Thai Activist Say Thailand Needs No

[shan@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Thai Activist Say Thailand Needs No Water from the Salween: 


1 January 1999 

?What Thailand needs is a better management system of its own water supply
which is still ample?. So says a Thai expert on dams. 

He was speaking at a meeting held quietly last week in Chiangmai. There was
some fear that it might be sabotaged if it went openly. 

?We are using only 33% of our own water supply. We don?t need the
electricity from the Salween either. Since the economic crisis started, we
have been using only 50% of our present supply,? he said. Another agreed
pointing out that Thailand even has no more use for the Yadana gas
pipeline. ?So where is the need to buy electricity?? said she. 

The somewhat hush-hush meeting was held amidst reports that a Thai company,
the MDX, had been conducting a five-month long feasibility study in the
Upper Salween Basin in the Shan States since October. It was sponsored by
Japan?s Electronic Power Development Corporation. 

?In Thailand, we wouldn?t have allowed them to enter the territory at all,
not to say letting them doing survey,? said the activist who declined to
divulge his name. He thought it was a mistake for the Shan States Army to
grant entry permission to the company. ?It is like the camel in one of
Aesop?s Fables. Once it is allowed to come in, it will not only refuse to
move out but shall proceed to move out the owners themselves?. He was
referring to the story of an Arab who, out of pity, allowed a camel to keep
its head inside his tent during a sand storm and was eventually pushed out
of his shelter by his unwanted guest. 

Another participant also stated, ?Development has been a weapon used time
and again to eliminate opposition. It is a double edged knife. If you allow
it, you and your people shall perish. If you don?t, then you?ll be accused
of prohibiting progress and prosperity to the people. It?s an old story to
the rest of the world, but in Burma, it has only just begun?. 

The Border Area Development (BAD) Committee was formed by Gen Khin Nyunt in
1989. ?Mark my words, ? he added. ?It?s not your benefactor. It?s your
exterminator. Shans will be history after the dam is finished?. 


S.H.A.N.