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MAJOR PROBLEMS FOUND IN DAM RESETTLEMENT PROGRAM

I. Introduction

Human rights violations associated with the displacement of people for the construction of massive dams is a growing, yet neglected, problem. An estimated 30 to 60 million people worldwide have been forcibly moved from their homes to make way for major dam and reservoir projects. These “reservoir refugees” are frequently poor and politically powerless; many are from indigenous groups or ethnic minorities. The experience of more than 50 years of large dam building shows that the displaced are generally worse off after resettlement, and more often than not they are left economically, culturally and emotionally devastated.

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) dismal history in resettling populations displaced by major dam projects in the past has been well-documented. Since 1949, more than ten million people have been moved for water control projects, sometimes resulting in major conflicts between the displaced and the authorities. Although the Chinese government claims to have instituted new regulations and policies in the 1980s, policies the World Bank has praised as being a “model” for resettlement in developing countries, in reality the provisions for those displaced by water projects generally remain severely inadequate.1 Furthermore, the regulations allow for lower levels of compensation for and consultation with those displaced by dam construction – the majority of whom are generally rural residents – than are provided for resettlers associated with other types of infrastructure projects.2 This is part of a historic pattern of discrimination against China’s farmers and rural dwellers.

Now China is moving forward on what is slated to be the largest such relocation ever, the movement of between one and two million people to make way for the mammoth Three Gorges Dam- the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. This displacement could also turn out to be one of the world’s worst reservoir resettlement disasters. Unlike some of their counterparts around the world who are now successfully mobilizing to challenge massive dams and to defend their right to their land and livelihoods, Three Gorges resettlers await their fate mostly in silence, their concerns censored out of media reports and concealed even from the eyes of central government officials.

According to a January 1998 investigation (Section II, below) by Wu Ming, a Chinese sociologist with extensive experience researching the impacts of dam and reservoir resettlement programs in China, serious deficiencies are already apparent in the preliminary stages of the relocation process. These include official cover-ups of inadequacies and failures in resettlement programs falsification of figures on

1 For the World Bank’s presentation of China as model, see World Bank, “Resettlement and Development: The Bankwide Review of Projects Involving Involuntary Resettlement 1986-1993,” April 8, 1994. As a number of critics have pointed out, the Bank’s assessment of China’s current practice is largely based on data provided by the Chinese authorities. A similar assessment of the state of China’s prisons based on the new Prison Law, official accounts of conditions in penal institutions, regulations for warders and inmates, brief, supervised visits to a few model prisons and statements from selected former prisoners would come out with an equally rosy and unreliable conclusion. 2 A detailed overview of China’s current regulations and policies on resettlement is contained in World Bank, “China: Involuntary Resettlement,” June 8, 1993, Report No.11641-CHA, p.9-19.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 1 their progress, endemic corruption and misuse of resettlement funds; systematic discrimination against rural residents in the allocation of resettlement resources, and a lack of proper efforts to inform, let alone consult with the populations to be relocated. Questions about provisions for the displaced have been raised again and again by critics of the dam project, both inside and outside China, to no avail. Owing to the inadequacy of financial and material resources allocated for resettlement, concerned journalists and officials told Wu Ming, as the scope of displacement continued to expand, they feared it was virtually inevitable that there would be major confrontations between people to be relocated and the authorities.

II. Resettlement Problems of the Three Gorges Dam: A Field Report by Wu Ming

Construction is now under way on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, at the Three Gorges at the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. If all proceeds on schedule, in the year 2003, water will fill its huge reservoir at a level of 135 meters above sea level to allow the first group of electrical generators to begin operation. The entire project is to be completed in 2009. To make way for this ambitious project, the Chinese government says 1.2 million people will be relocated. Critics of the dam, however, predict that the total number of resettlers will actually be much higher: between 1.6 million and 1.9 million.3 About half of these will be urban residents and the other half are rural residents who will need either new farmland or urban jobs to restart their lives.

