INFORMATION UPDATE

 Traditional Request for help from the Ko La Kann Spirit

By

Communities who will be affected by the Lower Sesan II Hydropower Dam 

February 28^th 2011

Community representatives who will be affected by the Lower Sesan II dam joined together to perform a traditional praying ceremony to ask the Kor La Kann Spirit for help.

The spirits response to communities’ request that was that there will be no dam built in five years. Community representatives promised to offer a pig or buffalo to the spirit if this premonition comes true.

Community representatives prepare to travel to the Kor La Kann spiritual  area at Kor La Kann Rapids – located approximately 20km from Srekor village

The 400MW Lower Sesan II hydropower dam will be located at the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok Rivers and local communities both downstream and upstream of the dam site are concerned about the impending impacts.

112 community representatives from from  Kbal Romeas, Srekor I and Srekor II in Stung Treng Province, and community from six districts in Ratanakiri Province (Vuen Sai, Ta Veng, Andong Meas, O’Yadav, Lumphat and Kon Mom district) initiated the traditional Kor La Kann praying ceremony at Kor La Kann rapid along the Sesan River in order to:

1. Wish for happiness and good health for all communities living along the Sesan and Srepok Rivers who are relying on environment and natural resources
2. Ask the spirit to soften the government’s and company’s heart to stop building Lower Sesan II dam and chose other option for electricity generation with the aim to avoid the negative impacts which will affect to communities who are living alongside of the Sesan and Srepok Rivers.

 

Villagers perform traditional prayers to the local spirit and describe their issues and concerns.  During the ceremony community  ask the spirit specifically about the Lower Sesan II dam plan and also ask for help to solve this issue

The praying ceremony was prepared according to local community’s ancestral tradition which included invoking the Kor La Kann spirit with offering such as; chickens, incense stick, candles, white clothes, coconut, white wine, jar wine and many other offerings.  Villagers also released 16 chickens as a wish for happiness and good health for their communities. During the ceremony, community representatives described all the issues and problems that communities living along the River have experienced and asked the spirit specifically about the Lower Sesan II dam. 

 

 Villagers released chickens to wish for happiness and good health and collected stones to prepare a ladder to the spirit’s cottage and ask the spirit to intervene on the Lower Sesan II dam project

The Praying celebration is to show that the communities living in the Lower Sesan II dam zone do not want to leave from their village and settle in a new area, and plead with the government and all stakeholders to reconsider and clearly observe the negative impacts which will be caused by this project.

Villagers listen to story about the history of communities’ livelihoods along the river told by elders from Fang and Srekor villages.

End