Myanmar’s prominent Catholic Church leader has urged the country’s newly elected government to halt the controversial Myitsone dam project in northern Kachin state, which is widely viewed as environmentally and culturally destructive. Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon explained to UCANEWS that if Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy that won the Nov. 8 election, really wants to fulfil the desire of the people she should follow the desire of the ethnic Kachin people.
The $3.8 billion dam, slated to be the 15th largest hydroelectric power station in the world when completed by 2017, is being built on the Irrawaddy River, Myanmar's premier waterway, to provide power almost exclusively to neighboring China.
By 2010, the dam's construction caused at least 2,000 people to be relocated from their ancestral homes in Aung Myin Thar village. The military-backed government of President Thein Sein suspended construction in September 2011, while China vigorously agitated for recommencing work on the project. (Courtesy of Vatican Radio)
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