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May 1998 Around Asia

The Three Gorges Dam

It is the largest civil engineering project in the world: the damming of the Yangtze River in China to create a reservoir 400 miles long. The damming will submerge 150,000 acres, including 1500 factories and 16 archeological sites. More significantly, 1.5 million people living in 770 villages and 160 towns are being forcibly resettled, and being imprisoned or condemned to hard labor on the dam if they refuse. The Three Gorges Dam will be the largest dam in the world, is employing over 10,000 people, and will be in full operation by 2013. The aim is to create over 18,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide electricity for millions of Chinese and reduce China's dependency on polluting coal-fired power stations, which burn 1.2 billion tons of coal a year.

This is not the first time a dam has been built on the Yangtze. There have been plans for this dam since 1944. Nearly 40 years ago, the government of Mao Zedong built 62 of them, only for all the dams to be destroyed on August 7, 1975 in a massive earthquake. Concerns abound about the dam. Not only is it far from certain that this dam would survive an earthquake--which would unleash a catastrophic flood, but important "marker" species such as the extremely rare River Dolphin, the unique living fossil the giant sturgeon, and the Finless Porpoise are in danger. All these animals will suffer from the severing of the underwater pathway to the upper reaches of the Yangtze that took place in November 1997.

Teaching Recycling

In Beijing, the capital of China, a revolutionary school was created with the help of newspaper editor, Lu Qin. Beijing Taipinglu Primary School is the first in the city to impose a stringent recycling policy for its students. China's environment has suffered in recent years as the Western throw-away-mentality has seeped in, bringing with it heaps of trash and rubbish. Sources say that "Beijing, a city of 12 million people, discards some 220 million food cartons and 2.3 billion plastic bags each year." The new institution, funded by non-profit organizations, is attempting to recycle all trash, with six different bins available for many types of garbage. And to make recycling a bit more fun for the children, the bins are brightly colored and equipped with recorded messages, imploring the students to recycle. The project should be expanded to a few thousand more schools by the year 2000.

Taiwanese Dog Problems

According to In Defense of Animals, two million stray dogs in Taiwan are subjected to cruel and unusual methods of euthanasia. Dogs are burned, electrocuted or buried alive, drowned, starved, poisoned or beaten to death. These practices are frequently employed to remedy Taiwan's dog overpopulation problem. Some improvements have been introduced. More spay/neuter clinics now exist and better veterinary care is available in more areas; most canines in shelters now have access to food and water.

Bird Flu Not Dead Yet

While the Asian bird flu scare in Hong Kong poultry markets seems to have subsided, the global crisis of bacterially-infected chickens has not. The South China Morning Post reported March 5 that "two out of three chickens imported from the United States contain deadly bacteria despite having health certificates." The bacteria, known as campylobacter, has been blamed for more than 10 percent of diarrhea cases in Hong Kong, four times more than salmonella, one of the other diseases to which chickens are prone, and is the second most common bacterial cause of diarrhea in Hong Kong.

U.S. Training Indonesian Troops

The United States continues to train elite troops of the Indonesian army known as KOPASSUS. KOPASSUS is led by General S. Prabowo, son-in-law of President Suharto, and there is ample evidence he was involved in torturing and killing East Timorese civilians during their uprising a few years ago. According to John M. Miller of East Timor Action Network, reports of recent human rights violations in East Timor have been dismissed by the East Asia bureau of the State Department as "unfounded allegations" or "exaggerations." In recent years, the State Department's annual report has acknowledged that human rights in East Timor have deteriorated, and that torture and executions have become routine. Comparatively more lives have been lost in East Timor than in Bosnia or the Middle East.

Pol Pot Dies

Pol Pot, the genocidal former dictator of Cambodia, who during his rule from 1975-1979 killed as much as two million Cambodians in what became known as "The Killing Fields," died of natural causes in April. The dictator, who was 73, had recently been ostracized by his group, the Khmer Rouge, and had been subjected to a show trial a few months ago. He remained unrepentant of what he had done to the very end.

