[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
DAM-L LS: Three articles on Pak Mun latest (fwd)
----- Forwarded message from owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net -----
From owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net Tue Aug 8 15:13:19 2000
X-UIDL: 1231d172c609fb718745f479379abdf4
Return-Path: <owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net>
Received: from DaVinci.NetVista.net (root@mail.netvista.net [206.170.46.10])
by lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA07121
for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>; Tue, 8 Aug 2000 15:13:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net
Received: [(from mjdomo@localhost)
by DaVinci.NetVista.net (8.10.0/8.8.8) id e78IkWQ14253
for irn-mekong-list; Tue, 8 Aug 2000 11:46:32 -0700 (PDT)
(envelope-from owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net)]
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 11:46:32 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <200008081846.e78IkWQ14253@DaVinci.NetVista.net>
subject: LS: Three articles on Pak Mun latest
Sender: owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net
Precedence: bulk
The hunger strike continues outside government house, and the government is
continuing to refuse to deal with the villagers' demands.
Nation, Aug 8, 2000
Villagers have just cause, Anand says
FORMER prime minister Anand Panyarachun yesterday called on Bangkok
residents to have sympathy for the destitute Pak Mool villagers and tolerate
the inconvenience caused by their marathon protests.
After giving a speech at a seminar on the United Nations' role in the 21st
Century, Anand sought to stem urban suspicion about protest leaders' motives
and frustration over the sometimes-unruly activities of the villagers, who
have invaded Government House and caused traffic snarls in the area.
Asked if he thought the government had treated the problem properly, Anand
said: "It would perhaps be too easy to comment on things that are outside my
responsibility. All I want is for Bangkokians who have routine jobs or own
cars to sympathise with the villagers. Don't presume that the protests are
masterminded by people with ill intentions."
Anand, who played a significant role in the drafting of the current
Constitution, said he believed the majority of the protesters came to
Bangkok because of their plights.
"A small minority [may have ulterior motives], but most protesters have
really suffered from past development programmes," he said.
The Pak Mool protest has drawn mixed reactions from Bangkok residents, and
fresh emotional debate has focused on whether the villagers are being used
as pawns or whether they are truly desperate.
Anand called on the government to mix moral and legal principles in tackling
the problems, noting that some existing laws were a cause of social
disparity.
He also asked that the government heed the villagers' conditions on a
proposed public hearing on the Pak Mool Dam controversy. The villagers want
the forum to be held at a neutral, academic venue, and the government's
insistence that the hearing be conducted on Channel 11 has resulted in a
deadlock.
The government cited security concerns, fearing a repeat of the violence
that abruptly ended a recent public hearing in Songkhla on the Thai-Malaysia
gas-pipeline project.
"It should not be a big deal for the government to find a venue acceptable
to the villagers," Anand said. "A topic like this should not have become a
conflict in the first place. There are much bigger problems waiting to be
solved."
The number of villagers staging a hunger strike dropped to 295 yesterday
from 473 on Sunday. Many of those who have quit said they had joined the
fast voluntarily because they thought it was the only way to attract
government attention.
"Allegations that we were hired to stage a hunger strike are not true," said
Prasert Popkhunthod, 54, who said he had not eaten from July 27 until
yesterday. "Who would want to risk their life for that?"
The oldest hunger striker, 88-year-old Chane Homsilp, vowed to continue his
fast although protest leaders had urged him to stop.
The impasse over the venue for the public hearing remained yesterday, and
the protest leaders are planning to hold their own hearing next week.
They and their sympathisers also reacted angrily yesterday to former prime
minister Suchinda Kraparayoon's remark that the military's brutal crack-down
on pro-democracy demonstrators in May, 1992 had been unavoidable, and their
wrath spilled over onto Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, who has been under
attack by the Pak Mool protesters.
"Chuan has a new friend," Chaiyapan Prapasawat, adviser to the Assembly of
the Poor, said sarcastically.
EDITORIAL: Democratic approach would be a big help
The Chuan administration says the Assembly of the Poor protesters have no
legitimate claims for compensation for the environmental impact of
large-scale dams or land rights in designated forest reserves and disputed
public land. As a result, only demands deemed reasonable by the government
have been met.