Although a relatively small number of people have been relocated since ground was broken on the dam in 1994, serious problems have already emerged. Official statements give the impression that resettlement is proceeding smoothly, but in reality it has been plagued by mismanagement, official corruption, inadequate compensation, a shortage of farmland and lack of jobs for the resettlers. Resentment and foot-dragging opposition to resettlement is widespread, presaging a major crisis if the dam project continues as planned. My report on these problems is based on interviews conducted during January 1998 in five of the 22 counties that will be partially flooded by the dam. The people I interviewed included workers, farmers, small-business owners, and local officials in Yunyang, Fengjie, and Wushan counties in Sichuan Province and in Badong and Zigui counties in Province, from which a total of 420,000 people are scheduled to be relocated.

Routine Falsification of Figures

One fundamental problem in assessing the Three Gorges resettlement program is that the official figures appear to be false, and the success stories fabricated. For example, four Sichuan journalists who are assigned to report full-time on the progress of resettlement told me that county officials in Sichuan and Hubei claimed at a conference in January that 200,000 people had already been resettled. If accurate, that number would mean that resettlement was ahead of schedule. But the journalists explained the 200,000 figure was an exaggeration by local officials wishing to impress their superiors. One journalist said that he had traveled extensively in the Three Gorges area, and that the actual figures were generally no more than half the official ones. Even senior officials at the Three Gorges Project Resettlement Bureau, he said, do not believe that 200,000 people have been resettled.

Several days after our conversation, a report appeared on the front page of Wanxian Daily in which Qi Lin, the head of the Three Gorges Project Resettlement Bureau, was quoted as saying that only 100,000 people had been resettled so far. The report did not say whether these people had been properly resettled according to the government's own definition, namely that they must be found a new home, new livelihood and compensation for their losses.

3 Critics say that officials who have planned and are in charge of the dam project know that final resettlement figures will be much higher than the official 1.2 million estimate. However, the these officials insist on keeping the estimate low because higher estimates could become a "lightning rod" for opponents of the project. See e.g., Qi Ren, "Is Developmental Resettlement Possible?" in Dai Qing, ed., The River Dragon Has Come! The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze River and Its People, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 1998.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 2 Interviews in Yunyang County demonstrated why it is difficult for even the head of the Three Gorges Resettlement Bureau to get hold of reliable information. Yunyang has 120,000 people slated for relocation. In early January, the Yunyang County government opened an exhibition on resettlement. A chart at the exhibition listed three categories of resettlers. First, 5,940 people were identified as "productively resettled" (shengchan anzhi), meaning that they had either new farmland or new factory jobs. Second, 2,610 people were said to be "residentially resettled" (shenghuo anzhi), meaning a place had been found for them to re-establish their homes. And third, 187 people were classified as "account-closed resettlers" (xiaohao yimin), meaning they had received their share of the compensation and moving expenses and the authorities had no further responsibility towards them. All these figures are problematic, if not completely false, according to a Yunyang official. In a private conversation, this official pointed out that the actual figure for the "productively resettled" people (those who had been given new land or industrial jobs) was at most 3,000. At this early stage of the resettlement program, he explained, the people the county government was trying to relocate were mostly farmers, but only 2,000 of the 24,367 mu of farmland that has reportedly been prepared for resettlers was usable. He said the rest of the newly opened land was described by local farmers as "looking like ditches from a distance and like pigsties close up."

As for the "account-closed resettlers," this actually referred to an unfortunate group of farmers who had been persuaded to move to the island province of Hainan under a deal that was struck by Yunyang county and Hainan officials. They returned to Yunyang six months later, complaining that they had been cheated. One of these farmers said in an interview that he and his fellow villagers had been promised a good life in Hainan but found the resettlement site uninhabitable. Now they have exhausted the moving expenses they had received from the government to travel to and then leave Hainan, and are not eligible for any further compensation. They have returned to their old homes, but will still have to move when the water rises. Like the uselessness of the farmland in Yunyang, the failure of this scheme to move farmers to Hainan has been covered up by the resettlement officials.

