Electricité de France (EDF) said today that the international consortium they are part of has decided to suspend plans for a $1.5 billion hydroelectric dam in Myanmar in response to last month’s military coup.
AFP reports that according to a collection of NGO statistics, nearly 250 people have been confirmed dead and more than 2,300 others arrested in Myanmar since the February 1 military coup.
The United States, the European Union, the United Nations and other international condemnations have so far failed to stop the Burmese military’s bloody crackdown on protesters.
A spokesman for the French power group said to AFP today, referring to the dam plan, “The plan has been suspended.”
The Shweli-3 671-megawatt hydroelectric project, which is still in the early stages of planning, is run by an international consortium that includes the French government’s majority-owned EDF, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation and Burmese company Ayeyar Hinthar.
NGOs welcomed the decision; the social movement Justice for Myanmar called the dam project’s location in Shan State “a continuing situation of conflict and systematic and gross human rights violations. “.
EDF wrote to Justice for Myanmar that “respect for fundamental human rights” is a condition of all the group’s plans; the letter was posted on the NGO Justice for Myanmar’s website.
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