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DAM-L Pak Mool DAM Thailand (fwd)

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Subject: Pak Mool DAM Thailand
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 11:54:06 +0700
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      Bangkok post
      June 2, 2001 
     







PAK MOON DAM

Dismissal of Egat chief being demanded
Anchalee Kongrut

Students activists yesterday demanded the sacking of the power authority chief for failing to comply with a cabinet resolution ordering the opening of Pak Moon dam's eight sluice gates for four months.

The order was intended to ease a long-standing conflict between the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and villagers who claimed to have been affected by construction of the dam in Khong Chiam district, Ubon Ratchathani.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, student activists from 16 state universities said Egat had defied both the cabinet resolution and the premier's recent order that the dam's eight sluice gates be kept open for four months from May 15 to allow fish to spawn upstream, and to facilitate a study of the dam's impact on the environment.

Mr Thaksin gave the order when he visited the dam site last week.

Egat governor Vithaya Kotcharat was not available for comment yesterday.

However, Egat spokesman Amnart Chotchuang said three of the eight gates had already been opened.

Each of the gates can be raised as high as eight metres. The three gates, however, were raised by 30cm only.

The spokesman said Egat feared that full opening of the gates woud trigger unrest among villagers.

While dam opponents want the gates to be opened, a rival group of villagers who raise fish in baskets in the Moon river has protested strongly, saying the opening of the gates would lower the river level and ruin their business.

The dam opponents claimed Egat was behind the rival group.

Mr Amnart also claimed that Egat had been given no deadline to open all eight gates. The spokesman said some 200 villagers had demanded that Egat compensate them at 500 baht each daily throughout the four-month opening of the gates, claiming they would not be able to catch fish in areas below the dam during that period.

Wanida Tantiwittayapitak, adviser to the Assembly of the Poor which supports the dam opponents, yesterday urged Mr Thaksin to show the same decisiveness when he sacked M.R.Chatumongol Sonakul as Bank of Thailand governor, by ordering the dismissal of the Egat governor.

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
Assembly of the Poor. http://www.thai.to/aop and http://www.yod.net/members/noi
Protection Mun River Network. http://www.thai.to/munriver and http://www.yod.net/members/bun
Protection Yom River Network. http://www.thai.to/yomriver and http://www.yod.net/members/kst
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