Why Is the Salween River Being Dammed?
Destroying the environment for the short-term gain of a few has a long and unedifying history in mainland Southeast Asia. Damming rivers has been one important part of that history. Despite numerous examples of budgets being exceeded, performance targets unmet and long battles with protesting villagers whose homes and lifestyles have been taken away from them, it seems that dam-building days are back again.
The Pak Moon Dam was built in the northeast of Thailand, on the Mekong River as it divides the country from Laos. This region, known as Isaan, has long been on of the poorest in the country and one of the apparent motivations for building the dam was the short-lived Greening Isaan policy. This policy initiative had the additional benefit of providing advantages to key local constituencies influential in the prevailing administration of General Chatichai Choonhavan.
After several attempts to create a workable plan, the Pak Moon Dam was finally implemented as part of a Multipurpose Development Project and also received substantial support from the World Bank of around $US54 million. It was envisaged that the dam would lead to the production of hydroelectric power to the extent that the region could become self-sufficient in power generation and even export energy to Laos. At the same time, controlling the flow of water would prevent the cycle of drought and flooding which compounded the less fertile soil that also contributed to the poverty of Isaan.
However, self-sufficiency in energy for part of a country has no economic logic and, even though hydroelectric energy production was somewhat less than had been estimated, it was still more than necessary. The Asian financial crisis that erupted in Thailand in 1997 meant a significant lowering of demand for energy across the region and it is clear that there is no compelling logic for more energy capacity. At the same time, there has been increasing understanding of the dangers to the environment posed by large scale infrastructure projects, while the growth of the internet and information technology has made it increasingly possible for an international community of concerned citizens to lend their support to the displaced villagers.
The human cost of the dam has been most particularly felt by villagers forced to move from their ancestral homes; however, others have also suffered from disruption and especially those who had previously relied upon freshwater fishing as an important source of both income and protein. While research has suggested that overall levels of income in the affected area may have improved, there are certainly winners as well as losers. And those who are the losers have often been those who have been most vulnerable.
Protests, often vociferous and punctuated by physical confrontation with police and other officials, have continued for more than ten years. The state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), which is responsible for the dam, has been quite generous with compensation payments � of approximately $US240 million by the end of 2001. It also appears that, as would be expected, some claims for additional compensation are opportunistic rather than genuine. Nevertheless, it is clear that many people are unable as well as unwilling to adapt to a different lifestyle.
As it has become clearer that most dams cause widespread environmental damage to a much greater extent than their benefits can justify, various international campaigns have alerted people to the problems of dams. Public outcry, together with the realisation that dams rarely provide the economic benefits they had promised, has tended to make most governments think twice before committing themselves to new developments. In Thailand, it had appeared that successive governments would at the least not build any more dams.
Now, agreements are being signed with the government of Myanmar to develop a dam on the Salween River, together with other large-scale infrastructure projects. The Salween is the last of the major Rivers of mainland Southeast Asia to be dammed. Its length marks in part the border between Thailand and Myanmar and it is part of a region of great environmental importance and low economic and social development on both sides of the border. Despite the seven large-scale investigations of the feasibility of such a project, it was never before considered to be a suitable candidate for damming as a result of high potential costs and low potential benefits. So why is this happening now? Why has a Thai company - GMS Power � with the support of EGAT, signed an agreement with the government of Myanmar to construct a dam at Ta Sarn?
The government of Myanmar is one of the most unpleasant in the world. Its abuses of human rights are notorious. Of particular concern is the treatment of the ethnic minority peoples, most of whom of course live away from the central area of the country and its main cities. The Salween River at Sa Tang, where the dam is planned, runs through the Shan state. The Shans are subject to the depredations of the central government and, in particular, the armed forces. There are, for example, reports of the use of forced labour and of rape as a weapon in the attempt by the Myanmar military to suppress the Shan army rebellion aimed at independence. Smuggling of illegal drugs to provide funds plays an important part of the local political scene and access to valuable natural resources provides further incentive to enforce local control of the area.
There is a real concern that the government would use this opportunity to remove and silence a large number of people it considers to be troublesome. Even if the government wished to act in good faith, the administrative infrastructure of the country would be insufficient to allow the peaceable and appropriate resettlement and compensation of the affected peoples. And even if the dam were constructed with a minimum of disruption, it is most likely that its benefits will, as is the general case with dams, flow disproportionately to an elite and its negative outcomes disproportionately affect the weak and disadvantaged.
Thai-Myanmar relations have been troubled historically and incidents frequently occur to raise tensions. These include uncertainty as to exactly who is involved in the manufacture and distribution of illegal gods, armed encounters along the poorly demarcated border regions and occasional outbreaks of intemperate language by one or another side. The current administration of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has shown some indications of wishing for a rapprochement with its western neighbour. Such a diplomatic initiative is difficult to sustain in a part of the world where feelings and events can swiftly get out of hand: the recent riots in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, with their widespread destruction of Thai property and the evacuation of Thai citizens as the ostensible result of reported comments made by an actress show all too well how swiftly violent confrontation can be sparked by even seemingly trivial incidents.
In these circumstances, the joint construction of a major infrastructure development project would provide both sides with a reason to co-operate over the long-term. The decision by EGAT to purchase some of the electricity produced by the dam renders its continued operation of strategic importance to Thai society and industry. How much would the Thai government be willing to sacrifice to ensure that security?
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