Villagers killed in Burma as the government prepares for the Salween Dam Project
I just saw the movie Blood Diamond today. It was a really great movie and many times during it, I teared up, saddened by the conflict in Sierra Leone in 1999 and with knowledge that such things go on in all parts of the world today. The main protagonist in the movie Leonardo DiCaprio said to the Jennifer Connelly character that the world has always been in chaos and that there is nothing anyone can do to really stop it. The Jennifer Connelly character gets jaded for a while, as she is a reporter and even though she constantly reports the victimization that goes on in different parts of the world, there is very little people in the first world who are moved beyond their apathy. So she fishes for the Big Story - one with evidence to show who is guilty- to bring down the companies and governments that go on encouraging the bloody wars. And of course, the BIG STORY is not without it's price.
I mainly blog about what is going on in Burma, for the same reasons that there are journalists out there who go into war torn countries to investigate: the need to tell the rest of the world what is going on behind the scenes. I don't think that I will ever get my BIG STORY even though I imagine it rather frequently. But I hope that someone else does.
It is with a mixture of sadness etched to growing detachment that tries to cling onto hope and faith that I relay to you the story from The Guardian about the mass killings that are going on in Eastern Burma today in the name of 4 big hydro dams that are to be built in Burma. Little or no electricity from the dams will even go into Burma. These are to be sold to Thailand or China for profit - for the government. And of course, east Burma has been known for its rich resources - mainly jade, etc. (And poppy plantations)
Excerpts from the article:
the newest offensive, out of sight in the jungle, is driven by the junta's aim to control resource-rich eastern Myanmar by enslaving some villages and destroying others -- killing, forcibly relocating or driving out the inhabitants.
"The regime uses development as an excuse for clearance," said Mark Farmaner of the UK-based advocacy group the Burma Campaign. "The generals say these are `development projects,' but they're cash projects. They invest massively in things like the dams and the revenues go straight to the dictatorship."
"The soldiers torture them," said Naw Ler Htoo of the Karen Teachers' Working Group that trains in the camps. "They cut off the ears and cut out their eyes. Then they leave their bodies, to terrorize the other villagers."
An estimated 95,000 people teeter on the brink of starvation in Myanmar, hiding in the jungle. The ranks of refugees in camps in Thailand have swelled to 153,000.
The flooding of vast areas will drive another 73,000 people from their land in Myanmar and 10,000 in Thailand. Environmentalists say the Salween's ecosystem will be devastated, jeopardizing 235 animal species. But the biggest fear is for the populace.
"These dam projects will just mean more and more forced labor, either on roads or the construction itself,"
