[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
dam-l LS: Pak Mun, one year on
A Year of Demonstration
Villagers will continue to pursue alternatives
By: Kaia Peterson Volunteer of Friends of the People
The beginning of April marks the beginning of the second year of the
Assembly of the Poor demonstration village, Mae Moon Meun Yeun village 1.
One year ago on Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) land at
the site of the Pak Moon dam on the Moon River hundreds of villagers from
Northeastern Thailand gathered to begin building a new community in protest
of the problems they have suffered due to the Pak Moon dam and six other
current and proposed dam projects in the Northeast.
The villagers now living at Mae Moon Meun Yeun village 1 are fighting to
protect their communities and their way of life, and to ensure their
survival. Some of these people have been fighting for ten to thirty years
to have their problems addressed by the government and other parties, such
as the World Bank, who are responsible for the dam projects that have put
them in their current situation.
They have found the current government, under the leadership of Chuan
Leekpai, to be unreceptive and unresponsive to their problems, concerns and
requests. After so many years of struggle, having met only sporadic and
intermittent successes, and with little faith in the current government,
they decided to take a new approach. They built the Mae Moon Meun Yeun
village 1 as both a symbol of their protest and as a method of
sustainability alternative to moving to other communities or the city.
Choosing to stage their demonstration village at the site of the Pak Moon
dam is meant to be symbolic of there being no other land or rivers for the
villagers to turn to. Mae Moon Meun Yeun village 1 is to exist as a
constant reminder to the EGAT officials who work at and all who visit the
Pak Moon dam of the negative effects of dams and of the problems that
remain to be solved.
The community is being made more self-sufficient and includes their own
health clinic, shops, wat, meeting place, performance and rally stage,
day-care, and school. Homes are becoming more permanent as the
demonstration goes on and they are now planting vegetables and other crops
in the land surrounding their homes.
In addition to these forms of self-reliance the villagers are coming to
rely more heavily on a local system of governance. The village is felt to
be a symbol of the failure of the current governmental system and a
testemant to local people s politics. Unable to find a voice within the
current government the villagers are creating a forum and a voice for
themselves. The people s politics is a creation of political power by and
for the people. It strives to be a true direct democracy where power exists
at the local community level and in which all members are encouraged to
participate. People s politics is an encouragement of management at the
local level with the belief that local communities have the most knowledge
about their area and thus should be central to the process of managing it.
Villagers have rarely been consulted in the process of dam project planning
and building. Many people feel that if villagers had been involved in this
process many of the negative effects of dams could have been avoided. The
villagers call for a return of local power and have made a number of
demands in their pursuit of this goal including compensation of fifteen rai
of land per family and the decommissioning of the dams.
In their current struggle villagers place a lot of emphasis on the local
level putting efforts into sustaining their way of life by maintaining the
economic, cultural and social activities that have always made up their
days while acting on a variety of levels to make their case known by the
government and the public. In the past year they have staged numerous
campaigns and activities for the public while strengthening their community
at the Pak Moon dam site.
In December of 1999 there was a two week long campaign to call attention to
the environment and communities along the Moon River. The Mae Moon River
walk began with a visit to the source of the Moon River. The following
weeks included talks with park rangers, visits and speeches by professors
and academics, seminars and panel discussions, visits to villages, and
walks along portions of the river and through cities, ending at the Pak
Moon dam site. This campaign was to further educate people from all
different sectors of society about the environment of the Moon River and
the changes that have taken place there.
In another effort to educate the public about the problems on the Moon
River villagers traveled to Bangkok for a one week stay. Travelling to
shopping areas, parks and other centers of activity they distributed
information about their campaign and talked to people along the way. On a
second trip to Bangkok villagers joined together to speak out against the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD X) and to draw
attention to the connection they see between the current development system
of globalization and their own problems with dams.
All of these campaigns were in part an effort to educate the public and to
gain their support. The idea of people s politics that the Mae Moon Meun
Yeun community facilitates is dependent on participation at a variety of
levels and is not limited to the Pak Moon dam site. Public support and
participation are seen as integral to this process of problem solving and
community building.
Within the Mae Moon Meun Yeun village 1 there have also been many
activities. Most recently villagers celebrated the International Day of
Action Against Dams and for Water, Rivers and Life. Villagers joined at the
confluence of the Moon and Mekong Rivers in Kongjiem for the revival of
cultural activities. Offerings of flowers were made to the health of mother
river and Isaan music and dance was performed. All of this was in a
continuation of their daily efforts to revive and sustain the culture of
their river communities.
Also part of the pursuit of cultural sustainability is the current
construction of a school at Mae Moon Meun Yeun village 1. In the following
school term students who have been a part of the traditional government
education system will go to school at the new village school where, in
addition to classes such as reading and writing, village skills such as
fishing and weaving will be part of the curriculum. The school is another
example of how villagers are bringing the power of decision making back to
the local level and is a way for villager s way of life to be kept alive as
their community values can be passed on to future generations.
The villagers of Mae Moon Meun Yeun village 1, at the Pak Moon dam, plan to
continue their alternative community past this months one year mark. This
movement has been spread to other sites with Mae Moon villages 2 and 3 at
the Rasi Salai dam in Sisaket and Mae Moon village 4 at the proposed site
of the Bong Krum Pet dam, in Chaiyapoom. As the movement spreads to other
dam sites villagers hope it will also spread among other sectors of
society, that others will recognize the value of local governance and will
participate in the building and strengthening of people s politics.
**********************************************