Mizzima
The junta’s Ministry of Information has announced the formation of a steering committee to push forward the construction of the Myitsone Dam project on the Ayeyarwady River in Kachin State.
The announcement was ratified on 24 April by the junta and published by the Myanmar Gazette on 17 May.
According to the announcement, the steering committee will be led by the junta’s Deputy Minister of Electric Power and the Kachin State Government Minister of Natural Resources will be his deputy.
The steering committee will put in place a five-point coordination plan to help SPIC Yunnan International Power Investment Co. Ltd. (SPICYN), previously known as China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) to implement the dams. The committee will organise public relations and help with technical issues and research, according to the junta notification.
The Myitsone Dam project is a series of seven dams planned for the Irrawaddy, Mali Hka, and N’Mai Hka rivers. The largest and most infamous of the seven dams is the Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy River ,just downstream from where the Mali Hka, and N’Mai Hka rivers join to form the Irrawaddy, 23 miles from Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital.
The Myitsone Dam was first started in 2009 under the military regime. President Thein Sein suspended work on the Myitsone Dam in 2011, the year he became president. At that time there had been many public protests against the dam.
As President Thein Sein had only suspended the dam’s construction political activists, environmentalists and social activists called for the complete cancellation of the project.
The dam was supposed to be built by Chinese companies and China tried to restart the project when Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD came into power in 2018, but the NLD kept the project suspended throughout its tenure. Permission to restart work on the dam project was only given by the junta after the February 2021 coup.
The seven dams of the Myitsone project will produce over 20,000 MW of power.
Human rights activists and environmentalists are calling for the dam project to be completely cancelled. They are worried about the dams’ impact on the environment and people’s quality of life if the project comes back online after having been suspended for over 10 years. They also say that if the project goes ahead the Myanmar people will get the impression that China just wants to exploit Myanmar and be more likely to reject Chinese investment and involvement in the country.
