Huang Faxiang, the former director of the district land bureau in Fengdu received the death sentence from Chongqing municipal court on February 25 for stealing nearly $1.5 million (all figures in U.S. dollars) of Three Gorges resettlement funds.

The court also revealed that another official from the resettlement bureau in Wanzhou district (previously called Wanxian), near Chongqing city, was sentenced to life in prison last May for the same crime. Reports of massive graft have plagued the Three Gorges dam project since its construction got underway in 1994. In January, China’s auditor general reported that around $60 million dollars or 12 percent of the budget allocated for those displaced by the dam had been embezzled.(See Three Gorges Probe, February 21)

Three Gorges resettlement falls behind

Official resettlement plans are falling behind schedule, according to a March 10 article in Hong Kong Economic Journal. Chongqing city is expected to move 500,000 people by 2003 when the Three Gorges dam reservoir levels are scheduled to rise to 135 metres. But according to the city’s deputy mayor, Gan Yuping, Chongqing has only been able to move 130,000 people so far and has plans for moving another 100,000 people. Gan did not elaborate on what the city plans to do about the remaining 270,000 people.

Three Gorges farmers moved to Shanghai

Plans to move 5,500 farmers from the Three Gorges region to Shanghai are underway, according to a China News Service report on February 27. The first group of 160 families moved were from Yunyang, the poorest county in the Three Gorges region. Yunyang has to move a total of 36,000 people by 2003. This latest move is part of the central government’s plan to move 125,000 farmers out of the Three Gorges region in a desperate attempt to keep pace with construction of the Three Gorges dam.(See Three Gorges Probe, January 18)

If completed, the Three Gorges dam and its 600-kilometre long reservoir will displace close to two million people living along the banks of the Yangtze river.

Three Gorges Probe welcomes submissions. However, it is not a forum for political debate. Rather, Three Gorges Probe is dedicated to covering the scientific, technical, economic, social, and environmental ramifications of completing the Three Gorges Project, as well as the alternatives to the dam.

Publisher: Patricia Adams Executive Editor: Mu Lan ISSN 1481-0913