"Thousands of people marched peacefully in the Kachin State capital Myitkyina on Thursday against the Myitsone Dam, raising their voices in unison to the words, “Our rights! We don’t want it!” The two-hour march began at 9am at the Kachin National Manau Park and progressed through the commercial heart of the city. The crowd, estimated by participants at around 7,000, held handwritten posters and vinyl banners with slogans including “Dams on the Irrawaddy will cut off Burma’s Lifeblood,” “Let displaced villagers return home now,” and “Cancel all dams on the Irrawaddy and its tributaries.” Demonstrators comprised a broad spectrum of civil society, including students, elders, church leaders, activists, internally displaced people, and those relocated from their villages for the project. A joint venture signed in 2009 between China’s State Power Investment Corporation, Myanmar’s military junta and conglomerate Asia World envisaged a series of seven hydroelectric dams that would be built on the N’Mai and Mali rivers, including at the confluence about 26 miles north of Myitkyina where the Ayeyarwady River begins. In 2011, President U Thein Sein suspended the project in response to a growing national resistance movement. Public concerns included large-scale displacement and loss of livelihoods, the destruction of cultural heritage and environmental degradation..."