Myanmar dam outrages many

YANGON, Myanmar, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Opposition is mounting against plans to dam the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar with critics saying the project will cause great ecological harm.

Observers said people living in the area might force the government to drop the project -- unprecedented in the country formerly known as Burma where a secretive military junta is in power.

Even government officials are divided about the wisdom of damming the Irrawaddy, the International Herald Tribune reported Thursday. One official began crying at a news conference last month, the Paris-based newspaper said.

Critics say the Myitsone dam, which will create a reservoir four times the size of Manhattan, will do great ecological harm. It is being built and financed by a Chinese company and 90 percent of its electricity will go to China.

"China has colonized Burma without shooting a gun and has sucked the life of the people of Burma with the help of the Burmese regime and its cronies," said U Aung Din, an exile from Myanmar in the United States. "Now, they are killing the Irrawaddy River as well."

The dam is in a remote area near the point where two smaller rivers join to become the Irrawaddy, an area many in Myanmar regard as sacred.

U Ludu Sein Win, a dissident writing in the Yangon newspaper Weekly Eleven, called for a halt to the project: "If the righteous demands of the people are ignored and they continue the dam project, the people will defend the Irrawaddy with whatever means possible."