The authorities continue to suppress local activists and villagers, who are against the petroleum exploration in villagers in Thailand’s Northeast.
According to the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), the military on 25 February brought Thawatchai Surat, a northeastern energy activist, to Buriram Muang Police Station and forced him to sign an agreement not the campaign against an petroleum operator.
However, Thawatchai refused to sign any paper.
Thawatchai is one of activists who has been campaigning against the petroleum exploration of Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum, a Chinese petroleum company, granted the state concessions by the Department of Mineral Fuels since 2014 to explore potential petroleum fields in northeastern province of Buriram, Maha Sarakham, Roi Et, and Surin.
At the police station, the authorities asked Thawatchai to report details about villagers who are against the company and whether they are backed back politicians or interest groups, and their demands.
Thawatchai added that the authority also asked about the Thai PBS TV programme titled ‘Real Life Is Worse than Soap Operas’, which interviewed with him last year about the impact of exploration operations in the region, and instructed him to inform the authorities of any planned program about the conflict in the future.
On 16 September 2014, several police officers visited him regarding the Thai PBS’s programme.
Since the 2014 coup d’état, officers, some of whom in plainclothes, regularly came to the village to monitor the meetings of anti-exploration villagers. The watch created climate of fear to the villagers, who started to censor themselves, said he.
He pointed out that the recent petroleum exploration operations shaked the ground, and damaged the houses nearby.
In Khon Kaen, the Apico (Korat) Limited, a US-based oil and gas exploration company, which received the state concession to explore potential petroleum fields in Dongmoon of Kranuan District, informed the villagers last week that the company will continue the drilling operations on 18 March despite the opposition of the locals.
Last month, about 40 armed police and military officers assisted the company while it moved drilling equipments to the potential. Due to the military presence, the villagers could merely looked on and prayed.
The procedure was actually ordered to halt by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) due to its controversial Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report.
On the night of 14 February, about 20 police and military officers from Khon Kaen Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) threatened village leaders and a local environmental with martial law if the villagers insisted to obstruct the company’s operations.