Locals interrogated on Myitsone bomb blasts

Thursday, 29 April 2010 21:51 Salai Han Thar San

New Delhi (Mizzima) - Local people from three nearby villages are being interrogated in connection with the serial bomb blasts in Myitsone, Kachin State, by the army unit based in the area.
The local Burmese Army Infantry Battalion 29 (IB 29) summoned villagers and questioned them in connection with the series of blasts in the Asia World company office building at the Myitsone hydropower project site and two nearby villages on April 17.

“People from every house in our village are being questioned. They are being asked whether they knew the bomber or heard the bomb blasts. They called us to Asia World office building and questioned us there,” a woman villager from Tan Paye village near Myitsone, who was interrogated, told Mizzima.

Similarly villagers from Kyein Karan and Lone Karzuap villages are being questioned, it is learnt.

Four bombs exploded in Long Karzuap based Asia World Company’s office building, six miles south of Myitsone dam project, on the morning of April 17. Eight bombs exploded in Tan Paye village and two exploded in Kyein Karan village the same day.

An engineer was injured in the blasts and five heavy duty trucks carrying quarry material and two bulldozers were damaged but no arrests have been made yet.

Since the blasts, curfew has been imposed after 9 p.m. in the villages and many checkpoints erected on the way to Myitsone from Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. A villager from Myitsone (Tan Paye) said that all travellers on the road were being questioned and stringent checks made. Myitsone hydropower project, which will be the biggest in Burma with a generating capacity of 3500 MW is being constructed jointly by Asia World Company, junta’s No. 1 Ministry of Industry and China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) since last year.

Over 60 villages upstream of Myitsone dam project site have to be relocated. Since over 20 villages and even Myitkyina are at risk should the dam collapse, local people and environmentalists are demanding a halt to the project.

At least five bomb explosions occurred elsewhere in Burma this month.