There are people who have been appropriately resettled in the Three Gorges area, with fine new homes, jobs and compensation. In Badong and Zigui counties in Hubei Province, I met six rural families who were enjoying a comfortable life after resettlement. They had even opened small shops in the new county seats. These families explained, however, that they were prospering largely because they had been designated as "model resettlers" (yimin dianxin), which means that they had received preferential treatment. These families were showcased by local officials as success stories both to persuade other farmers to relocate and to impress senior inspectors. But creating such "model" households is expensive: Each one has cost about four times the average amount available for the relocation of a household. And since the central government insists that the total sum for resettlement is fixed, there is a question as to how much money will be available for those resettled later.

The extent to which some local officials have gone to fabricate a favorable image for the resettlement program was demonstrated last fall when Premier Li Peng visited a township where residents were about to be resettled. However, these residents were angry about the meager compensation they had been offered and had organized petition drives demanding more money. So the police and local officials barred them from attending the meeting, according to a county official who handled their petitions. Another group of people, who were not faced with resettlement, were brought in to pose as resettlers and to listen to Li Peng's speech.4

Local officials cannot take all the blame for such deceptions. The central authorities have made the Three Gorges Dam project a priority political task, in which failure is simply not permitted. There are

4 Another example of local deception occurred during the same visit by Li Peng when he called on a rural family that had already been resettled. According to a county official, Li Peng was told by township cadres that the husband and wife in the family he was visiting had not only complied with the official policy of resettling as early as possible but had also eagerly followed the government's one-child policy. At this moment, Li Peng smiled and embraced a little girl who was identified by township officials as the couple's only child. She was, in fact, their third.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 3 three elements to this: First, the project is said to be fully supported by the people in the affected area who supposedly view it as an all-out campaign to alleviate poverty, an epic effort against often-lethal floods and a major contribution to China's overall development. Second, the project is hailed as a monument built by the second-generation leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the memory of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. They are said to have given their unreserved blessing to building "a high lake within the gorges," as Mao wrote in one of his poems. Third, the project is presented as a matter of national pride, an opportunity to show the world what the new China is able to achieve.5 Showing enthusiasm for the project is, therefore, a matter of demonstrating loyalty to the central authorities, to dead revolutionaries and to the Chinese people. Thus criticizing the project openly would be a dangerous political mistake. All local officials know that their careers depend on saying what the center wants to hear. Hence it is hardly surprising that many local officials have kept any reservations about the project to themselves, while the less upright among them try to advance their careers by participating in deceit.

Criticism of Resettlement Programs Still Banned

The political importance of the project combined with strict controls over the reporting of sensitive, critical or negative information in the media generally mean that problems relating to resettlement are rarely exposed, even in local media outlets covering areas directly affected by the project. Journalists are aware that raising serious questions about the progress of relocation, let alone its very feasibility, could ruin their careers. The tone and substance of their reporting are, therefore, mostly set by the position which local officials consider appropriate.

Both local journalists and local officials are aware that the CCP continues to view the principal role of the mass media as "guiding public opinion" to support Party policy and that the main tone of media reporting should be "positive propaganda." The media are also required to differentiate between reports for internal circulation only available to the leadership in restricted distribution publications and reports for the general public.6 For example, a number of orders have been issued in recent years prohibiting the mass media from disseminating any news of scandals involving state functionaries, including corruption cases, without prior approval.

In terms of day-to-day coverage in the Three Gorges area, media reports in Sichuan Province expose somewhat more of the problems than do those in Hubei Province. Sichuan reports indicate that many high- and middle-ranking Sichuan officials have serious doubts about the project – understandably, since more than 80 percent of the people to be relocated are in Sichuan. Many Sichuan officials are upset that their province is bearing the brunt of relocation and loss of land and property, and that the central government has been unable to mobilize sufficient contributions for Sichuan from the down- river provinces and cities that will supposedly benefit from the project.

