Civil society condemns China for controlling Mekong

China has controlled Mekong’s water level for more than two decades and it is ruining local people’s way of life in the downstream countries, said civil society. 

 

Previously, China has released water from a dam in Yunnan on their territory claiming that this policy aims to ease drought among Mekong downstream countries (further detail). However, such policy has caused a sudden increase of water levels in Mekong and largely affected local people in the downstream countries.

 

To respond to such policy, The Network of The People in Eight Mekong Provinces held a seminar on topic “Mekong River: Whose River is it? Is China Really Saving Us From Drought?”. The seminar was held at Thai Service Volunteer Building, Bangkok.

 

At the discussion, Montri Chanthawong, from Mekong Ecological Recovery Project, said that China has arbitrarily controlled upper Mekong river for 23 years. Therefore, the recent sudden flood of Mekong river is actually nothing new, but the problem is that China try to claim that such policy is for the sake of downstream countries which is absolutely not true.

 

“The purposes of the six Mekong dams in China for electricity generation, commodity shipping and reserving water during rainy season. China never cares about downstream local people at all.” Said Montri.

 

Montri added that before the first dam, the Manwan dam, was constructed in 1993, the water level went up and down naturally and predictably, but since China has finished building six dams, the water level has been fluctuated and unpredictable.

 

This major change directly affects the local’s way of life in term of agriculture, fishing, tourism and ecological system.

 

Aomboon Thipsuda, from Community Council of Seven Mekong Sub-districts, said, according to ecological study, Mekong has at least 20 fishing areas within the Thai territory. 

 

Previously, local people demarcated those areas together and promised not to overlap one another, but they cannot do that anymore since the fluctuation of water has destroyed most of the fishing areas.  

 

After the seminar, the network read a statement demanding governments of six Mekong countries, including, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, to listen to the downstream local and postpone the further construction projects of Mekong dams.