Animal Victims of Indonesian Forest Fires

Sixteen orangutans are among those who were rescued from forest fires which have plagued Indonesia over the last six to eight months. The 16, who were all unhurt, were rescued on the island of Borneo and are being kept at the Wanariset Orangutan Rehabilitation Center on the island.

The Center, which is home to 130 apes and can house only 20 more, is keeping the animals in large cages in the forest and teaching them how to socialize with other apes before returning them to the wild. Meanwhile, 33 orangutans rescued from poachers and fires last year have been released back into the wild. However, further drought conditions and shrinking habitats have researchers worried about the next few months. Barita Manullang, World Wide Fund for Nature orangutan conservation adviser, told Reuters that "these fires may well be the final push toward extinction" of Malaysian and Indonesian orangutans.

Smoke and Dollars

The 1997 fires that filled Southeast Asia with smoke caused over a billion dollars of damage, the Singapore-based Economy and Environment Study for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) and the Indonesia program of The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has reported. Indonesia suffered $1 billion in damages, nearly all from health costs, while Malaysia lost $300 million and Singapore lost $60 million in tourism revenue because of the smog. These costs do not take into account health care for long term smoke effects and the damage to biodiversity and forest ecosystems. The fires are still not over. Nearly one thousand fires continue to burn in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province as El Niño causes drought which creates fire-hazardous conditions and exacerbates fires already begun by loggers clearing forest.

Sihanouk Warns of "Total Ruin" in Cambodia

King Norodom Sihanouk, the king and spiritual leader of Cambodia, recently told reporters that "rampant illegal logging" which has encroached into wildlife preserves, national parks and other areas, is likely to mean "total ruin" for his country. Cambodia, wracked by civil war between Khmer Rouge guerrillas and the government of Hun Sen, which itself recently ousted Sihanouk's son Prince Norodom Ranariddh, has lost vast tracts of forest over the last 30 years. Forests now cover 40 percent of the land as opposed to 70 percent. Sihanouk said that logging was "a serious tragedy." Environmental groups have confirmed that there is extensive logging in Cambodia and very few of the remaining forests are untouched. Ranariddh recently returned to Cambodia, hoping for reconciliation with Hun Sen.

Hole in One...Forest That Is

The global expansion of interest in golf is destroying pristine forest and paddy fields throughout Asia, leading to erosion and flooding. Golf courses need 3000 cubic meters of water every day and also are likely to require massive amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers to maintain greens--all of which cause health problems among golfers, nearby residents, and the largely female workforce of groundskeepers. Nowhere has the expansion of golf courses been greater than in Southeast Asia, which had 45 golf courses in the 1970s, but now has over 500. Currently, Malaysia has 155 courses, Thailand 160, Indonesia 90, and the Philippines 80.

The Year of the Tiger?

Because 1998 is the year of the tiger, WWF is trying to highlight the desperate plight of the tiger in the wild. WWF reports that there are only 5000 to 7500 tigers still left. Currently, only five of the world's eight tiger subspecies survive, although in South China there are only 20 or 30 tigers left from a population 40 years ago of 4,000. The Siberian tiger is nearly extinct because of severe poaching.

British Oil Firm "Cashing in on Brutal Regime"

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi [see review editorial] has accused Premier Oil, a British oil company, of helping to keep the Burmese junta known as SLORC in power by buying Texaco's $256 million stake in a $640 million offshore gas project.

In spite of calls for international sanctions against Burma, the Premier's executives are singing the same tune used by British Petroleum in its dealings with the repressive Abacha regime in Nigeria. Premier's chief executive is reported by London's Daily Telegraph as saying: "We are not in the business of politics. We firmly believe constructive engagement benefits the development of the country much more than trying to shut it off from the world." Meanwhile, human rights groups have accused SLORC of forcibly relocating villagers, using forced labor, and clearing away those who stand in the way of the project.

The Telegraph quotes Suu Kyi as saying: "Premier Oil is not only supporting this military government financially, it is also giving it moral support and it is doing a great disservice to the cause of democracy. It should be ashamed of itself.

"Any company that deals with a repressive government contributes to repression in the country. It makes this government think that it is all right for them to violate human rights as long as there are big companies that will deal with them."

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