However, even in Sichuan modestly critical reports virtually disappeared after the diversion of the Yangtze in November 1997, when the central leadership put on a great show of unity in support of the project at the ceremony to block the great river. Of course local journalists are well aware of the problems of resettlement described in this report, and some are frustrated at not being able to report on them. Occasionally one sees a passage or two about specific difficulties as well as some subtle, implied criticism in news reports generally focused on the positive side or on showing how the problems in question have already been solved by the authorities. For example, in early January one local newspaper reported that 455 peasants volunteered to vacate their homes to make space for a new county seat. A photograph of a young man walking to the resettlement site carrying a huge pile of

5 In a typical statement about the dam's political function, Li Peng, a Russian-trained hydro-power engineer, declared in 1992, "The Three Gorges Dam will show the rest of the world that the Chinese people have high aspirations and the capabilities to successfully build the world's largest water conservancy and hydroelectric power project." See Simon Winchester, The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time, Henry Holt, New York, 1996, p. 227 6 "China warns provincial newspapers to toe the line," Agence France-Presse, Feb. 23, 1998.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 4 clothes on his back accompanied the story, and lent credence to the frequent complaint of displaced farmers that the government does not provide them with transportation. Some reports have brought out the effects of relocation on individual families in highly emotional terms. But none has dared to reveal the patterns of failure, corruption and deceit in the resettlement process.

Farmers Lose Most

Bureaucratic indifference to the grievances of rural resettlers and their low social status mean that their needs and problems are the most likely to be ignored. A major grievance of many farmers is the lack of basic information and consultation about their future. For example, farmers who live below the 135-meter mark in Yunyang, Fengjie and Wushan counties said that they know they would have to relocate before the year 2003 because the reservoir is scheduled to inundate their homes and land by then. But most of the farmers I interviewed said that they still did not know where they would be relocated to, or exactly how much compensation they would receive. Compensation rates vary widely across the area, as well as between locations classified as urban and rural, and there has been no indication of whether compensation will be adjusted to reflect inflation. The value of the farmers' property, the cost of moving and the price of construction materials to build new houses were calculated in 1992.7

Adding to the farmers' anxiety is official corruption, which raises the question of whether they will see any compensation money at all. Every farmer I interviewed mentioned cases of officials who had embezzled resettlement funds or taken bribes for awarding construction contracts. In Yunyang County for example, eight officials were fired last year for taking bribes. They were a deputy county magistrate in charge of resettlement, and the chairman and six deputies of a committee in charge of building Yunyang's new county seat. The officials had taken bribes from land reclamation and construction contractors eager to profit from the reclamation of new farmland and the construction of roads, schools, apartments, health clinics and office buildings.

According to one county official, it is nearly impossible to stop corruption among bureaucrats at the township and village levels. The problem is related to the constant personnel changes at these lowest levels of the bureaucratic system, he said, a pattern that is occurring in other parts of China as well. But in the Three Gorges region, it means local cadres have little incentive to deal with what may seem like virtually insoluble difficulties in the resettlement program. "There is a prevalent feeling among low-level cadres that it would be a wasted opportunity not to make some money out of the resettlement program while they have the power to do so," said the county official. "Once they have the money in their pockets, they voluntarily resign and disappear. Even if we find out about cases of bribery and embezzlement, it is very hard to punish the culprits. We simply cannot find them anymore."

A more serious threat to rural resettlers is the institutionalized discrimination they face in the official assessment of compensation according to residential status. Families that are registered as rural households receive less housing compensation than do urban residents, even though the cost of construction materials is the same for both. For example, in Yunyang County, compensation for every square meter of brick and concrete buildings is 300 yuan for county-seat residents, 225 yuan for township-seat residents and 180 yuan for rural residents. In Zigui, the rates are 480 yuan, 200 yuan and 150 yuan. Many farmers who were interviewed said, often in very emotional terms, that they regarded the compensation as insufficient to reestablish their homes.

