Murky Waters in a Chinese-Paid Dam on the Mekong
Rights organizations condemn project as Chinese government hacks raise geopolitical questions
By: Mark Tilly
The Chinese-financed Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam in northern Cambodia, begun in 2014 and completed four years later, was regarded at the time as emblematic of the blossoming relationship between Beijing and Phnom Penh which has since strengthened into an iron-clad alliance.
Today, however, the Chinese-financed dam, a part of China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, has been declared a human rights disaster in an investigative report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and analysts and watchers have noted that actions by Chinese government-backed hackers the year of the dam’s completion show a side of the relationship that is as murky as the Mekong River, which the dam blocks.
HRW’s report, released last week, documents the economic, social and cultural rights violations resulting from the dam’s displacement of nearly 5,000 people whose families had lived in the area for generations, as well as impacts on the livelihoods of tens of thousands of others upstream and downstream…