In turn, the protesters, mostly poor villagers, who have the support of some
NGO workers, political activists and academics, say the
democratically-elected Chuan government has lost the legitimacy to rule. All
because of the government's "insensitive and uncaring" attitude towards poor
rural folk in general and, particularly, the protesters who have camped out
for months in front of Government House.
The months-long protest has turned into an anti-government demonstration
which has since been joined by political activists seeking an immediate end
to the Chuan administration's tenure through a House dissolution to pave the
way for an early general election.
The confrontational stance of both sides is evident. But it is the
government which
must take the initiative to break the ice. After all, the plight of the poor
people must be attended to with compassion and understanding rather than an
attitude based on legalistic and bureaucratic judgement.
From the government's viewpoint, the July 25 Cabinet resolution is supposed
to settle once and for all the 16 cases of grievance claimed by the
villagers. But the protesters see it differently. They say the resolution
does nothing to solve the stalemated issues from previous rounds of
negotiation over the past several years.
The government recently agreed to hold a public hearing on the Assembly of
the Poor's demands. A public forum to be broadcast on television and radio
was scheduled for yesterday. Unfortunately it sees the protesters as "the
other side" and insisted that the meeting be held at TV Channel 11. The
protesters refused, and a chance to bridge the gap has been wasted.
It cannot be stressed enough that the government's decision not to meet the
protesters on neutral ground is gripped by fear. According to the
government, Channel 11 was chosen because it does not want to see a repeat
of the violence that led to an abrupt end to the recent public hearing in
Songkhla on the Thai-Malaysian gas-pipeline project. The project's opponents
stormed the hearing hall and some briefly engaged in fistfights with project
supporters.
But it is the duty of the government to listen to the people and meet their
aspirations. It is its duty to work towards increasing communications with
the protesters. Living in a civilised, democratic society means much more
than exerting one's political rights with total disregard of the public
interest or exercising one's right to freedom of speech by slandering
others.
Perhaps a reminder of what democracy is all about is in order. Democracy
requires of its citizens and government a distinct set of civilised values
and orientations: moderation, tolerance, civility, efficacy, knowledge and
participation, among other things.
For democracy to take root and grow in this country, the democratic process
must be allowed to run its full course on every issue of national or local
significance. For the government and the protesters, and indeed any other
interest groups, losing or winning an issue through the democratic process,
which is never perfect, is not the end of the world.
The plight of the poor is something the government must attend to, even if
it means twisting rules and regulations, breaking the rigid Thai bureaucracy
or suffering a loss of face. The Pak Mool dam protest is symptomatic of the
past mismanagement of the country. It should be quickly resolved.
Message to the deaf and the dumb (Chang Noi's article)
"We weren't poor before. We had a home and a livelihood. We had a sufficient
life made possible by nature, by the earth and the waters. Even though we
were not rich, we did not go hungry.
We were not poor. Then the government put a dam down in front of our house,
right where we had made a living for many generations ... So we became poor.
Or more exactly, we were made poor by the government and by the kind of
development that takes resources away from the countryside."
The Message of Peace issued by the Assembly of the Poor at the onset of
fasting is destined to become a classic. Chang Noi has put a full English
translation on the web (www.changnoi.8k.com). But there were two other
developments over the past two weeks which also deserve some comment.
The Assembly's list of demands covered two main issues, dams and forests.
The Cabinet's concessions covered the main points on dams - opening the Pak
Mool gates for four months, and reconfirming the halt on other dam projects
at the planning stage. But on the issue of compensation for the human
dislocation by small dam projects, the Cabinet played deaf, on the
(ironical) grounds that too many people have probably been affected. On the
issue of settlement in forests, the Cabinet played dumb. It totally refused
to talk about it.