Promise of Non-Agricultural Jobs Proves Illusory

7 According to official statistics, retail price increases since that time were: 13.2 percent in 1993; 21.7 percent in 1994; 14.8 percent in 1995; and 6.2 percent in 1996. Although in 1992, the Overall Retail Price Index was at 108.5 set at a 1990=100 baseline, by 1996 it had reached 182.1. See World Bank, "China 2020: Development Challenges in the New Century," September 1997, p.152.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 5 The Three Gorges Dam will inundate 430,000 to 450,000 mu of farmland.8 For the most part, this is not the rich, irrigated rice-growing terraces popularly associated with the Yangtze valley; it consists largely of steep hillsides dependent on rainwater for irrigation. Most of this land is of only marginal value for agriculture. But once farmers are moved to even higher ground, which is the major form of rural resettlement planned for the Three Gorges Dam project, they will face an even more difficult ecosystem. About 30 percent of the land at the resettlement sites is at an incline of at least 25 degrees, making farming extremely difficult. Moreover, serious soil erosion, which affects as much as 80 percent of the land in the reservoir area, is likely to mean that the reclaimed land will quickly become uncultivable, and people will have to move a second time. Officials in charge of the project are aware that the Three Gorges area cannot absorb a large number of uprooted farmers unless they can be moved out of agriculture into industrial jobs. This is why one of the goals of the government's "developmental resettlement" policy has been to provide jobs for rural resettlers who will not be able to farm by setting up new industrial enterprises as well as absorbing some relocatees into the labor force of existing factories.

But over the past few years, the prospect of finding industrial jobs has dimmed for many rural resettlers as local industries have hired all the people they need. Today, hopes of new work in the industrial sector have virtually vanished. Nationwide, unemployment rates increased dramatically in 1997.9 In the Three Gorges area, hundreds of thousands of urban residents formerly working for state- run or collectively-owned factories and enterprises are being laid off. In the areas under the jurisdiction of municipality, two million people who once worked for state enterprises are now unemployed, according to conversations with local officials.10 In Yunyang County, 20 percent of the industrial workers (about 8,000 people) were laid off in 1997 alone. Many who were kept on by the factories in Yunyang are receiving only a "token salary" – 150 to 200 yuan a month. As a result, nearly one fifth of the 368 Yunyang farmers who became industrial workers between 1992 and 1997 have now returned to the countryside to try to eke out a living.

Unemployment rates in the counties and cities along the Three Gorges area, especially the Sichuan section of the reservoir area, are likely to increase in the next few years. is a case in point. A Fengjie official said candidly that the vow of the Three Gorges Dam planners to make some of the rural resettlers into urban residents and industrial workers is now a meaningless slogan. "What concerns us most at present is how to guarantee factory workers a minimum salary and how to provide emergency aid to urban residents who cannot make ends meet. There is no way to find industrial jobs for rural resettlers. If factory workers and urban residents can maintain their current status instead of becoming farmers in order to make a living, we will consider that a fairly good outcome." This official's pessimism was based in part on a 1997 survey which found that only four out of Fengjie’s 80 state and collectively owned factories were profitable. The others were in debt, some on the verge of bankruptcy.11

8 Approximately 28,700 and 30,000 hectares: one mu is equivalent to 0.0667 hectares. 9 Accurate statistics for unemployment in China are difficult to obtain. For example, the country's official unemployment rate for 1996 was low – only 3.6 percent in urban areas. But that figure does not include the 30 million surplus employees of state industries, or rural surplus labor, which could total 150 million. Also left out of the official reckoning are the 70 million peasants who have headed for China's cities; perhaps 20 percent of these have regular jobs. There is little doubt that the unemployment situation is worsening since Beijing announced, at the end of 1997, its plan to accelerate the reform of state enterprises, especially state-owned factories. The revamping of the state sector over the last few years had already thrown 12 million out of work by the end of 1997. According to State Statistical Bureau spokesman Ye Zhen, of that number only half had found new jobs. See Pamela Yatsko and Matt Forney, "China '98: Danger Ahead," Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 161, No. 3, January 15, 1998, p. 44-46. 10 This figure is much higher than numbers released to the press. According to a recently published report, Chongqing now has 420,000 state employees out of work. See Daniel Kwan, "420,000 state workers jobless in Chongqing,", South China Morning Post, October 11, 1997. However, as the above note indicates, unemployment figures for public consumption are generally lower than the real numbers. 11 The Fengjie case is a reminder of the condition of China's ailing state sector. Country-wide statistics show that between 50 and 70 percent of all state-run companies are in the red. Recent plans announced by Beijing to

