By Rina Chandran
Yangon, Feb. 15, 2019: Catholic leaders are lending their support to those protesting a Chinese-backed dam project in Myanmar, adding pressure on the government to cancel the hydro-power dam in the country’s north.
Ongoing protests have brought together Catholic priests and nuns with hundreds of protesters in Myitkyina city to demand an end to the controversial project that activists say will damage the environment and force thousands off the land.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, the influential Archbishop of Yangon, in a sharply worded statement, said the dam project on the Irrawaddy river was an “environmental disaster” that would also hurt prospects for peace in the restive region.
“Myitsone dam is a death sentence to the people of Myanmar,” added the cardinal, who is president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.
“This river is the most sacred symbol of our nation; she is not a commodity to be bartered. For a peaceful future, Myitsone dam must be stopped,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in emailed comments.
Myanmar angered China in 2011 when its former quasi-civilian government suspended the $3.6 billion dam project amid environmental concerns.
The archbishop’s message on the Myitsone project wields considerable influence, said Debbie Stothard, secretary general of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
“The statement is significant,” she said.
“While Catholics form a small percentage of the population, the cardinal’s statements on social justice seem to have a resonance,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on February 13.
(Source: reuters.com, February 14, 2019)