Villagers unhappy with ITD relocation plans

August 2 | Author: Nan Thoo Lei (KIC) | Posted in Articles | Tags: Dam, Dawei Project

Ka Loat Hta villagers are dissatisfied with the Italian-Thai Company relocation plans for their village that will make way for a hydropower dam that will flood their homes and farmlands.
A villager from Ka Loat Hta told Karen News that people would have to move even though they do not want to.
“The relocation hasn’t started yet, but they [ITD] have already marked and measured our lands. For sure, the whole village will be under water because of this project. Although we don’t want to move, we have no choice.”
The hydropower dam is to be constructed near Ka Lont Hta village on the Talineya River that runs into Tanintharyi River, Ye Hsu Township in Tenasserim Division.
Ko Area, a resident from Dawei Town explained Karen News that ITD officials are now negotiating with the villagers who will be relocated or affected by the dam project.
“We’ve heard that they [ITD] will rebuild houses for villagers who are relocated to another area. Villagers say they don’t want to move. Villagers do not want to be relocated to other villages or to other areas that are far away.”
Ko Area said that ITD officials are offering compensation. Villagers will get 300,000 kyat for a rubber tree that produces rubber, 150,000 kyat for an immature rubber tree and 500,000 kyat for an acre of unworked land.
Ko Area said ITD are eager to get villagers to accept the compensation offer.
“The company officials are saying that if the villagers agree, they will get them to sign and then they will pay out the compensation.”
According to sources living in the area, villagers think the ITD compensation offer for rubber trees is too low and some villagers are demanding a higher rate. Villagers who do not want to lose their plantation are organizing themselves to protest to save their lands.
In what appears to be bad news for those villagers who refuse to move, an article in the Myanmar Alin [New Light of Myanmar], a state owned newspaper, reported that President Thein Sein, during his meeting with Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, agreed to step up efforts to finish the Dawei deep-sea port project.
The Italian-Thai Development Company is a Thai owned company that is developing the $60 billion mega Tavoy/Dawei Development Project in Tavoy, Southern Burma. The project includes a deep-sea port, a 250-square-kilometer light and heavy industrial zone, a 4,000-megawatt coal-fired power plant, and railways links to the Thai border in Kanchanaburi.