On the last day of June, on an evening turned balmy following afternoon showers, the people of Mae Hong Son province braved stormy weather to gather in front of the provincial capitol for a political celebration.One by one, the candidates running for election two days hence climbed aboard a stage to enunciate their policies and see who could gather the most garlands to drape around his neck.
Some of the candidates were surprisingly outspoken. Ajaan Panya Chinakham, the incumbent running on a Chat Thai ticket, spoke out against plans to dam the Pai River, saying it would destroy the province's environment.
Other declared policies seemed baffling. Palang Dharma's Boonlert Swangkul, the eventual winner, vowed to take hilltribe representatives to Japan to show off their culture and attract more tourists to the province.
But Boonlert's pitch may have been effective. Analysts say he won because of strong support from the hilltribes _ particularly the Karen _ many of whom attended the rally, dressed in traditional clothes, holding banners and cheering lustily.
Compare this scene to the situation over the hills but not so far away, across the border in Burma's Kayah state. The issues there -- concerning dams, forests and cultural survival -- are similar to those in Mae Hong Son, but are being decided with bullets rather than ballots.
Kayah state is small but strategically located, bordering on Thailand to the
east, Shan state to the north and Kawthoolei (Karen state) to the south. Its
200,000-300,000 people are mostly ethnic Karenni, who would be described as
hilltribes in Thailand.
On the same day that politicians rallied in Mae Hong Son, open warfare broke out in Kayah state between the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and Burmese troops under the guidance of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc), the ruling military junta.
The onset of fighting marked the collapse of a verbal ceasefire agreement reached only three months earlier. The spark of the renewed conflict appears to be over who controls the local timber trade.
The Karenni have been selling hardwood directly to Thai firms at relatively
low prices: around Bt4,000 per cubic metre (cm). KNPP leaders say this trade
is allowed under the agreement.
Burma's timber trade was privatized in 1992, except for teak, which the government
must still be controlled by the Myanmar Timber Enterprise. The state agency
can command high prices -- reportedly Bt50,000-75,000/cm -- because Rangoon
has a virtual monopoly on the export of the valuable hardwood, and Slorc wants
to keep it that way.
The sale of teak by ethnic minority groups across the border to Thailand breaks this monopoly. But KNPP leaders claim Slorc is not offering any compensation for selling the hardwood through Rangoon.
``Disputes over the timber trade can be solved if negotiations are held in good faith,' says `Jeremy', a KNPP source who asked to remain anonymous. ``But they are being used as an excuse to conquer Kayah state."
Historical animosity plays a part in the conflict, he adds, because the Karenni have been fighting for autonomy ever since Burma itself gained independence in 1948. But it is also because Kayah has other valuable resources which the central government would like to control.
``The timber supply will only last a few more years,' he explains. ``But Kayah state also has lots of valuable mineral deposits: antimony, marble, tungsten.
``And of course it has lots of water in the Salween River. That is our most valuable natural resource.
' The Salween may turn out to be a poisoned chalice for the Karenni, however, if plans to build one or more large dams on the river go ahead.
Planning is still in the initial stages. No one is even sure where the dam will be built. One possible site mentioned is at Weigyi on the Thai-Burma border, south of Kayah state on the edge of Burma's Salween Wildlife Sanctuary, where a long wire has been placed across the river.
Pre-feasibility studies have suggested the dam be built 166 metres high, to create that would hold 21,000 million cubic metres of water and flood vast portions of Kayah state. Thai authorities are eager to pump this water into Thailand to fill up the Bhumibhol reservoir.
``This is a life and death issue,' worries Jeremy. ``The Weigyi Dam would split the Karenni in two. It would be the final nail in our coffin.
``Damming the Salween affects us in so many ways: economically, socially, culturally, environmentally. It will break the Karennis' rice pot.'
Jeremy reckons the Weigyi Dam would flood 15,000-20,000 acres (37,500-50,000 rai) of land and displace 10,000-20,000 people, including the small towns of Baw Lake and Pa Saung. Remaining lowland forests -- home to wild buffaloes, elephants and possibly even Javanese rhinos -- would also be inundated.
He is also concerned the water may become polluted, since many of the mineral deposits below ground are sulphurized and ironized. In Thailand's Surat Thani province, water emanating from the the Chiew Larn reservoir has become undrinkable because of contamination from the ironized soil.
But even without such problems, the Karenni have had enough experience with dams to realize how they affect local people, Jeremy says. Two dams have already been built on the Balu River, a tributary to the Salween. The Mopei Dam, with a 57-km long reservoir that stretches up into Shan State, was built in 1960 and supplies water to a 168-megawatt power plant downstream at Law Pita. The Ma Htaw Khu dam was completed in 1992 and provides 28 MW.
``Loikaw [the capital of Kayah state, with a population of around 100,000] gets a little electricity, but the light is so dim. Karenni villagers don't get any. The power pylons go to Rangoon and Mandalay,' Jeremy says.
``People have to guard them against `destructive elements', but they live in the dark.
``The power plants at Law Pita are surrounded by anti-personnel mines.
Occasionally, a cow wanders by and gets blown up. The farmer who owns the cow has to pay 5,000 kyat for having exploded the bomb.'
Jeremy is also concerned that the Burmese government will use development projects to colonize Kayah state with ethnic Burmese. At Law Pita, he says, Karenni labourers built two villages, each housing around 1,000 ethnic Burmese settlers who help run the power plant.
``If the Weigyi Dam is built, the government is likely to bring in ethnic Burmese workers, who will then settle along the reservoir.'
As an alternative to the Salween dam, Jeremy would like to see the lowland that would be flooded turned into paddyfields, which could be irrigated by smaller, less destructive dams built on tributary rivers. Such alternatives, however, would not provide Thailand with the energy and water it craves. In January of this year, then-Foreign Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced that Slorc's Lieut-Gen Khin Nyunt had agreed to allow feasibility studies for hydro-electric projects on the Salween. So the battle for control of Kayah state is, at least in part, a classic case of people fighting for control of their own natural resources. It is a battle likely to be fought by people throughout Burma, whatever their ethnic background.
Like many of Asia's great rivers, the Salween begins in the mountains of tibet and then snakes its way across thousands of kilometres to the sea. Compared to the Yangtze and the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, the Salween - which flows through isolated regions in China and Burma - stands apart in that outsiders know almost nothing about it. Even the Mekong, which has been the subject of relatively little scientific study, seems familiar compared to the Salween. Some environmentalists have scoured libraries looking for research reports on the Salween's ecosystem, but all they could find were two pages from a book published in 1945 on Burma's fisheries. Encyclopedias don't even agree on its length: one says it is 2,400 kms long, another 2,800 kms. The Salween is a river of mystery. Except of course to the people who live along it.
Ti So, a Karenni hunter and fisherman described one denizen of the river known as na mye, or "horse fish", because of its long horse-like beak.
"It is a huge fish. It can weigh as much as 200 kilograms," he said. "It is gray and white in color, and has fins and whiskers, but no scales. The only bones it has are the backbone and in the fins. It is very strong, and has very sharp teeth. The na mye has been known to attack people, ripping off their limbs.
"But we fishermen like to catch it because it is good to eat and provides us with a lot of food. It likes still water, not rapids, and it tends to say in one place."
Perhaps because of its sharp teeth and gray-white color, one observer said the horse fish sounds intriguingly like a freshwater shark. Sharks have no bones, however, their skeletons are made out of cartilage. And sharks do have scales.
There may be even larger mysteries to uncover in the Salween, should researchers ever get there. Ti So said there was another fish which lived in the river, known simply as na we: "big fish".