UPROOTED: The entire village, once nestled on the bank of the Sesan, moved about 100 metres inland to higher ground in 2000. The old site of the Kanat Douch village flooded in 2006 following sporadic releases of water from upstream dams.
04/18/2007Source: NGO Forum on Cambodia
Posted by Peak OnlinePowell River Peak reporter Luke Brocki travelled to Cambodia and Vietnam after winning a fellowship administered by the Jack Webster Foundation and funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.
The second installment in his series of development-related stories looks at the lives of indigenous minority groups along the Sesan River in Cambodia's Ratanakiri Province. Brocki gathered data from personal accounts, academic studies and history books to explain the impacts of Vietnamese dam construction on downstream village communities.
Sesan struggles
"Yesterday morning, we could see the sand," says the village elder. "For the last two weeks, the river was so dry we could ride motorcycles to the other side."
We're standing on the sunny shores of the Sesan River in the jungle of Cambodia's Ratanakiri Province, on a large tributary of the Mekong River recognized in Vietnam for its hydro power potential. Two other rivers, the Sekong and Srepok, join the Sesan in Cambodia before flowing into the Mekong; together they contribute about 20 per cent of the Mekong's water. For comparison, all of Thailand contributes about 10 per cent.
"And during the rainy season, riverbanks cannot contain the water," says elder Kosal Teouy of the Kanat Douch village. "We moved the village up here in 2000, afraid of being swept away by the sporadic releases of water from the upstream dam."
Teouy's village is one of 12 in the area that abandoned the riverbank for the safety of the surrounding hills. The fears of the villagers proved justified; the site of the old village flooded in 2006.
"The water at the moment is clear, but it looked murky and mixed with oil over the last year and during dam construction," Teouy tells me through a translator.
A large group of wet children chase each other around the shore, while another couple of youngsters push a long and narrow wooden boat around the calm water with a long oar, like gondoliers.
"The children get a rash when they swim in the river; their skin gets red and itchy," he tells me when the group passes us.
The water is also no longer drinkable. The village gets its drinking supply from a well, recently dug by a German non-governmental organization (NGO). "It's very difficult to find food to eat," Teouy says. The main diet consists of rice and salt, with traces of fish, meat and wild vegetables when available.
The villagers are used to seasonal fluctuations of the water table and even to flooding during the wet season, but since the dam construction, the river levels have been changing frequently and erratically. Diurnal fluctuations of the water table have made fishing and farming difficult, if not impossible.
The basin's entire ecosystem is in danger, with many varieties of riverine plants having dwindled because of unnatural flooding, and bird and turtle nests having been swept away.
"We've made several requests to the government to stop dam construction, but the government doesn't respect the demands of the people. The situation is becoming worse and worse."
The politics of power
Cambodia's young democracy hasn't yet been the catalyst for change. Reigning prime minister Hun Sen was appointed to government by Vietnam while Cambodia was under Vietnamese military occupation in the late 1970s. Initially with the Khmer Rouge, Hun Sen changed sides and was selected for a leadership role in the rebel government Vietnam was installing in Cambodia after overthrowing the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in 1978. He ruled as a despot until 1991, when the Paris Peace Accords mandated democratic elections. His party, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), went on to win the 1993, 1998 and 2003 elections. Today, the CPP has a majority in the National Assembly of Cambodia, but governs in coalition with the royalist Funcinpec party, which won 20 per cent of the national assembly's 123 seats in 2003.
Various political opponents accuse Hun Sen of being a puppet of Hanoi due to his past ties with the North Vietnamese, but he defends the charges with claims that he represents only the Cambodian people. More recent political opponents outside the country accuse him of being a corrupt dictator who controls the country by force.
Kanat Douch is beginning to despair. This group of a few dozen villagers is by no means alone. More than 55,000 people have suffered severe impacts to their health and livelihoods because of upstream dam construction along the Sesan. For these indigenous groups, the nightmare began with the completion of Vietnam's US$1 billion Yali Falls Dam, about 80 kilometres upstream from Cambodia's border. Construction on the 720-megawatt dam began in 1993 and was completed in 2000, funded by loans from Russian and Ukrainian governments. Since then, the World Bank last paid for an electrical transmission line that transports power from the dam south to Ho Chi Minh City.
By 1993, Vietnam had a fledgling environmental law that called for mandatory environmental impact assessments (EIAs) of major investment projects, including large-scale hydroelectric dams, but the law lacked regulations and guidelines to govern transboundary issues. Thus, downstream impacts of the Yali Falls Dam, now known to extend through Ratanakiri and as far as Cambodia's Stung Treng Province, some 300 kilometres downstream, were not investigated in the EIA. Construction pressed on and six other dam sites have since been identified for the upper Sesan River Basin; most of them are complete and operational today.
