Message of peace

A message of peace to the deaf and the dumb

8 Aug 2000

"We weren’t poor before. We had home and 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. 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 deputy 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 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 government had declared certain tracts as reserved. 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. Second, Plodprasob also accepted that the forest issue is 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 has 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 the 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 that the party’s current responses are governed by electoral strategy. It has written off any chance of winning 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 now concerned that the Democrats’ deaf-and-dumb policy is hurting Thailand’s international image, and damaging their own profits. The international press and financial analysts—who have been the biggest fans of the Democrat government 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. These shifts in the delicate space of public debate can become self-confirming.

"Don’t forget that Thai society is still like a pyramid. The government may dress up the peak of the pyramid 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."