South China Morning Post
June 12, 2001

Son La to go ahead despite fears: Vietnamese governing politburo has given the green light to what might become Southeast Asia’s largest hydro power project, amid human rights concerns over forced relocation of 100,000 people.

The governing politburo has given the green light to what might become Southeast Asia’s largest hydro-power project amid human rights concerns over the resulting forced relocation of 100,000 people to a part of the country rife with social unrest.

According to state-controlled media reports yesterday, Communist Party Secretary-General Nong Duc Manh told Vietnam’s National Assembly when it met on Sunday in Hanoi that the 15-member Politburo had approved the massive project in northwestern Son La province as part of a larger plan to boost economic development.

Construction is anticipated to start in earnest in 2003, and will see more than 100,000 mainly ethnic-minority people moved to the Central Highlands provinces, where a flood of migration over the past 20 years has been identified as a major contributor to a rebellion by indigenous tribal groups earlier this year.

The Government is considering three options for the project costing between US$1.6 billion (HK$12.5 billion) and US$5.1 billion. It is expected to generate up to 3,600 megawatts of electricity and will require the flooding of more than 450 square km of Son La and neighbouring Lai Chau province.

Mr Manh told the assembly the project would not only supply much-needed electricity to north Vietnam’s struggling economy but also would play an important role in opening up new agricultural areas through irrigation while improving flood control in the heavily populated Red River Delta.

But foreign donors, embassies and non-governmental organisations working in Vietnam’s northwest said yesterday they knew little of the plan and expressed concern that the full social impact had not been taken into proper account.

“Most governments are at risk of being blinded by this type of prestige projects which see economic development potential overshadow the longer-term social costs of such a massive relocation,” the head of one major multilateral donor said.

“We haven’t been approached for finance, but if we were to be approached we would argue that social impact should be a bigger factor in any assessment.

“Our bias would be that Vietnam still has huge, untapped reserves of natural gas, the exploitation of which would be a lot less disruptive.”

Earlier this year Nguyen Van Lang, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, conceded that immigration pressure was a significant factor behind widespread social unrest that rocked the region in March. The population in the province, where those dislocated by the project are likely to be resettled, has increased six-fold since 1975.

Mr Lang said further immigration would only increase that pressure, but that if Hanoi ordered the relocation, local authorities had no choice but to comply.

The Son La People’s Committee declined to comment on the project. But Professor Nguyen Tri Vieng, of Hanoi’s Water Resources University, agreed the social and political fall-out could be severe.

“We are aware of the potential political impact, but we have very few alternatives,” he said. “The project has been planned for 20 years so the people have been living with uncertainty for a long time. The Government prefers relocation nearby, but neither Son La nor Lai Chau has much available arable land.”