A
local resident looks out across the water from a small jetty last year
where the controversial Lower Sesan II Dam is planned in Stung Treng
province. Vireak Mai
Villagers in limbo as dam starts
Construction at the controversial Lower Sesan II dam site in
Stung Treng province has already begun, according to villagers, who will
today petition several ministries, the Chinese embassy and the
headquarters of the Royal Group to open negotiations with them.
According to the villagers, who travelled to Phnom Penh yesterday,
several families have already been relocated and offers of compensation
have been pitiful. The Royal Group is contracted to build the dam with
Chinese firm Hydrolancang International Energy Co Ltd.
“The compensation is unacceptable. It’s miserable. If we do not get
more compensation, we will not relocate,” Khoeurn said, adding that the
authorities plan to relocate them to a rocky hillside across the river
from their current villages, which are situated on arable land.
Adding to the villagers’ concerns, the companies have not considered that the communities’ burial grounds will also be flooded.
“Our graveyards and spirit places of our ancestors are not included
in the compensation list.… Many generations of our ancestors are buried
there,” Khoeurn said.
In late January, representatives of Hydrolancang met with Prime
Minister Hun Sen to discuss the project. The government then said it
would begin construction at the site in early February.
“The government only listens from the top down. It’s a decision between the government and companies,” Khoeurn said.
Meach Mean, coordinator of 3S Rivers Network, which represents some
75,000 people who may be affected by the dam, said that construction at
the site had already begun.
“All of the roads have been built, and they also began drilling in
the riverbed last month. And some villagers around the dam site, about
12 families, have received compensation and relocated,” he said.
Mean said yesterday that there was no clear policy on compensation,
while villagers said they had been offered about $50 per square metre.
He added that if construction proceeded without the firms providing a
proper relocation site, the government’s promises would have been
broken.
“It will be the opposite of what [Hun Sen] has said. He said water,
infrastructure, roads, hospitals, housing, everything would be ready
before the community began to move to the new village.”
Dam Samnang, 28, another community representative, begged the government to seek a solution to the dispute.
“The government does not think about us. We want them to talk to us,”
he said. “The problems are not solved yet, but the construction has
already started.”
Hak Vimean, deputy director for the provincial environment
department, declined to comment on the construction, and Tung Ciny,
deputy director general of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Energy,
could not be reached.
Mean said that the main problem with the companies’ relocation plan
was a lack of food security in the future, while some villagers, he
added, had only been offered 20 kilograms of rice and some lamp oil to
tide them over.
“This is the big problem in the future. When they are moving to the
new area, their occupation will be stopped, so they will not have any
income. They cannot produce agriculture [at the new site]. Twenty
kilograms of rice cannot sustain their families,” he said.
Representatives of the Royal Group and Hydrolancing did not immediately respond to requests for comment yesterday.
Ang & Associates, a Royal Group subsidiary, reportedly signed a
joint-venture agreement with local businessman Sok Vanna, the brother of
Sokimex founder Sok Kong, to clear the 36,000-hectare site in
preparation for the $816 million project. Construction of the dam is due
to be completed by 2017.
Ly Be, 60, a villager from the reservoir site, said: “It’s hopeless now, because construction has already started.”
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