Bhamo Baptists’ conference plagued by electricity shortage

          Shortage of electricity plagued several thousands of Baptist followers at the Kachin Baptist Convention’s 36th quadrennial general mass conference in Bhamo, the second largest city in Burma’s northern Kachin State, participants said.

         During the five-day conference concluded yesterday, over 20,000 guest participants from Kachin State and the rest of Burma relied on candle light at night because of lack of electricity, said participants from Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.

        The accommodation for guest participants was arranged in buildings in the conference venue Bhamo, Roberts’ Mission Church, and in government schools and local Baptist followers’ homes. However they had to rely on candle light.
         Two generators were used to generate much needed electricity in a rotational system during the period of the conference, said conference officials.
         A participant from Myitkyina told Kachin News Group, “There was no electricity from the government during the day in Bhamo. So, participants were unable to recharge batteries for their cameras, laptops, mobile phones, MP3 and other electrical devices”.
         Residents said the Burmese junta supplies electricity in Bhamo, where about 100,000 people live. Power is distributed from quarter to quarter in a day-to-day rotational system only from 6 pm to 10 pm.
         Myitkyina, however, is supplied 24-hour electricity by Mali River (not Irrawaddy River) Hydropower plant owned by Kachin rebels, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) since late 2006.
          Meanwhile, the junta is constructing seven hydropower projects in Irrawaddy River, Mali and N’Mai Rivers with China’s state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) as of 2006.
          In Bhamo district, two hydropower plants are under construction in Dapein River, or Ta Hkaw Hka with another Chinese company--- China Datang Corporation (CDT) since 2008.
           The junta plans to sell all the electricity generated by nine hydropower projects in Kachin State to China.
           Currently, the junta and CPI are jointly implementing the Irrawaddy River hydropower project at the confluence (Myitsone in Burmese) with a large labour force and equipments since December last year.
         Kachin people and environmental activists appealed to the Burmese military supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe and the Chinese government to stop the Irrawaddy Myitsone dam project to prevent damage to the environment and ecology and cut risks of floods from the dam collapsing.

KNG kaw na la bang ai