VIETNAM

More than 50,000
people will pay for the
nation'., power crisis. The
Vietnamese government
announced it., plans to displace a large
number of people from a remote northern
province to make way for a
big hydroelectric power project. According to an
informed source, thousands
of hectares of forests and
farmlands would be flooded
and nearly 110,000 people in
the Son La and Lai Chau
provinces could be affected
by the proposed reservoir.
Economic zones would be
built for the displaced communities, some 500 km from
thier homelands. Many of
the people in this mountainous region are ethnic
minorities. The power plant,
likely to be ready by AD 2007,
would produce 17 billion
kilowatt-hours of power a
year. The government has
yet to find investment capital
to the tune of US $3.5 billion.
A Western economist in
Vietnam has expressed grave
concerns about the impact of
the project on the lives of
local inhabitants. The construction of the Son La project is slated to begin in 1998.