[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
DAM-L LS: A peace message to the public from the Assembly of the Poor (fwd)
----- Forwarded message from owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net -----
From owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net Thu Aug 3 23:09:02 2000
Return-Path: <owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net>
Received: from DaVinci.NetVista.net (mjdomo@mail.netvista.net [206.170.46.10])
by lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA17158
for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>; Thu, 3 Aug 2000 23:09:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net
Received: [(from mjdomo@localhost)
by DaVinci.NetVista.net (8.10.0/8.8.8) id e7434A629676
for irn-mekong-list; Thu, 3 Aug 2000 20:04:10 -0700 (PDT)
(envelope-from owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net)]
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 20:04:10 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <200008040304.e7434A629676@DaVinci.NetVista.net>
subject: LS: A peace message to the public from the Assembly of the Poor
Sender: owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net
Precedence: bulk
>A peace message to the public from
>
>the Assembly of the Poor
>
>Formerly, we were not poor. We had farmlands and self-reliant livelihoods
>based on nature, land and the rivers. We were not rich but had never been
>hungry. When the governments built dams on the land where we had lived and
>farmed for generation after generation, we protested. The governments used
>legal measures to evict us and gave us chickenfeed and futile land as
>compensation for uprooting our lives.
>
>So we became poor, or to be more exact, the governments and their rural
>resources-exploiting urban development approach impoverished us.
>
>We were admonished by the governments not to be selfish but to sacrifice
>for national development. If development doesn't make rural communities as
>important as urban ones. If it doesn't entitle local communities to manage
>their resources, nor does it provide sustainable self-sufficiency to each
>and every indigenous community.
>
>But does mean, instead, that thousands of households and abundant natural
>resources must be ruined in exchange for a few megawatts of electricity,
>then we're not willing to sacrifice our sustainable resources and the
>future of our descendants for such worthless development .
>
>The Assembly of the Poor came to camp out in front of Government House,
>time and again. We didn't come to ask for what's not ours. We came to urge
>the government to mediate to return what we deserve to get.
>
>Is it wrong to demand for what has been robbed from us?
>
>Is the assembly wrong to ask the government to follow, in good faith if
>there's any, the recommendations of the neutral committee that was set up
>by the government itself?
>
>Instead of being sympathetic, the government accused the assembly of being
>greedy, demanding for what's illegal. We have been alleged as mercenary
>mobsters, trouble-making Lao migrants and funded by overseas groups to
>decommission dams. We beg you to believe that our rural way of life is
>simply based on self-sufficient culture. If it has not been for the
>encroachment of dams on our farmland and rivers, hardly anybody here would
>know we exist, in front of Government House or wherever.
>
>It's ludicrous for the government to argue about illegal demands. Didn't
>this government revoke several laws and pass the new ones in favour of
>finance institutions and a handful of minority people who brought on
>economic crises to the nation so as the whole population have to shoulder
>the debt burden?
>
>The assembly is just a marginalised group of poor people in Thai society.
>Apart from being greedy, we have always been portrayed as lazy. No matter
>how loud have we been protesting against such unfair criticism, we have
>already been judged as all-time social defendants.
>
>But what about the actual culprits who have brought on social, economic
>and political crises and still got away with it?
>
>Over the past several days, the assembly has thought it over and asked
>ourselves "What's most important in our lives?" Houses and farmland; we've
>already lost them all. The most important thing for us now is our
>"dignity". Physical assets such as houses, farmland and resources can be
>taken away from us. But we'll never let ourselves be looked down upon.
>Though deprived of wealth, we'll not let our human dignity being wrenched
>from us. We'll stand by dhamma, truth and righteousness.
>
>We've realised that to preserve our dignity is to fight for justice and
>righteousness; not to fight for personal gains. We have to fight to keep
>our cherished local culture, our rivers, mountains, forests as well as
>wildlife and riverine animals for the future sake of our descendants.
>
>We hold, on our own accord, hunger strike not to torture ourselves but to
>control our minds. We don't do it in protest of the government or the
>public at large. We refrain from taking food to maintain dhamma, to
>communicate the truth about poverty problems. To point out that our
>poverty doesn't come from personal laziness of any individuals. It is
>caused and has spread nationwide because of structural system of
>misdirected development and economic policies.
>
>There are at present a great number of hungry people. Our plight is just a
>mirror of structural hunger of millions of people in this country.
>
>While we're fasting, we'll send our loving kindness and well wished to the
>government and the policemen who have to be on duty. They are not our
>enemies. Our actual enemies are unjust economic and social structures,
>which we, the government and every member of Thai society have to join
>hands to get rid of.
>
>For the government, if it still considers itself as the people's
>government, it should treat the poor's problems as equally as they did
>with the economic ones. If the government had guts enough to amend and
>change legislations, regulations and structural policies to solve problems
>for the business sector, it must do the same for the sake of the poor.
>
>Nevertheless, only the government and the assembly cannot solve all
>poverty problems. The Thai society's wisdom must be mobilised to find
>acceptable and fair solutions to all concerned. To find a way out of this
>plundering of natural resources---symbolised by dams construction---means
>not only seeking solutions to a few thousand members of the Assembly of
>the poor, but will also be an example for other similar structural
>problems in Thai society.
>
>Don't forget that Thai society forms itself in a pyramid shape. If the
>base of the pyramid that consists of a huge amount of poor people is not
>strengthened, soon the top of the pyramid will topple no matter how
>majestic the government tries to make the structure to appear . This
>should not happen if the government and every member in Thai society still
>let their social conscience control their action.
>
>(Excerpted and translated from the Thai-language message sent to TDSC via
>the Internet by the Friends of the People, on 28 July 2000)
>
>
>
>**********************************************************************
>Prasittiporn Kan-Onsri [NOI]
>Friends of the People [FOP.]
>99 , 3rd Floor Nakorn Sawan Road
>Pomprab Bangkok 10100.
>THAILAND.
>Tel, Fax ; (662) 2811916 , 2812595
>email ; fopthai@asiaaccess.net.th ; fopthai@hotmail.com
>
>
----- End of forwarded message from owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net -----