THAILAND-MALAYSIA: Community Rights Hinge on Gas Pipeline Project

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 6 2003 (IPS) - The mounting tension in southern Thailand over the impending construction of a long-disputed gas pipeline has brought to the surface the tussle between the government’s view of development and community rights.

Thus far, the signs are mixed on how these community rights will fare in the plans of the administration of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that sees the Thai-Malaysian joint project as bringing economic benefits to Thailand.

This week, Thai Minister of Energy Prommin Lertsuridej announced that Bangkok would not resort to violence to get the delayed pipeline project going and would opt instead to talk to the villagers opposed to it.

These words of compromise come after Thaksin thundered against non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for rallying behind the villagers in the southern province of Songkhla. The NGOs, he said, were inciting them to become pipeline opponents to get into the news and to attract foreign funds for their work.

On Jul. 1, preliminary work on this gas pipeline project – the building of a protective fence – got underway.

But that has not deterred the villagers from Songkhla from staging daily protests at key points along the route of the pipeline.

”These are difficult times; there is a lot of uncertainty, but we are not going to stop,” Bantorn Ondam, a sociologist working with the nationwide grassroots lobby Assembly of the Poor, told IPS. ”The government is stubborn and wants to carry out this project.”

Bantorn’s organisation has also begun to drum up support for the villagers from local communities and grassroots groups across this South-east Asian nation. ”We are going to mobilise people from many districts, to prevent the government’s attempt to divide us.”

For Penchom Saetang of the Campaign for Alternative Industry Network (CAIN), an environmental lobby, the government’s stance goes against the rights of community participation in development enshrined in the Thai constitution.

”The government is not respecting the constitution’s clause recognising the right of public participation,” said Penchom. ”This will result in a dilemma in Thai society, this abuse of power.”

For years now, villagers have opposed what they see as the detrimental impact on their communities when the pipeline is constructed to pass through 23 villages and the waters around them on the way down to Malaysia, carrying up to one billion cubic feet of gas a day.

The controversy had delayed the implementation of the pipeline project, which was originally supposed to be operational last year.

The Thai government has made some changes in the pipeline route, though opposition has continued. Close to 10,000 people and the nearby sea and marine life will be affected due to pollution, state available reports. Not least, critics say the pipeline would result in sludge in the sea, harming the waters that villagers depend on for livelihood.

Also weighed against voices opposed to the pipeline are an over 400-strong police force that was assigned in mid-June to ‘protect’ this development project, a joint venture between Malaysia’s Petronas and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT).

This project, which includes a 225-kilometre offshore pipeline, is expected to bring income to both Thailand and Malaysia. Under the original schedule, Malaysia was supposed to receive gas by 2002 and Thailand, five years later.

But this pipeline, estimated to cost 565 million U.S. dollars, comes at a sweeping cost to the livelihood of the villagers and their environment, critics say.

Thus, at the heart of this tussle to build a gas pipeline in Songkhla is the wider issue of what role community rights in Thailand have in shaping development projects that have direct impact on their lives.

In fact, Thailand’s 1997 constitution earned its name as the ”People’s Constitution” for clauses that called for public participation in development and recognised that local communities had a role in managing the natural resources around them.

By contrast, the 16 previous constitutions this country had over the past 50 years had no provisions for public participation.

”The constitution enshrines many rights, which are important for community empowerment,” states the ‘Thailand Human Development Report 2003,’ a study released in June by the United Nations Development Programme. ”(There) is a chapter on ‘Directive Principles of Fundamental State Policies’, which mandates the state to strengthen local communities and promote community participation in national decision-making”.

But activists fear that these ideals are under siege by a government determined to force its view of development and reluctant to hear the voices of local communities.

Two high-profile events within the past year highlight this trend.

In December, an attempt by the villagers opposed to the gas pipeline project to protest peacefully resulted in a harsh police crackdown.

In January, villagers in northern Thailand affected by a dam built on a river they depend on for fish found the government reluctant to change its plans for the Pak Moon dam. The government decided to open the sluice gates for only four months every year, while the villagers had requested that they be opened all year round.

”What we are faced with today is a continuation of what happened with the dam,” said Chainarong Sretthachau, director at the Thai office of the South-east Asia Rivers Network, a regional environmental lobby. ”It makes us worried about the future of village communities having a right to participate in development.”

”The current government is taking the country back to the days of development under the dictatorships, when people’s views were not considered,” he added.

But critics say the government that preceded the Thaksin administration is at fault, too, for the gas pipeline dispute. It laid the groundwork for the current confrontation by not consulting local communities when the plans for this Malaysian-Thai venture were signed in April 1998, they say.

”The government has to be very careful about taking action against local communities,” said Penchom. ”People are watching, very sensitive. A police crackdown will not help.”