, Burma’s minister of electric power, who arrogantly announced that the government would continue with the Myitsone Dam project regardless of the public outcry.

“We'll keep working on the Myitsone Project. We'll never back down. We won't halt this project in spite of objections from environmental groups,” said Zaw Min, who asserted that the dam will not affect water levels on the river nor have any adverse environmental effects.

Zaw Min also said that the dam would be constructed in a fashion that ensures safety for nearly one thousand years, but critics argue that other Chinese-built dams have poor safety records and the world's largest, the Three Gorges Dam, has caused urgent environmental, geological and social problems.

If the Burmese government continues to thumb its nose at the public campaign in this fashion, it is likely that the protests will grow even louder and stronger and could in fact turn into a bigger social movement.

In any event, the anti-Mytisone Dam protests will no doubt test President Thein Sein and his new government, which came to power in a sham election orchestrated by the former military junta. It was this previous regime that signed the dam project agreement with China and contracted with AsiaWorld, a private Burmese company, for construction of the dam. AsiaWorld and its owner, Steven Law, are on the US and EU sanctions list.