Why Thailand's People Are Fed Up With Abuses From the Elite by Phairath Khampha 30 August 2000 Paying for so-called progress and development Thailand's people have questioned the motivations of the government, bureaucrats, big businessmen and politicians that are behind many of the country's so-called development projects that are supposed to bring progress and prosperity. Much of the process is project driven rather than designed to meet the needs and aspirations of ordinary Thais. The projects all end up being quite useless with respect to the overall benefits to the general public although they do provide some direct benefits to certain, select and usually very wealthy and powerful individuals. Either way, a great deal of money is siphoned off by the corrupt government, bureaucrats, big businessmen and politicians during the development of such projects, the borrowed money for which is to be always paid by the poor taxpayers. In most cases in the name of development people lose their rights to land, water and other natural resources with little, if any, compensation. Their ancestral lands lost, their income and livelihood all but gone, members of Thailand's Assembly of the Poor discussed their plight in August with government representatives in an open forum at Thammasat University. Protests mount for return to being able to use previously held and arbitrarily removed rights to natural resource use Protest over the Pha Taem National Park was inevitable for 68-year-old Kong Yotharat, from Nong Phue Yai village, Ubon Ratchathani province. One day in 1941, the government declared the lands, where he and his ancestors were born and had lived for centuries, a reserved forest, barring the villagers from living there. "My family had about 100 rai (1 rai = 1,600 m2)of land. We grew rice, tapioca and some jute. The produce was not excellent, but enough for us to live on. The forest is also an abundant source of food," the reserved villager recalled. The Nong Phue Yai village was officially founded by royal and government decree in 1930, more than 10 years before the announcement of the government. "Later, the government granted a logging concession for our [village] area to a top army general of the Sakdinan family. Our forest was cut down, the logs were transported to the city. After that, the forestry officials declared the area a 'no-go zone'," Kong said. Since 1964, the villagers had had to live in semi-hiding. The village consists of 200 houses, with more than 1,000 families. "The officials tried to push us out of our lands. But we had nowhere to go. We had to stay put, trying to sneak out to the farms when the officials were not around," Kong said. At that time, the villagers were still allowed to reside in the reserved area. The situation became worse in 1991, when the area was designated Pha Taem National Park. This time, there was no leniency from the officers. "As soon as the area became a national park, they tried to oust us, yet we have been living here for hundreds of years. How come no one tries to oust the same officials from their homes? The forestry officials and police carrying M-16 assault rifles came to patrol the village every day. They pulled down our houses, too." About 40 villagers were arrested for trespassing. "We had to pool all the money we had, and even sold our cattle, to bail them out," Kong noted. After that, the villagers joined the Assembly of the Poor and went to Bangkok to air their grievance. "We had lived there for so long. There was no problem at all until the government went in and took everything and basically gave it to the wealthy families senior government officials and certain politicians. When we came here [in Bangkok] to protest, some people who work for the politicians and the country's elite gave distorted information about us. The government tried to beat us. It is just not fair," Kong added. The villagers' endless protests seemed to bear fruit in April 1996 when the Banharn government resolved to survey the land and issue land rights documents, if it was found the villagers had been living there before the declaration of the forest reserve. The Chavalit administration carried out the resolution in 1997. However, in 1998, the Chuan government overruled the previous resolutions. The resolution of June 30, 1998 stated that the villagers must be relocated from the national park. According to Kong, the villagers there still face prosecution. As far as he is concerned, the protest must go on until the villagers' rights over their lands are restored. Banthorn Commission's recommendations: Revoke the June 30, 1998 resolution and initiate a process of problem-solving that accommodates villagers' participation. In response, the government refused to revoke the June 30 resolution, but agreed in principle to allow villagers' participation. Chong Mek Though a native of the Northeast, Yiamporn Polsoongnern, 42, never paid attention to the problems of evicted Isan (Northeast Region of Thailand) peasants-until she faced such problems herself. "I was too busy working. I thought my life was going well with my small business at the Chong Mek market," said the