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dam-l Reuters, "China Dam Critic Calls for Debate" Apr 5, 1999
China Dam Critic Calls For Debate
09:15 a.m. Apr 05, 1999 Eastern
BEIJING (Reuters) - An outspoken
Chinese critic of the Three Gorges
dam project has called for a public
debate on the world's biggest
hydro-electric project and urged
foreign investors to pull their funds
out of it.
``There must again be a free and
open debate,'' Dai Qing said in a
statement seen Monday.
``The government should again
allow unbiased experts the
opportunity to review'' the project
said the statement, issued to mark
the 10th anniversary on April 3 of
China's initial shelving of the dam.
It was revived by then premier Li
Peng, and parliament finally passed
the project in 1992 by a
surprisingly slim majority.
The mammoth dam is scheduled for
completion in 2009 and will create a
600 km-long (365 mile-long)
reservoir in the southwestern
province of Sichuan.
China says about 1.2 million people
will have to be displaced because of
construction of the dam.
Dai, an activist who led efforts to
have the project shelved in 1989,
said the project was the ``world's
responsibility'' because of huge
funding from abroad and she called
on foreign investors to stop
providing support.
Foreign governments and
companies were ``fully aware of the
problems associated with the dam,
but nevertheless chose to profit
from what is the most socially and
environmentally destructive project
in the world,'' she said.
International companies scrambled
to get a piece of the $29 billion
investment bonanza in 1997, with
firms including Siemens and
British-French GEC Alsthom
providing nearly a billion dollars
worth of generators and turbines.
Many of the problems that
concerned experts in 1989 were
''manifesting themselves as the
nightmare that is the Three Gorges
Dam,'' Dai said.
She said the ballooning dam budget
reduced funds for maintaining the
Yangtze's dykes and had helped
cause last summer's floods, the
worst in 40 years.
Dai's 1989 book ``Yangtze!
Yangtze!'' which argues that the
project is a monstrous white
elephant, has been banned in
China.
In recent weeks, there have been
several articles in the official
Chinese press criticizing the
project.
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