Military and police officers in Isan, northeastern Thailand, came to record and inspect a seminar on environmental issues facing the Mekong River Basin and asked to have private talks with the event organisers.
About 10 military and police officers in uniforms and plainclothes on Thursday afternoon came to the Thai-Laos Riverside Hotel of the Isan province of Nongkhai to record and inspect the public forum about the Thai government’s projects along the Mekong River Basin in the region.
The officers took pictures of the event and its participants and inspected the documents of the seminar. Prior to the start of the discussion, they also requested to have words with the event organisers.
After discussing with the organisers, most officers left the venue, but two were deployed to record the rest of the seminar.
A police officer records the seminar on development projects and environmental issues in Nongkhai on 6 August 2015
The meeting was the second meeting on the environment issues concerning the government’s mega projects in the region. As many as 140 people from 54 sub-district committees of Nongkhai Province participated in the forum.
According to Aomboon Thipsuna, a sub-district committee member, the meeting of Nongkhai’s sub-district committee members was organised in accordance to 2008 Act on Sub-district Committee in order to gather people’s views on the government’s projects to build Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the trash-powered electricity plant in the province’s Muang District.
At the meeting, Suvit Kulapwong, the General-Secretary of NGO Coordinating Committee on Development (NGO-COD) of Isan region said that public participation is very crucial in scrutinizing such mega projects in the region.
He expressed grave concerns about the government’s plan to open up concessions to mine potash mineral in the region for private operators, saying that the locals should have their say over the management of the region’s natural resources.
Another participant, Krasan Panmeesri, a representative from Wiangkuk Sub-district, pointed out that one of the gravest concerns of the projects is the lack of transparency of government’s policies and participation of local communities, who would be directly affected by such projects.
Last month at the meeting on SEZ plan in the northern province of Tak, representatives of Ban Wang Takhian of Tha Sai Luat Subdistrict in Mae Sot District of the northwestern border province pointed out that the villagers in the area were never informed that large areas of Wang Takhian were going to be expropriated by the state for businesses and industries.
According to the current plan, two plots of land in Mae Sot are now being expropriated and cleared for SEZs. The first is a plot of about 2.2 sq.km and the second plot covers an area of about 1.3 sq.km. The authorities stated that the expropriated plots are empty public land. But many villagers have been using the area as farmland.
At the forum, Chomphunut Khruekhamwang, one of the village representatives, said that affected villagers who are more vocal than others are being intimidated by state officials in and out of uniform.
Phanom Saengplaeng, a member of the Tambon Administration Organisation (TAO), said that the villagers felt that the authorities had neglected them because no one informed the villagers about the expropriation plan.
He also alleged that the state authorities prevented the villagers from coming together to voice concerns about the plan.
“We are suffering because the authorities attempted to prevent us from voicing our concerns; we even had to send our complaint to the NHRC in secret,” said Phanom.
