BKK POST.February 11, 1998.Gas Pipe

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February 11, 1998.Gas Pipeline

              Government
              justification
              demanded on gas
              pipeline

              Opponents to accept Anand panel
              findings

              Suebpong Unarat

              Opponents of the Thai-Burmese gas pipeline project will be
              satisfied if the government publicises the pros and cons of the
              project, Prime Minister's Office Minister Supatra Masdit said
              yesterday.

              Conservationists recognise that the government has the power to
              make a final decision on the future of the project, but they only
              want the government to justify the decision after it is made, she
              said.

              The government will set up a committee to listen to the
              Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), the project's owner, and
              to conservation groups which demand the 260km pipeline be
              rerouted to spare the forests in Kanchanaburi province.

              The panel, to be chaired by former premier Anand Panyarachun,
              will take about ten days to gather information from both sides
              and will then forward the pros and cons of the project to the
              government for a final decision, she said.

              Hearings are expected to begin today and to be concluded by
              Feb 20.

              But opponents insist that the protesters will remain at their camp
              at Huay Khayeng forest until the committee reaches its
              conclusion.

              They have set up camp there for the past several weeks to block
              the pipeline laying through the fertile forest.

              While the committee is conducting the hearing, they will study the
              wildlife situation in the forest, including a herd of some 40 wild
              elephants, to try to come up with measures to protect them.

              They said in a statement issued yesterday that the process which
              brought about the project and gave rise to the current conflict
              was a total failure which has denied the public any say in decision
              making on major development projects.

              Premier Chuan Leekpai said on Monday that the protest against
              the gas pipe project emerged too late because the contract had
              been signed and the government could not scrap it.

              PTT sealed the pipeline contract - to feed natural gas from
              Burma's gas fields in the Andaman Sea to a plant in Ratchaburi -
              four years ago.

              Burma has completed its pipeline section to the border and the
              PTT is bound to finish its own system by July 1 or face a daily
              fine of more than 40 million baht.

              Meanwhile, a popular monk has condemned pipeline opponents
              as unpatriotic and troublemakers.

              Phra Dharma Khosacharn, popularly known as Luang Pho
              Panya Nantha Bhikhu, used harsh words in scolding the
              opponents during a sermon to pipeline supporters in Kanchaburi.

              He said the small group of opponents had damaged national
              development and caused hardship to the people, who want
              cheap energy.

              "I want to ask them if they don't have anything better to do and
              who pays them to do what they are doing," he said.