The issue was debated on television. Assembly members and sympathisers on
one side, the agriculture minister (Newin) and forestry chief (Plodprasob)
on the other. Plodprasob presented himself as the only thing standing
between hordes of violent villagers and the total destruction of Thailand's
forests. This required some acting skill. As fisheries head, Plodprasob
presided over the decimation of the mangrove forests. Only a few months ago,
he was enthusiastic about leasing 600,000 rai of Thai forests to the Chinese
for eucalyptus. But Plodprasob put in a moving performance. He would drive
out the people and save the trees.
But, responded the Assembly people, we also want to save the trees. The
forestry department's past record on protection has been a total failure.
Nobody believes in this top-down approach any more. The government's
enthusiasm for the Chinese eucalyptus project undermines its claimed
commitment to preservation. Undoubtedly, there are some villagers still
destroying forests, but the Assembly does not endorse them. Most of the
people settled in the forests were borne along by export demand and the
military's anti-communist policies. They had no idea the government had
declared certain tracts as reserved. The government did not begin enforcing
these reservations until decades later, when communities had become settled
and developed. The numbers involved are a million people, maybe several.
This is not just an ecological issue but a human problem. It cannot be
settled by law and force but by sympathy and human cooperation.
Then two extraordinary things happened. First, Newin disowned the Chinese
eucalyptus project. The Chavalit government started it, he said. We find it
a huge embarrassment. We'd like to get out of it. A few months ago,
Plodprasob embraced the project because the Chinese would have to burn down
the villages and throw the "squatters" out of the forest for him. Now he
seemed to nod in agreement with Newin's disowning of the project. Second,
Plodprasob also accepted that the forest issue was a social problem. Those
were two huge steps forward. Perhaps the deafness and dumbness is curable.
Perhaps.
"But the Assembly gets no understanding. Instead it is accused by the
government of always asking for more, of demanding things the law will not
allow, of being a paid mob, of being migrant Laos creating chaos in the
city, of receiving foreign money to bash the dam. Country people like us
have always had a culture and way of life of sufficiency. Believe us, if a
dam had not been dumped on us and our river, there wouldn't be even a shadow
of us in front of Government House."
The authorities have tried to stifle the Assembly protest by the usual
tactics of sowing social division. The villagers are being led by evil NGOs
who are only in it for the money. They have hired students to fast. The
protests are financed by Chavalit or foreigners. They include Laos. They
create traffic jams and frighten schoolchildren. The interior minister,
Banyat, called on Bangkok people to drive the protesters out of the city.
The government spokesman, Akkapol, waved around an international
environmentalist website's comments on Pak Mool as if it were a communist
plot to overthrow Thailand.
But the important international dimension is rather different. In the last
two weeks, the international press, the wire services and the
financial-analysis websites have been flooded with reports on Thai politics,
the protests and the implications for Thailand's fragile economy. Thai
political affairs rarely contribute a blip to these radar screens. But now
the commentators and analysts are asking perplexed questions. How come this
government refused to listen to protests about a dam which is
internationally condemned? How come it let the police beat up peaceful,
praying protesters? Why does it have no sympathy, no mechanism for dealing
with apparently simple issues? Can it govern rural Thailand? This growing
international unease is measured by the falling value of the baht and the
stock index.
The Democrats in the past refused to negotiate with the Assembly (or similar
groups) on grounds of principle. Banyat's recent interviews show the party's
current responses are governed by electoral strategy. It has written off the
winning of seats in the Northeast and believes concessions to the Assembly
will lower its electoral stock in Bangkok.
But this political thinking is blinkered and outdated. Thai business groups
are concerned that the Democrats' deaf-and-dumb policy is hurting Thailand's
international image and damaging their profits. The international press and
financial analysts - who have been the biggest fans of the Democrats over
the past year - are beginning to look at Thaksin, not because they like him
but because they are starting to realise they might have to deal with him.
"Don't forget Thai society is like a pyramid. The government may dress up
the pyramid peak to be lofty, magnificent and dazzling. But if the pyramid's
base of huge numbers of the poor does not undergo structural repairs, then
before long the magnificent peak will come tumbling down. That crisis should
never happen, if the government and all in Thai society are guided by
conscience and wisdom."
Chang Noi is a pseudonym
----- End of forwarded message from owner-irn-mekong@netvista.net -----