Development gone wrong
Since about 2000, flurries of studies and reports have been emerging as academics, local advocates and members of the media noticed downstream impacts.
According to a 2002 briefing paper by the International Rivers Network, the worst erratic releases of water occurred while the dam was under construction from 1996 to 2000, resulting in flash flooding downstream, causing deaths of at least 36 people and hundreds of thousands of livestock, and destruction of rice fields, vegetable gardens and fishing gear totaling about US$800,000.
In late 2005, the NGO Forum on Cambodia released a report documenting serious violations of international law under the 1995 Mekong River Agreement. The agreement calls for immediate cessation of transboundary harms as soon as victims speak out and for the resolution of disputes within a timely manner. That dialogue is only now beginning.
A 2007 paper co-authored by Canadian Ian Baird and Australian Andrew Wyatt, about to be published in the International Journal of Water Resources Development, examines transboundary impacts in detail in the Sesan River Basin. Baird and Wyatt identify as challenges the failure to implement standard international planning processes and the failure to follow due process in dam planning, construction and operation, despite the availability of international expertise and funding. "Weak technical and financial capacity on the part of the downstream country, Cambodia, has allowed the politically dominant upstream country, Vietnam, to impose its national interests on downstream communities in Vietnam and Cambodia," they stated.
Forging connections
A key figure on the front lines of the human rights battle, Kim Sangha, came to Ratanakiri six years ago. He planned to stay for one year, but became involved with a local NGO-3SPN, the three S-rivers protection network.
The 38-year-old Phnom Penh native couldn't leave once he saw the problems these indigenous groups were facing, and the hopelessness that was settling in after years of denial and inertia from powerful people able to effect change. Now coordinator of 3SPN, Kim spends his days visiting local villages and educating villagers about their rights to voice concerns and bring their problems to the attention of Cambodia's young democratic government.
"Our role is to report the concerns of the people and build up a local movement," he says in an interview in Kanat Douch village. "We organize many events and workshops, let villagers and officials debate the issues."
Kim fights for the demands of the villagers: bringing back the natural flow of the river, compensation for their losses and a guarantee of their safety in the future through a strong communication system.
"Right now, the villagers' participation in the projects is very limited," he says. "In Vietnam, they have policies for resettlement programs with compensation. In Cambodia, nothing."
His latest focus is on creating strong regional linkages between the villages in Ratanakiri to help villagers communicate and make them understand their rights. "Every year, we organize about 25 commune workshops to bring people together and dispense new information about dam construction and action plans for the villages. We need to push government on this issue."
Cambodia's minister of environment, Mok Mareth, was not immediately available and did not return my messages by deadline. Kim's luck was a little better.
"We talk with government often, but still don't know if the political will is there to help us," he says. "There were talks around equitable benefit sharing, which is a very good message given by government, but the government desires to develop economically. Sometimes this looks like a game they play to build more dams in the region and sell power around the country."
But Sangha refuses to lose hope. When asked about his source of motivation, he says he's driven by the promises of choice in a democratic society.
"There's a new election every five years," says Sangha. "Something has to change. We don't yet have a real democracy, but if we want one, it will have to happen through mobilization of the people. The children of government officials go to the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to learn about democracy. Maybe they'll use the new ideas. I hope it won't come to a revolution, but we have to fight for the people."
TIMELINE OF DAM IMPACTS
November 1993: Construction begins on the US$1 billion Yali Falls Dam.
1996: Major flooding hits northeastern Cambodia, including Ratanakiri and Stung Treng provinces. Dam construction begins to alter the flow of the Sesan River.
1998: The Yali Falls Dam reservoir is completed.
1999 to 2001: Water releases, spills and surges from the Yali Falls Dam cause a series of deaths and other downstream damage in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Early 2000: Reports of surges and deaths appear in the media. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) Secretariat begins an investigation.
April 2000: MRC involvement leads to steps for advanced warnings of water releases. Independent consultants draft a report reminding Vietnam about its international obligations, calling for remedial efforts and compensation for affected communities. Vietnam never accepted, finalized, or officially published the draft.
April 2002: The Yali Falls Dam officially opens.
November 2002: A Vietnamese official acknowledges water releases and apologizes for downstream impacts.
June 2005: Villagers from Ratanakiri send a petition to the Cambodian government, again listing their demands for action surrounding the dam. They have yet to receive compensation.
Currently: Frontline local NGOs (non-governmental organizations), in partnership with philanthropic giants such as the McKnight Foundation, Oxfam Australia and Oxfam America, continue to educate and mobilize indigenous minorities to fight government and end the injustice.