bespectacled merchant. "Then one fine day, I was ordered by some officials to pack up and leave my shophouse. Only then did I realise the importance of getting organised to demand justice." That is why Yiamporn and other Chong Mek merchants joined the Assembly of the Poor as a way to fight for their rights. Chong Mek became a thriving Thai-Laos border market around 1990 when the government encouraged merchants to do business there. To promote border trade, the authorities set aside a piece of degraded forest at the checkpoint and divided it into small plots for the merchants. "We put up public utilities ourselves. We paid taxes. Later on, we had a school for the children. Before long, the community was upgraded to a municipal area. The community became our home," she said. Then a state-owned property development project came to Chong Mek, run by wealthy and corrupt politicans and senior bureaucrats. "We were told only vaguely that the low-cost flats would be free for anyone who wanted to move there. Officials always make vague promises of improvements. Then out of the blue, the authorities simply told us that our shophouses must be dismantled and that we must pay a high fee to move to the new commercial buildings. We could not afford to do that," she said. "We want to stay in our homes. We want the authorities to issue us legal land rights, and to improve public utilities there." Chong Mek's were among a handful of demands by the Assembly of the Poor that got a nod from the government. But Yiamporn stayed put at the protest site. "We're waiting for concrete action from the government to implement its decisions," she explained, but that was not all. "We've made an oath that we won't forsake one another until all our problems are satisfactorily addressed. Years of fighting together have bonded us. We cannot leave our friends in need. We must keep our self-respect." Coming from a middle-class family, Yiamporn said the struggle with the grassroots movement has made her a new person. "Before, I was like the middle-class in Bangkok. I was only concerned with making money. I rarely read newspapers. I only watched television after work, but mainly for entertainment. And any news I got from TV, I always believed that it was true. Now I've learned first-hand how news and information are distorted by the government bureaucracy and the state-controlled media and the media owned by the same big corporations and politicians that take away our lands and resources." She laughed at the accusation that protesters were being paid by third parties, usually labelled by the authorities as communists or subversives, to help destroy the government. "Please come and observe how we organise our protests," she urged. Since protests can take years, she said, each group under the umbrella of the Assembly of the Poor sends volunteers who take turns sitting in at the protest site. This strategy allows each individual a break to work and support themselves during the long struggle. "The longer we fight, the more we see the glaring injustice of our society," she said. "This can be undone if local communities have a say in development policies and if we have a right to choose our own way of life. It's our constitutional right after all." Banthorn Commission's recommendations: Let the Chong Mek people stay during the process to prove their land use. Let the locals participate in land-use planning and development projects. The government reluctantly agreed to the proposals. Lam Dome Yai Dam Boonchoo Sawisa lives on the lush land of Na Jaruay District in Ubon Ratchathani Province of Thailand. He is a farmer who owns 170 rai of land which yields 500 kilograms of rice per rai annually. All this will be inundated and washed away if the Lam Dome Yai Dam is completed. His story beganin 1995 when a town meeting was called at the local temple, and the disastrous news was delivered. "There was an officer from the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) asking us questions like how much compensation would we need if our lands were flooded because of the dam. But they never once asked us whether we needed the dam or not," said Boonchoo. "It was a foregone conclusion that one way or another the dam was going to be built because certain people in Bangkok wanted to build a dam just for the sake of having a project." The villagers were stunned and confused by this abrupt bit of news, but decided they would not go down without a fight to save their livelihoods and their verdant land. All the villagers signed a petition and sent a letter to the RID, but their voices went unheard. The project continued. "We never gave up though. We sent the petition to six Tambon [sub-district] Administration Organisation offices. Again, nothing was done to prevent this ill-advised project. So we moved up to the district level." The only reply they heard-and too many times-was that the project was still under scrutiny and there was no need for panic. But tambon and district officials had been promised they would participate in the construction and the profits derived from it. After getting the cold shoulder from the RID and the administration