Word: dammed
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...Xiaogang, 53, the founder of Green Watershed, realized that the millions of villagers affected by China's 80,000 dams are a powerful weapon. Tens of thousands facing relocation in Sichuan province rioted last October over compensation for their paddy lands along the Dadu River. They formed a "dare-to-die brigade" that held a local official hostage until Beijing dispatched paramilitary police to the area. At least two smaller demonstrations followed in neighboring provinces. Since the media are barred from reporting on trouble at dam sites, peasants remain ignorant of resettlement problems elsewhere. "If people know what's happened...
Last summer Yu chartered a bus and drove peasants from a proposed dam area along the upper Salween to visit a 10-year-old dam a few hours away. The government had celebrated the Manwan Dam as a model of development for its cheap electricity and successful relocation of 3,500 people. The visitors saw something different: peasant women picking through the hydropower station's garbage dump for plastic bottles to recycle for pennies. Sobbing, the women explained that they had not found jobs after losing their land. The scene was captured in an underground documentary that environmentalists have passed...
...even taken a page from civil rights struggles elsewhere by promoting a living symbol for the anti-dam movement. Ge Quanxiao, a farmer from the Jinsha River area, stands to lose his home to a planned dam. Yu arranged elocution lessons for Ge and taught him to protect himself by invoking political slogans introduced by China's leader, Hu Jintao. He brought Ge to Beijing to address a United Nations Development Program conference on dams and plead for villagers' right to review settlement plans. Most of all, Yu armed Ge with information to take back to his fellow villagers...
Thanks to such pressure, Beijing has at least started to plan more carefully. Wang Yongchen, a radio journalist who runs the China Rivers Network, an umbrella organization for anti-dam groups, meets frequently with officials at the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) to argue that mandatory environmental impact assessments are often inadequate. SEPA agreed and issued desist orders in January to 30 construction projects. Although construction has restarted on all but four, Wang realized that "we can work with the government...
...such incremental successes cause little celebration in remote villages. After the peasants returned home from the Manwan Dam, police called a meeting. "They told us we'll bear responsibility if anybody talks about what was seen," says a villager. "Now we know the real situation, but there's nothing we can do." A few miles upstream, workers for the China Huadian Corp. are drilling 500-ft.-deep holes as part of the proposed dam's geological test. The government has not divulged its plans. And the party has ordered newspapers to stop reporting on debates over dam construction. But opposition...