A correspondent
Karen State, Burma
The dams will create vast reservoirs that will inundate lands the KNLA calls its own. Building the dams is a win-win scenario for the SPDC generals. The hydropower that is produced will be sold across the border in Thailand, generating revenue for an incredibly rich elite. And territory friendly to the rebels who fight their soldiers will be rendered impassable. At gunpoint the population of these camps is forced to labour, to work to build dams that will flood their former homes and possibly drown their aspirations of forming their own nation.
ON Sunday at dusk rebel fighters loaded guns into boats to cross the Salween River from Thailand into Burma. They will be used to fight soldiers of Burma’s ruling military junta.
One of guerilla group’s lieutenants spoke of his army’s desperate bid to stop construction of three major hydropower projects along this wild and untamed river. “We have to stop construction of these dams, we must stop them,” said Lieutenant Myi Suu.
Lieutenant Myi Suu is a soldier of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union political bloc formed in 1947 and holding out against the overwhelming military force of Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
The SPDC troops number about 500,000, the KNLA about 10,000.
The dams will create vast reservoirs that will inundate lands the KNLA calls its own. Building the dams is a win-win scenario for the SPDC generals. The hydropower that is produced will be sold across the border in Thailand, generating revenue for an incredibly rich elite. And territory friendly to the rebels who fight their soldiers will be rendered impassable.
The Salween is home to more than 7,000 species of plants and 80 rare or endangered animals and fish. UNESCO says it “may be the most biologically diverse temperate ecosystem in the world” and designated it a World Heritage Site in 2003.
Slave labour is being used to build the dams.
Maps from the Thailand Burmese Border Consortium (TBBC) show locations of forced relocation encampments where people have been corralled. They are all clustered around major infrastructure projects the generals oversee as they gather wealth incomprehensible to just about any Burmese citizen. At gunpoint the population of these camps is forced to labour, to work to build dams that will flood their former homes and possibly drown their aspirations of forming their own nation.
The TBBC’s Leonard Buckles believes the Salween dams may well be the end for the Karen and their fight. “The political wing is dead,” he said in the Thai-Burma frontier town of Mae Sot. Mr Buckles believes donors are more likely to support action inside Burma, dealing directly with the generals.
Australian Chris Clifford, a field worker for the TBBC, sighs as he speaks of ‘donor fatigue’ and the reduced calorie count being allotted to displaced people seeking refuge in Thailand.
He says funding is gradually being withdrawn from the camps and one day soon there will be nothing to sustain people who have languished in the camps for almost a quarter of a century.
Some of the camp’s residents were born here, and have known nothing else.
After delivery of the guns on Sunday night, the Karen soldiers sang sorrowful war songs as we made our way home, safe on Thai territory.
