Blaming China over the Droughts of Mekong is Wrong- Cambodian PM Hun Sen

via CAAI News Media

Tuesday, 06 April 2010 12:26 DAP-NEWS/ Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, April 6 – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday slammed foreign countries who put the blames on China over droughts of Mekong River is groundless.

Speaking at a country’s institute of agriculture Hun Sen said any blames on China over droughts of Mekong River is wrong and saying that the climate change globally was to be blamed instead.

“They are better blames Theravadas that is make more senses.”

Hun Sen, who attended the last week’s Mekong Summit in Hua Hin of Thailand along with other Asian leaders of the River members and scientists, said that there is a number of foreign countries have blamed China for main source of droughts.

“They are blaming China while China itself is being also victimized by droughts. Even China’s Lang Chang River has no water, too,” Hun Sen said.

“In the upper part of China in Yunan province is also facing huge droughts worse than Cambodia,” he said.

“Why they are blaming China,” he asked.

“The level of water in the Mekong River is totally depends on rain and the level of water fluctuates is depends of the climate change,” said Hun Sen in loud tone defending China who did nothing wrong related to the lower level of Mekong water.

“I am not defending China, but I saying this only to provide justice for China,” Hun Sen said he had a separate talk with China and Laos on his sidelines of the Mekong summit in Thailand.

Hun Sen also said that the climate change hit countries worldwide.

“Cambodia’s wells are dried up.”

“Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit told me that in Thailand there some areas can now produce only two times of crops a season from previously three as a result of lack of water,” he said.

“We—Cambodia, China, Lao and Vietnam—are facing droughts as well.”

Prime Ministers, of the Mekong River member countries, attended the weekend’s Mekong Summit which organized by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), on how to tackle the climate change and responding to the Mekong River’s droughts.

The Mekong River governments have agreed at the Summit to intensify efforts to protect at risk from flooding, encouraging river navigation and trade as well as improving basin water quality and the opportunities and challenges of proposed hydro-power plan, said the Mekong River Commission in a release was seen by DAP.

“As long as the water, which releases from the hydro-dam reservoirs, is not diverted to other areas but continues to release into the Mekong basin, the dams will not have any impacts on environment,” Hun Sen said.

Mekong’s Worst Droughts in Decades

Last month, Save the Mekong coalition said that droughts bring severe hardship to the Mekong communities.

The Mekong suffers its worst drought in decades, painfully demonstrating the importance of the river to the region’s people, and revived plans to build dams on the mainstream threaten the river’s ecology and resources, said the environmental group.

The group—which is a network of non-government organizations, community groups, academics, journalists, artists, fishers, farmers within the Mekong countries—called for greater cooperation to save the Mekong from being periled.

“The Mekong River is facing an increasingly severe drought that holds serious implications for river-side communities and the wider population of the Mekong region,” said release which was seen by DAP.

“The severe drought highlights once again the importance of the Mekong River and its resources to all riparian communities that live along it, as well as the wider Mekong basin population.

Cooperation under the MRC has failed to ensure a coordinated and preemptive response to the drought”.

“The Save the Mekong Coalition has consistently called for all actors to protect the Mekong River for present and future generations. We emphasize the importance of the river for the food security of millions of people throughout the region,” it said.

Conveying this message, in October 2009, a 23,110 signature petition was sent to the Prime Ministers of Cambodia, Lao, Thailand and Vietnam. The petition was also sent to the  Chairpersons of the National Mekong Committees (NMCs) of Cambodia, Lao, Thailand and Vietnam calling for a strong and trusted consultative process at the national and local level on development options for the Mekong River, which guarantees the participation of all riparian communities.

The people of Yunnan Province of China, Eastern Shan State of Burma, North and Northeastern Thailand and Northern Lao have especially suffered.

“Fish catch has declined, water for irrigated agriculture, livestock and drinking has become scarce, and river transportation has been grounded, affecting trade and tourism,” said the release.

The loss of fisheries, crops, livestock and drinking water has struck the livelihoods, food security and economies of some of the region’s poorest communities.

“In the context of the ongoing global economic crisis, these communities have few alternative means to see them through this disaster,” it said.

There is a high likelihood of far wider impacts throughout the Mekong basin, as the river is usually at its lowest in April and May.

“In Cambodia, the drought threatens the massive fisheries productivity of the Tonle SapLake, where the total fish catch each year is proportional to the extent of flooding, and is central to Cambodia’s food security and economy”.

“In Laos, river-side communities are already reporting scarcity of fish and lack of water for dry season, river bank horticulture”.

In the Mekong delta in Vietnam where over 10 million farmers and fishers live, saltwater intrusion threatens the farming and fisheries and has been reported in some places to have already extended nearly 60 kilometers in land, which is double the usual extent.

Given these apparently clear indicators foreshadowing the severity of the drought, available since at least September 2009, and that the Mekong River Commission Secretariat is charged with monitoring this data.

“The MRC Secretariat’s failure to warn the public and instigate precautionary actions amounts to a serious negligence on its part”.

This situation mirrors the earlier failure of the MRC Secretariat in August 2008 to warn with sufficient notice communities in Northern Thailand and Northern Laos whose livelihoods were devastated by the flooding.

“This failure was widely criticized by communities and NGOs at the time, and the recurrent situation indicates serious systemic incompetence within the MRC,” said the release.

“The Save the Mekong coalition remains disappointed over the MRC Secretariat’s poor record on transparency, access to data and belated action, now for the drought conditions as well as on the proposed Mekong mainstream dams, and calls for a public review of the MRC Secretariat’s performance.”

China’s dams on the Mekong River’s upper mainstream (Lang Chang) are also partially blamed for the drought.

“As a result, communities downstream in Northern Thailand, Burma and Laos have suffered loss of fish and aquatic plant resources impacting local economies and livelihoods”.

“These dams in China have been built without consultation, apology, disclosure of data, compensation or restitution, all of which are now long overdue,” said the release.

The first turbine of the Manwan dam—the first dam built on the Lang Chang came online in

1992—coinciding with the 1992-1993 Mekong’s droughts, said the release.

Construction of the second Lan Chang dam was completed in October 2003, coinciding with the 2003-2004 droughts. Construction of the third dam, Jinghong, was completed in late 2008. The Xiaowan Dam, presently filling its reservoir, has a reservoir capacity approximately five times larger than that of the combined storage of these three earlier dams.

The role that these dams played in earlier droughts has never been clarified or communicated; instead the facts have often been muddied. The Thai National Mekong Committee, for example, in a report this year on the drought identified the Manwan Dam to have started operation in 1994, rather than 1992, thus masking the potential implications of the dam during the 1992-3 drought.

The extreme suffering of the drought-stricken farmers in Yunnan province, China, is shared by fishers and farmers in Thailand and Laos.

The present severe drought and the extreme floods of 2008 testify to the dynamic nature of the river, but also to its seasonal variation and the need for a far more cautious approach to human intervention in the river’s future. More dams are not the solution to a warming world.

“The Save the Mekong Coalition is very concerned about recent announcements by the Thai government that has sought to justify dam construction to fix the drought”, includes the Ban Koum and Pak Chom mainstream dams. Building dams on the Lang Chang-Mekong River’s mainstream will further undermine the river’s resilience.