Activists
fish for solutions to conflict over Pak Mool dam
BY NANTIYA
TANGWISUTIJIT and PENNAPA HONGTHONG
The Nation 21, 4,
2000
UBON RATCHATHANI -
Former prime minister Anand Panyarachun joined activists and academics at the
Pak Mool dam yesterday in a bid to seek solutions to a decade-long conflict that
symbolised the "destruction of the self -sufficient economy".
The high-profile
visitors were supported by Buddhist monks and villagers in urging society to
take a closer look at the problems of people whose natural resources had been
taken away from them. They said Pak Mool was just the tip of the iceberg. There
were many more people who had been affected by other dam projects.
The people were not
born poor, but were pushed into poverty by the country's free market economic
development policy, they said.
It was former premier
Anand's first visit to the Pak Mool dam. He met villagers who have been camped
at the dam for more than a year protesting against the destruction of their
fisheries. "I am here to see the reality," he said. "I don't want
to argue about who should be blamed. I would like to find out if the dam meets
its goal of electricity generation and if the amount [of electricity] is
necessary," he said.
The gathering at the
Pak Mool dam was initiated by Chiang Mai University's Prof Nithi Eawsriwong. He
drew together the country's leading academics and scholars including Prof Saneh
Chammarik, Prof Prawes Wasi, Sulak Sivarak, Prof MR Akin Rapeepatra and Kasien
Tejapira.
The construction of
the Pak Mool dam was completed in 1994, with an expected electricity generating
capacity of 136 megawatts.
However, a study by
the World Commission on Dams (WCD) indicated Pak Mool fell short of its
expectations; it could produce only 40MW.
The major problem
with the Pak Mool dam was its impact on fisheries, the study said. Before the
dam was built, tens of thousands of people along the Mool River earned their
living from fishing. The dam depleted the once-rich diversity of some 269 fish
species. Now only 90 species were found, according to the WCD assessment.
Pak Mool villagers
next month plan to seize the dam and demand the Electricity Generating Authority
of Thailand open the gates to let the river run free in order to restore
fisheries.
Kasien Tejapira, of
Thammasat University's political science faculty, said the Pak Mool dam
represented a macro picture of the problems of the rural poor that were created
by the free-market economy. He said natural resources which were crucial to
people's livelihoods should not be managed by the market economy.
"Otherwise,
water [for example] will not flow along the natural rules of gravity, but from
those who have less to others with more purchasing power," he said.
He said when rural
people were asked by the government to make sacrifices for the so-called
majority, they had to give up their land and water for electricity generation to
feed factories producing export goods.
"The
decommissioning of the dam is crucial to symbolise that we admit we have walked
the wrong path [of development] and that we are willing to set our feet on the
new route [to a self sufficient economy]," he said. Many academics agreed
poverty in Thailand was a structural problem.
Prawes Wasi said Thai
people in general did not have sympathy with the poor, because they had been
trained to have discriminatory attitudes towards poor people.
"Those on top of
the social structure always justify themselves to take advantage of others in
the lower position," he said.
Kasien said the poor
received social attention because they kept fighting and voicing their plights.
"You fight,
therefore you are," he said.
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