Democrats need to stand up for human rights everywhere, whether its resisting facists at home, fundamentalists in Tunisia or these South Korean corporations in disregarding human life in Laos. Global Human Rights should be our rallying call, and the guide for our priorities.
A Day Before Laos Dam Failed, Builders Saw Trouble
The companies said they had warned Laotian officials of the danger, and some villages were evacuated, but the dam’s collapse killed at least 27 people — many more are still missing — and displaced at least 6,600 others in Laos. On Thursday, state media in Cambodia reported that as many as 25,000 more people in that country were being evacuated from the northern border province of Stung Treng, as the flood surge made its way south.
The companies in charge of this project notified government officials of the impending disaster at the last minute, and did nothing to directly try to warn the villages about to get flooded.
“The big thing is there’s a very poor regulatory environment in Laos,” said Mr. Shoemaker, a co-editor of the book “Dead in the Water: Global Lessons from the World Bank’s Model Hydropower Project in Laos.”
“Private companies get these concessions and there’s very little oversight of how they’re implementing it,” he added, “and that is pervasive throughout the hydropower sector.”