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 6

Conclusions: Old Lessons Unlearned

At the time of its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China had no large reservoirs and no more than 40 small hydroelectric stations. By 1985, centrally planned projects to generate electricity through hydro-power, increase irrigation coverage and control flooding had resulted in the construction of more than 80,000 reservoirs and 70,000 hydroelectric stations. By 1992, the year when the Three Gorges Dam project was officially approved, China had 369 large-scale reservoirs with capacity exceeding 100 million cubic meters.12 At present, China's dam-building effort is reaching new heights with 15 gigantic hydropower stations, including the Three Gorges Dam, under construction, each with a planned generating capacity of over 1,000 megawatts.13

To date, 10.2 million people have been resettled for the construction of dams and reservoirs in China, according to official figures.14 Of the country's completed dam projects, the largest in terms of population resettlement are Sanmenxia with 410,000 people displaced, Danjiangkou with 380,000 and Xin'anjiang with 280,000. In each of these cases, resettlement was plagued by economic or political problems, and the process of moving people from the areas to be flooded was rushed, often accompanied by intimidation and sometimes outright violence. The haste and forcible nature of resettlement can be traced, in part, to people's reluctance to leave their homes, but ultimately it was caused by poor planning, including insufficient compensation, shortages of farmland and the selection of unsuitable sites for resettlement.

One consequence of these problems in the past was the long-term disfranchisement of the resettlers, most of whom were rural residents suffering from dire poverty largely because they were not properly resettled.15 In an effort to ease their impoverishment, the Ministry of Water Resources embarked, in 1986, on a 1.9 billion yuan rehabilitation program at 46 sites of completed water projects where more than five million people who had been resettled were hardly making ends meet. But in 1989, the Ministry of Agriculture’s poverty relief office acknowledged that roughly 70 percent of the country's 10.2 million "reservoir relocatees" were still living in "extreme poverty."16 Living conditions for some of these people had improved by 1994, thanks to government relief efforts. However, a World Bank report released that year cited the Chinese government as saying that 46 percent of China's resettlers displaced for water control projects had yet to be "properly resettled" and that they "were at great risk of poverty."17 The fact that years, even decades, after displacement a significant number of the

encourage the privatization of state enterprises have met with little enthusiasm among Chinese workers, and economists worry that the China has not prepared for the widespread bankruptcies and the wave of unemployment that are likely to follow any serious attempt at reform. See Craig S. Smith, "China Appears to Ignore Region's Tough Lessons," The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 11, 1997; Hugo Restall, "China's Long March to Reform," The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 23, 1997. 12 China Statistical Yearbook (Zhongguo tongji nianjian), State Statistics Press, Beijing, 1993, p. 351; Vaclav Smil, China's Environmental Crisis: Inquiry into the Limits of National Development, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY., 1993, pp. 109-10. 13 Cheng Zhongzhi and Sun Jiaping, China's Electricity Industry (Zhongguo dianli gongye), Electricity Industry Press, Beijing, 1996, pp. 31. 14 Cited in World Bank, "China: Involuntary Resettlement," June 8, 1993, Report No.11641-CHA, p. 2. 15 Serious problems regarding resettlement are documented in a number of Chinese articles, including: Leng Meng, "The Massive Population Resettlement on the Yellow River," Chinese Writers (Zhongguo zuojia), 1996, pp. 60-92; Liu Huanzhang, "An Eye-witness Account of Danjiangkou Reservoir Resettlement," Cultural and Historical Documents of Hubei (Hubei wenshi ziliao), Vol. 4, No. 41, 1992, pp. 208-214; Mou Mo and Cai Wenmei, "A Review of the History of Population Resettlement on Xin'anjiang," in Dai Qing and Xue Weijia ed., Whose Yangtze Is It Anyway? (Shuide changjiang), Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 167- 85. 16 Outlines of Economic Development in China's Poor Areas (an English-Chinese text), Agriculture Press, Beijing 1989, p. 25. 17 World Bank, "China: Xiaolangdi Resettlement Project," 1994, Report No. 12527-CHA, pp. 2-3.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 7 resettlers remained in poverty is a clear indication of the horrendous nature of the policy failures involved and their enormous cost in human suffering.