offices, in 1996 the affected villages jointly organised a movement against the Lam Dome Yai Dam and moved their protest efforts up to the provincial level. "We went to MPs and asked for help. They promised us they would try their best to get a good deal on compensation. But that was not what we wanted--none of the villagers wanted anything, not even a bottle of water. We just wanted to stay on our land." They learned their lesson from the Huay Poon Reservoir project, which had flooded almost 500 rai of land: the RID officers had purposely misinformed villagers as to the effect the reservoir would have on their land. Consequently, they signed a compensation agreement without knowing the real consequences, he said. "This time we will not let history repeat itself. We will not let anyone fool us again."He added the RID had claimed that the dam had to be built as a way to help the perceived failure of the Agricultural Land Reform Office (Sor Por Kor). "That was a lie. Sor Por Kor came in 1992 and since then, our lives have been improved tremendously. I would call it a success, not a failure. Our ancestors settled in this village many centuries ago and there is much evidence like ancient temples that stands as palpable proof."Despite years of struggle, their protest was ignored by the government, but they were determined to claim their rights and save their land. They decided to expand their connections by joining the Assembly of the Poor in 1996. "There was a mass protest in Houng Yome district about another dam and the news was broadcast on radio. All the villagers agreed that we needed to join the protest." That event led them to recruit more people to their crusade. In the year 1998, more than 2,000 people sat in front of Ubon Ratchathani's Provincial Buildings to bargain with the governor in an effort to demonstrate the power of the people. According to a central government legislative act passed on April 29, 1997, the RID could not continue the project unless a properly carried out environmental impact assessment (EIA) study proved conclusive. No study has been carried out on this dam, but the government has already ap proved the project's budget of 83 million baht (1 US Dollar = 40.8500 Thai Baht). "The government's actions contradict what is stated in the bill. Some of the officers have already came to the village and started a land survey. What does this mean?" Banthorn Commission's recommendations: The RID should halt the project, including the drafting of detailed plans for the dam, until the EIA study is finished. The government should approve a budget for the EIA study and other socialiological studies. According to the legislative act in 1997, all the information on the project should be made available to the public. The government agreed with all three recommendations. Pak Mun Dam What most people have come to think of as the "Pak Mun Dam Protest" is actually a collection of different groups--15 in all--each protesting for a different reason, with most of the protests revolving around the negative effects that government-led development programs have had on the lives and livelihoods of the villagers affected. The 12-year protest by Pak Mun villagers, for example, continues to show the negative effect of so-called development without the general participation of affected people or any local consultation. Somkiat Ponpai is a landless fisherman who had never asked the government for anything-he had enough to feed his family. However, his self-sufficient livelihood disappeared when the Pak Mun Dam was built. "My three children had to drop out of school as I no longer had enough money to send them," Somkiat said. ""Furthermore schooling in the public schools is supposed to be free, but corrupt education officials and teachers require we illegal pay fees for this, that and the other and it is more than I can now pay." Villagers began to protest early in 1992, upon learning that the dam would be built. In 1995, he and other protesters had to accept the government compensation scheme. "The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and the government asked us to wait and see, for three years, whether the dam's construction would affect our livelihood," said Somkiat. "If we did not agree, they would have said we were being stubborn and disrespectful and disloyal." Villagers signed an agreement to accept 30,000 baht in cash and 60,000 baht to be put into a cooperative fund. This total sum of 90,000 baht was supposed to compensate the villagers for fishing opportunities lost over the ensuing three years. After the three years were over, 3,084 families were forced to protest again, under the umbrella of the Assembly of the Poor, as there were no more fish in the Mun River. "Officials asked us why we don't raise fish," said Somkiat. "I would like to ask them whether they had studied the return on investment. It is not that we are lazy but because we tried it and received nothing. All our money we received from selling the fish went into fish feed because the only purchasers were big businessmen who controlled fish market forces so that they could buy fish cheaply," said