Vietnam begins to accept the negative impacts occuring on Cambodia

Raksmey Kampuchea Newspaper

Phnom Penh:Senior staff of Non-Governmental Organizations, who are working with indigenous people, said that Vietnam authorities seem to partially accept the struggle of indigenous people living along Se San, Sekong and Srepok River after these people have done advocacy work due to the negative impact, caused by hydropower dams on the upstream of those three rivers.

The Se San, Sekong and Srepok are vital rivers which flow across three provinces, Mondulkiri, Rattanakiri and Stung Treng provinces in the north-eastern part of Cambodia. These rivers are water and income resources for indigenous communities, who include the Kachok, Lao, Tampuon, Kavat,
Prao, Lorn, Khe, Krueng .etc but, during the recent years, neighboring countries, especially Vietnam, have started to construct hydropower dam upstream, which is a water resource and those constructions caused a lot of
environmental issues for local communities.

Mr. Tep Bunnarith, Executive Director of CEPA, working at Stung Treng province, told Raksmey Kampuchea that after indigenous people met problems caused by hydropower dams on the upstream river, indigenous communities living along the river did a lot of activities until Vietnamese authorities accepted and promised to respond to the demands of those communities.

Mr.Tep continued that indigenous communities are working in order to hook the attention of the national and international voice.

Mr.Tep said that public sector ignored those local people first but, after those people learned to unite together, they were recognized and neighboring countries especially Vietnam, who constructed Yali Dam, promised a lot to
compensate to the local communities.

Mr. Tep indentified, "Even through Vietnam did not respond strongly to the demands of ethic minorities but recently I learned that Vietnam is constructing a new dam which will cost 12 million USD so as to re-regulate the water current which is impacted by Yali Dam and Vietnam promised to
research about the impacts."

Mr. Kim Sangha, Executive Director of 3SPN, indicated that recently Vietnam did promise some points with ethic communities and donors after Vietnam Mekong Committee met with civil society and donors along with other partners.

Mr. Kim said, "After demanding for many years, Vietnam promised for the first time but we have not seen any response from this promise yet."

Mr.Kim continued that after the announcement of constructing a dam for re-regulating the water current, Vietnam promised to do research about impacts, and Vietnam will announce openly about all hydropower dam plans
throughout the media. At the moment, it has not taken any action and, moreover, recent reports said that Vietnam is constructing more and more hydropower dams more on the Srepok River.

He emphasized "I've learnt that Vietnam is constructing 4 dams and 2 other dams are being studied but they also promised to construct a re-regulating dam once all the other dams are constructed".

A report from indigenous communities along the Sesan River described about the environmental issues, at the time-being, occurring in their communities such as the lose of fish species and fish catches, a swallow river, mud,
irregular water levels, and water at times causing itchy-ness, diarrhea as well as vomiting. Indigenous communities along the Sekong River also reported about the decrease in fisheries and non-timber forest products flooding, flooded schools, swallow river which causes difficulty in travel
and diseases occurs due to the change of river flow, which also affects on their beliefs and culture.

Mr. Bunnarith said, the report showed a lot of complaints from the community on the issues related to their living after the construction of hydropower dams by Vietnam but as of yet, a scientific study has never been conducted.

He added that "from time to time, the villagers confirmed to live with skin diseases, diarrhea, polluted water, lost properties and fish species but the scientific research for the argument has not been conducted yet, thus the
government should pay attention to that". He continued, indigenous communities are waiting for this kind of research to clearly understand the root cause.

Until now the impacts on ethic communities, living along the three rivers, has mostly been caused by hydropower dams on the upstream, especially, hydropower dams in Vietnam, Yali Dam, which provides 720 MW. In addition,
Lao P.D.R and Vietnam are continuing to construct many hydropower dams such as the Se San 3, Se San 4, Sekaman.etc.