(March 15, 2006) Of all the problems facing the Three Gorges dam project, none has been more difficult than resettlement, says Probe International’s Dai Qing.

China is in the midst of what it says is one of the largest construction projects in history, the giant Three Gorges Dam, which will submerge scores of towns and villages along the Yangzi River. The project will require the resettlement of more than a million people. Many farmers living along the river are bitterly opposed to the move. All that’s left of the Liu family’s neighborhood on the banks of the Yangzi River is a pile of debris. Ms. Liu, who is only willing to give her last name, points at the bricks and rubble in front of her house. She says the houses around her have been completely destroyed, and all the neighbors have moved out. The government is demolishing the houses in Ms. Liu’s town, Wanzhou, and other river towns, to make way for the Three Gorges dam. Flooding for the dam will force the resettlement of at least 1.3 million people. Ms. Liu, her husband and teenage daughter are supposed to be gone by now, but they have no money to move out. “My husband and I have both been laid off,” she says. “We have nowhere to work now.” Countless other villagers along the Yangzi River are in the same predicament. A group of onlookers gathers around Ms. Liu as she talks, and she gestures to them all. “No one here has received any compensation,” Ms. Liu says. “There’s a document saying each person is supposed to get $3,600 for Three Gorges resettlement. But who here can get it? No one in this town has received any of it,” she says.

VOA News, March 15, 2006