Somkiat. "Fishery officials said they can breed fish and return them to our river, but why don't they breed local species? They can't. Now they are just releasing pla nin (tilapia fish), which was not the type of fish we used to catch in the Mun River because it is not their natural environment." Somkiat was able to show that the Pak Mun protesters did not received additional compensation, although EGAT claims it had compensated the protesters many times and "these people are too demanding and their motive for protesting is just to get more compensation." In fact, many EGAT senior officials and related government officials siphoned off much of the money. "EGAT may have given compensation to other groups of people such as those with village headmen and subdistrict chiefs who are in cahoots with the senior officials, but not to us, the 3,084 families," said Somkiat. "We are not too demanding. We are only asking for what we deserve according to the agreement we made with the government," he said. "The government, be it because of the corrupt officials or not, who either way are the government's representatives, has never sent a satang (1 satang= 1/1000 baht) to any one of the families." The agreement was signed between the 3,084 families who had proved to the government's satisfaction that they they whad been affected by the dam's construction, and the government, represented by signatory Arkom Aienchon, assistant secretary to the Prime Minister in 1995. "The agreement states that after three years of the Pak Mun Dam's operation, if the villagers could not catch fish, the EGAT would provide 15 rai of land to compensate them for the loss of their livelihood," said Somkiat. But as is usual when dealing with Thai government officials, it was all just empty promises and when the time came the EGAT said there was no land available for them. The EGAT offered money to buy the land at 35,000 baht per rai instead. The Chuan Cabinet, however, passed a resolution on April 21, 1998, that cancelled the plan by a previous government. The decision was based on the concern that retroactive compensation programs would set a precedent for other projects and make it difficult for the project proponents, usually members of the elite, to have the projects carried out at the least possible cost. The latest protest began in 1999 on March 24, and has continued since then, more than 500 days later. In response to the accusation that they were hired troublemakers, which is the classic excuse put forward by the government, the military and the economic and political elite in Thailand, Somkiat asked, "Who would be able to hire more than 5,000 protesters to protest for more than 500 days? We feel sorry that the EGAT tried to mobilise some fellows in our villages to protest against us. We don't blame them-they needed the money. They just came for a day or two and left." Somkiat pointed out that the villagers were not happy to be protesting. "We are so sorry that we, ordinary villagers, had to become victims of this so-called development program. We are now divided. We feel sorry that we have no means to help the public understand our side. The EGAT has spent taxpayers' money to buy space in newspapers to tell their side of the story and to attack us. "Why can't the EGAT study the real effects of the dam on us? Instead, they try to make the public grow angry at us, and blame us for the rising cost of electricity. But I hope the public knows that the price increases have little to do with us, and has more to do with the greed of the EGAT officials than anything else. Like always," said Somkiat. Hydroelectricity comprises only 13 percent of EGAT's total generating capacity. The Pak Mun Dam generates an average of only 40 megawatts of electricity, compared to the 2,738 megawatts of the other 19 dams in Thailand. Other sources of energy, such as thermal or gas-and-oil combined cycle power generation, produce about 12,143 megawatts. "We are not asking for compensation anymore, as the money would be gone in a few years. But please, give us back our source of income, our lives, our free-flowing river-Mae Mun," said Somkiat. Banthorn Commission's recommendations: All the eight sluice gates must be opened from May to August each year. There must be a multilateral committee to study the environmental impact over the period of one year. The long-term resolutions include setting up a multi-party committee in charge of river basin management. The government decided to allow the dam's sluice gates to open from May to August, but remained silent on the other recommendations. Lam Khan Choo Dam Khampian Srithanual used to dream that a new dam next door would help him grow and harvest his rice at least twice a year because without irrigation water he could grow his crop only once per year. Instead, the Chaiyaphum Province villager has been living in fear the Lam Khan Choo Dam might collapse any day, and inundate the two districts near its reservoir. "When the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) started the project in 1989, we didn't protest," Khampian recalled. "We believed the government's promise that it was a wonderful