THAILAND: Villagers seize dam, demand justice
VILLAGE OF THE POOR, northern Thailand — It's early morning in the Kaeng Tana National Park and I'm on the verandah of a guesthouse overlooking the wide brown Moon River, just above its confluence with the Mekong. Across the river are the jungles of Laos. Downstream is a huge protest camp.
Dubbed the Village of the Poor, thousands of villagers from all over Thailand have converged here for a non-violent protest against the disruption of their lives by the huge Pak Moon dam, funded by the World Bank in 1991, and six other current and proposed dam projects in north-east Thailand.
The villagers have camped since April 1999 on land owned by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), by the side of the dam which has destroyed the fisheries of the Moon River, affecting 25,000 people.
After a year of fruitless protest, in March 1999 the villagers stormed over the wire fences and seized control of the dam, covering the dam wall with their thatched dwellings. In a statement issued at the time, they said "We, the people who have been affected by development projects, have chosen to seize Pak Moon dam because this dam is the symbol of development, which has caused us serious social and environmental problems. We will fight until we have justice, and the dam builders resolve our problems."
They have built a series of villages surrounding the dam, which are now inhabited by more than 5000 people. By doing so, they have found an alternative to moving to city slums after the flooding of their land and fields and have created their permanent protest in the face of their oppressors.
Their village now includes a school, meeting place, health clinics and shops, day care centre and Buddhist temple. The system having failed them, they are evolving systems of self-governance.
Their movement has spread to other sites, with similar protest villages springing up at the Rasi Salai dam and the site of the proposed Bong Krum Pet dam.
They are supported by organisations like Friends of the People, which in 1997 organised a similar, even more massive 99-day protest camp, the Assembly of the Poor, outside Government House in Bangkok.
Thongcharoen Srihadham, 54 years old, and the chairperson of the Villagers' Committee for Recovery of the Moon River and the Communities, said: "Before the dam was built, our livelihoods were supported by the resources provided by the Moon River. We did not need to pay for food, because we could get everything from the river and the forest.
"After the dam was built, everything changed. The dam blocked the fish and destroyed the rapids. We became poorer and had no food from nature. Many of our relatives had to move to Bangkok to find work. Our families and communities were destroyed.
"Moreover, we started getting new diseases — the incidence of liver fluke increased by 50%. And we are very concerned about the blood fluke, schistosomiasis, because the snails which host this disease are increasing in number in the reservoir."
For five years, the villagers witnessed the disappearance of fish. The World Commission on Dams has reported that over that period the number of fish in the river decreased by 60-80%.
One of the villagers' demands was that the government and EGAT open the dam's floodgates for four months of the year to allow fish to swim upriver and lay their eggs. This would partly restore the natural ecological condition of the river and the livelihood of the people.
In mid-July, when there were no signs of EGAT or the government heeding their demands, more than 1000 farmers and fisherfolk left the Village of the Poor and headed for Bangkok. Two hundred and twenty-five were arrested while storming Government House, generating enormous publicity for their cause. Support actions took place at Thai consulates in Sydney, Washington, DC, and Tokyo.
Two weeks later the government opened the dam floodgates and agreed to leave them open for four months of the year.
Though most had never gone to school, the villagers here knew more about the perils of globalisation and the multilateral development banks than most university graduates. They were incredibly brave and endured poverty such as I had never experienced in my own life.
It was a great honour to be able to donate nearly two tonnes of rice to fuel their revolution. Many of them often don't have enough to eat, some have lost their fields to inundation while others can't tend their fields because they are here protesting.
If you wish to make a donation, send it to Playon School Project, account number 338-1-13249-0, Krung Thai Bank, Khong Chiam branch, Thailand. Please write to Chuan Leekpai, Prime Minister, Government House, Dusit District, Bangkok, Thailand demanding that the government not use violence against the villagers and environmentalists camped at the dam site.
BY JOHN SEED
[The author is an activist with the Rainforest Information Centre in Lismore. To contact the RIC, write to PO Box 368, Lismore NSW 2480, or email <johnseed@ozemail.com.au>.]