In the case of the Three Gorges Dam, the Chinese government insists that lessons have been learned from the past and that old mistakes will be avoided. But despite government propaganda saying that the dam’s construction and its impact will improve people’s lives and the region's development, those slated for resettlement have sober expectations about their future. Throughout my trip, interviewees expressed a sense of resignation about the inevitability of the Three Gorges Dam project, and a widespread, though by no means unanimous, belief that people's living standards and general quality of life would decline after resettlement.

This feeling is particularly strong among farmers and elderly people. "Four years from now my entire family will have to move away whether we want to go or not," a woman farmer in Fengjie said, "but we still don't know where we will rebuild our home. Are we going to live next to our old neighbors and relatives? We don't know. Are we going to have enough land to farm? No, that I know as clearly as I know the five fingers of my hand. There is no land to farm behind our village. When the time comes, I will refuse to move out of my village. They will have to use police to drag me away if they want me to leave."

In an equally revealing statement, a county-seat physician said that many of his elderly patients confided in him their determination to stay where they are until the flood comes. "These old people have lived on the riverbanks for so long,'' he said. "They have built their houses here, cultivated their vegetable gardens on the slopes, opened small shops near the docks, and they have their particular teahouses for talking with their old friends. It will cost them more to move everything than the government will provide in compensation. Above all, they want to be buried in the family graveyard together with generations of ancestors. They are depressed by the economic loss they will suffer and disturbed by the inevitable breakup of the emotional ties they have had with this land."

As in any such project, there are potential winners and losers. In the case of the Three Gorges Dam project, the winners are, in addition to the handful of model households, urban residents who work for government agencies. Of all the buildings now being erected at the resettlement sites in Yunyang, Fengjie, Wushan, Badong and Zigui counties, government office and government-controlled apartment buildings are of the best quality. The new office building of the government, for example, easily rivals in terms of size and quality those of the Beijing and Shanghai municipal governments. This building and others like it were constructed with money from resettlement funds.

Due to popular resistance and official mismanagement, and the resulting slow pace of resettlement, it is doubtful that more than 50,000 people have been relocated so far for the Three Gorges Dam. Of these, only a small percentage can probably be classified as "properly resettled" given the extent of official mismanagement and falsified data. If the Chinese government is determined to realize its plan, the next five years will require the relocation of more than 500,000 people in order to raise the water level of the reservoir to the 135-meter mark by the year 2003. By 2009, when the entire dam structure is scheduled to be completed, the water will be raised to 175 meters, and this will require that at least another half million people be moved. Those local officials who still care about the future of their localities are gravely concerned about how this many people can be moved by 2003, as well as the later relocations. Given the problems experienced thus far, many informants said that the targeted population will continue to find ways to resist relocation so that they can stay near the river as long as possible. A likely consequence of such resistance will be the relocation of an enormous number of people within a short period just before the water is raised to the 135-meter mark.18

