N 59   The abused Salween  (part 2 )

Now I didn’t see any more of these boats when a year ago there were hundreds of them. People said they came from the upper part of the Salween and stayed around Takaw for some years. During this time I often heard people talked about them with much discontentment.

  

  I heard that each boat was worth about 1000 lakhs. Until the silt from the river bed became gold everything was done on the boat. They used amphetamine tablets and also fed them to the Shan labourers whom they hired although the number may be small. They could not speak our languages and they were rude. When they came to buy things in Kali they pointed to things with their feet which is an action our people cannot accept. Once a Chinese hit and killed a child in Kali. (while he was high on drugs, I think ) One of them even tried to marry a Shan girl by giving her parents 50 lakhs as dowry. But it was prevented in time by officials and the girl escaped marrying a Chinese and an unknown fate.

During last year I heard there were some commotions about the boats. There had been shootings and arrestings and some Chinese brought to justice.But I think this was only for show while the Chinese and some of our people got away with the gold riches.

    

  Salween which is one of our big rivers to be  manipulated illegally by foreigners is a very shameful event , not for the people but for the government. Is there a government who will allow foreigners to come and extract the country’s resources illegally ? Where were all the immigration people to let Chinese penetrate deep into the country ? Can Burmese people go into China and do what they like ? These were the questions we are asking ourselves and the answer we give ourselves is the very common   "corruption” . If they can pocket the bribe money they will not care for anything whether it be the face of the country or it’s people.

    

 During this time I didn’t hear people from outside talking about this.. Protesting noises about building dam on the Irrawaddy was loud and big but no noise could be heard concerning this illegal gold extracting on our Salween. I admit that our Shan people are timid and don’t want to cause trouble but it is the government’s duty to protect the country and it’s resources, not to sell them to foreign people illegally and pocket the benefits which is only a fraction of the profits they earned.

May 25^th 2014

N 58            The abused Salween (Part 1  )

The  Salween is the biggest river in the Shan State. It enters the Shan State near Kunlong at the far north of the  State , flows along the whole length of it, passes the Kayah State and enters the Gulf of Martaban in the Mon State.

Along its way there are many waterfalls and sometimes passes along narrow gorges and rough waterways that it cannot  be used widely for navigation. But anyway having a river is better than having none and there are many ways to use it beneficially for the livelihood of the people.

One thing for sure is that it contains the precious metal ‘’gold ‘’in its water. I have heard people speaking about Salween gold which  they  called  Kham Kone when I was  young. I have seen gold dust in a stream which flows into the Salween at Hsen Mong. But our people who are not so industrious and lacking knowledge does not know how to extract gold from the river except the panning system which yields only a small amount .

So the Salween with its gold riches became a feast for the Chinese to dine on. With the lack of the rule of law and widely spread of corruption Chinese boats started  to appear on the waters of Salween some years ago but at what part I don’t know exactly.I heard that they came down from the upper part of the river. When they started to appear  around Takaw people said there were hundreds of them. Each was as big as a house and fitted with all kinds of machinery and gears to dig the river bed and bring up the silt and extract gold from them. Surely mercury and and cyanide had to be used in this process and so it is needless to say that the water was polluted to  harm the environment and aquatic creatures in them.

 

Now the river is no longer like it used to be. They manipulated the river as they like and piles of stones and silt deposits can be seen on the surface where there were none before they came. The colour of the water that used to be a little yellowish but clear in summer is not like that now. When I saw it a few days ago, the colour was like thick coffee and the whole river has lost its attractiveness.

to part 2…..