program that would provide us farmers with water year-round, that from now on we would be able to live and eat well. But since the dam was completed, in 1996, those promises of irrigation canals never materialised. The only available irrigation service in the area goes to a flour factory and it is obvious the dam was built to provide water for the factory and never for us, although they had said that so that we would not interfere with the project's progress." For the 39-year-old farmer, the dam's uselessness is not as bad as the threat of havoc it poses if millions of cubic metres of water suddenly gush out through the cracks that lace the dam. Khampian said the first time the people in his village learned of the safety problems with the dam was through a television program in November 1998. The Channel 7 documentary revealed several serious failure lines along the embankment of the dam. Since then, worried Chaiyaphum villagers have filed complaints to a number of state agencies. After some time, two groups of inspectors were sent to check up on the dam, and both insisted there need not be any worry. The construction materials had just shrunk a little bit on the surface, the surveys reported, explaining it as a natural process that should not threaten the rest of the concrete structure. Most competent geotechnical would refute such an excuse. In fact, Khampian and other villagers were doubtful of the accuracy of the inspectors' feedback, however. The reports, in fact, are full of discrepancies. Moreover, there were attempts by state officials to cover up the cracks and holes on the dam prior to the inspections. This is a classic course of action carried out by officials who wish to hide their tracks where construction is of poor quality because of courrpt management of a project. "And nobody dares to promise that they will give us compensation if the dam ever collapses," said Khampian. "When a dam in Chiang Mai collapsed in 1994, it flooded several villages and one farmer was drowned; the only help his family received from the government was a token sum of 5,000 baht and a dispatch of tractors to clear up the mess. That's about all. We don't want similar things to happen here. Now, every time there's a heavy rain, those living downstream can't get to sleep." One fundamental problem of the Lam Khan Choo dam stems from the fact that it was commissioned without an environmental and social impact assessment (EIA) study, having been built before the 1992 Environmental Act. Khampian and other villagers who joined the Assembly of the Poor believe a retroactive assessment is required. The Lam Khan Choo dam, they said, permanently submerged the community forest that once served as a public market for the people in that part of Northeast Thailand. What if an EIA study found the people's loss and environmental degradation far outweighed the dam's benefits? The Cabinet's July 25 resolution, however, shot down the assembly's request, arguing it was an old project that had already been completed. Khampian was also frustrated by the government's evasive response to the issue of irrigation services. The resolution said it "expects" the construction could be started in the 2000-2001 fiscal year, but no details of how to realise the plan have been laid out. Nor had the Chuan Leekpai Cabinet responded to the complaints by two Chaiyaphum villagers of unfair compensation. Khampian said one man had not received a single baht for his 14 rai of farmland, which was forcibly expropriated, while the other had been paid for only half of the land inundated by the dam. The government said it would give the first man compensation for only 10 rai, and the second would receive no more money. "In fact a number of villagers were cheated during the construction of the dam. They had been led to believe there wouldn't be any compensation, so many sold their land to outsiders at an extremely low price. Those outsiders turned out to be politicans, wealthy land owners and RID officials who were then handsomeley 'compensated'. The whole exercise was a flagrant cheat of the people. Now we just want to reclaim our self-sufficient way of life. Before, the land was fertile and we didn't need to use fertilisers at all. We had our forest to supply us with food. So if a study found the dam totally useless and harmful to people and nature, why can't we have it decommissioned and restore the forest? Then all of us will be able to enjoy both nature and our traditional culture again." Banthorn Commission's recommendations: Study the dam's safety. Provide full compensation to the two villagers. Conduct an environmental and social impact assessment study. Implement irrigation services. The government said the safety concerns were not warranted, nor was a retroactive EIA study, and it would give only partial compensation to the two villagers. It agreed to the need for irrigation canals but did not provide details of how to put them in place. It agreed to the irrigation canal system because it would create a new "project" from which venal officals and politicians and greed contractors, often the one and the same, could siphon off more money.