18 On political consequences of resistance and government plans to deal with it, see Human Rights Watch/Asia, The Three Gorges Dam in China: Forced Resettlement, Suppression of Dissent and Labor Rights Concerns, February 1995, and Lawrence Sullivan, "Upheaval on the Yangzi: Population Relocation and the Controversy Over the Three Gorges Dam," China Rights Forum, Summer 1996, p. 14-17.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 8 This possibility, and the resulting potential for massive unrest, explains why three senior officials in one of the five counties I visited agreed that by 2003 no one in the reservoir area would want to be in charge of population resettlement. As one of them predicted: "By then, some 500,000 people will need to be relocated immediately. But there won't be enough money to relocate all these people. There won't be enough jobs for the relocated factory workers. And there won't be enough land for the relocated farmers. If the central government insists on filling up the reservoir, it will have to rely on the military or a man-made flood to force people out of their homes." These local officials recognize that it is now extremely difficult under the present political climate to reverse the project. What they hope for is a decision to lower the reservoir level, thus reducing the total number of people who will have to be displaced. Should such a policy turnaround occur under the premiership of Zhu Rongji, who is said to be deeply concerned about the enormous financial cost of the project in China's current precarious economic situation, many people in the Three Gorges area would welcome it.

III. Conclusion and Recommendations

The fact that problems such as those described above are occurring, despite the controversial nature of the Three Gorges Dam project, demonstrates the destructive and potentially destabilizing effects of suppression of the voices of ordinary people and of routine restrictions on freedom of expression and association. This is yet another reminder that transparency and accountability are essential for sustainable, equitable development.

The International Rivers Network and Human Rights in China are concerned that if the Chinese government permits the current practices regarding resettlement to continue unchanged, a major crisis could occur as water levels in the reservoir area begin to rise in the year 2003. Prior to 1989, concerns about the potential consequences of the huge resettlement to be caused by the dam were raised by journalists, academics, government officials, and scientists. As a result, the State Council agreed to postpone any further discussion of the project for five years. Unfortunately, after the June 1989 crackdown the government has suppressed criticism and banned debate,19 allowing Premier Li Peng to push approval for the project through the National People’s Congress in 1992. Limited discussion about the feasibility of some aspects of the project continued internally until quite recently, yet this debate has not been accessible to the public, especially those most directly affected – the people to be displaced.20

The future of these Three Gorges resettlers is determined as much by the international community as it is by decisions in Beijing. China cannot build or finance this project on its own. Export credit agencies in Canada and Europe are making it possible for companies such as General Electric, Siemens, ABB & GEC Alsthmon to provide equipment and technology for the dam which China lacks. Investment firms such as Lehman Brothers, BankAmerica and Credit Suisse are underwriting securities for the State Development Bank of China so that funds are available to lend to the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation. The rest of the world must not remain silent.

International Rivers Network and Human Rights in China urge all international agencies and companies involved in the project to suspend their association with the Three Gorges Dam until the Chinese government responds to the growing international call for action and implements the following urgent measures:

1. Relaxation of controls over freedom of expression regarding the Three Gorges Dam, so as to allow for prompt and proper exposure of all issues relating to the project. Journalists should be able to travel freely in the Three Gorges area, and report, without censorship, on their findings in the local and national media. Restrictions on freedom of association in the Three Gorges area should also be lifted. Residents in affected counties should be able to form independent

19 See works edited by Dai Qing and Human Rights Watch/Asia already cited. 20 See article by Lawrence Sullivan cited above.

International Rivers Network/Human Rights in China Page 9 associations to protect their interests and press for attention to their concerns if they choose to do so.

2. The establishment, after public debate on the project has begun, of an independent review commission to conduct a thorough audit of the entire project to determine how and if construction of the Three Gorges dam should continue. Such a commission should be composed of independent experts, and should have full powers to examine all project documents, as well as related studies of the area and its population. It should be able to travel freely throughout the affected region, to hold public hearings and to collect testimony and information from all interested parties, including groups and individuals outside the country. Its report should be made public.

3. A systematic effort to eliminate routine discrimination against rural residents in central, provincial and local laws and policies relating to resettlement. This will require a comprehensive examination of all relevant laws, regulations and policies, as well as current practice, prior to enacting the necessary legislative and administrative changes. China has a responsibility to take such action as a signatory to the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.21

21 Article 1 of this treaty, which China ratified in 1981, defines such discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.”

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