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REPOST NEWS - Rumble in the Jungle
http://www.mojones.com/news_wire/lowe.html
Rumble in the Jungle
Thai protestors lose a pristine forest to a multinational pipeline?but
they may be headed for an even bigger showdown.
by Justin Lowe (Mother Jones Magazine)
March 10, 1998
In a dramatic standoff, a small group of Thai
protesters last week faced a phalanx
of bulldozers in a last-ditch effort to protect one
of Thailand's few remaining
undeveloped forests from a transnational gas
pipeline.
On March 3, social critic Sulak Sivaraksa, a Nobel
Peace Prize nominee and
recipient of the "alternative Nobel" Right
Livelihood Award, led about 50 students
and other activists in an attempt to block
completion of the Yadana natural gas
pipeline through Western Thailand's Huay Khayeng
National Forest Reserve. Sulak and his group of protestors
faced formidable opposition in their bid to save the
forest, not only from the Thai government and its state-owned
Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), but also from
the unseen hand of multinational energy corporations Unocal
and Total, which are partnered with PTT in
developing the Yadana gas field in Burma.
They failed. The bulldozers are back at work, and
the pipeline's effects on the once-pristine forest may be
irreversible.
But even as the small band of activists was placed
under arrest, there emerged a silver lining: a legal challenge
that could have far-reaching effects on Thailand's
politics and its environment.
Biodiversity vs. Industry
Nestled in a range of limestone hills along the
Burma border?a biologically rich area that
boasts several national parks, wildlife
sanctuaries, and a World Heritage Site?the Huay
Khayeng forest comprises several distinct forest
types and an unusual ecosystem of rivers and
caves that is habitat to an almost comical variety
of species, from several herds of endangered
Asian elephants to caves full of Kitti's hog-nosed
bat, the world's smallest mammal, to the rare
tricolored Royal crab.
Forsaken
Fauna
The doomed
forest is home to
rare and
endangered
species, some
of which live
nowhere else.
Huay Khayeng's "reserve" status offers nominal
protection to one of Thailand's few remaining areas of primeval
forest, but not the full protection conferred on
national parks?and this is a country where even the national parks
are being logged illegally, despite a nationwide
logging ban that began in 1989. Spurred by its recent economic
boom, from 1982 to 1992 the nation lost some 14
percent of its forests to extensive commercial logging?legal
and illegal?and the household demands of local
villagers, according to the World Resources Institute. Huay
Khayeng appears to have escaped the devastation
largely due to its remote location near the Burma border.
Until now, that is. The $1.2 billion, 400-mile
Yadana pipeline will transport natural
gas from production fields in the Andaman Sea off
Burma to an electrical power
plant still under construction in Ratchaburi,
outside Bangkok. On the way, it bisects
the Huay Khayeng forest. Construction is already
complete in Burma (renamed
Myanmar by the military dictatorship that controls
the country), where Thailand's
PTT is a 25% partner in the consortium developing
the Yadana field, along with the
Burmese junta and subsidiaries of the French
petrochemical giant Total and the
American multinational Unocal.
The Thai section of the pipeline is being built by
the government-owned PTT at a projected cost of $640 million. It
traverses 30 miles of forest in Kanchanaburi
Province, four miles of which is categorized by the government as
"first-class watershed," including portions of Huay
Khayeng, one of Thailand's last stands of virgin forest.
Shoddy Eco-Assessment
Forest defenders say the government can afford the
estimated $45 million cost of rerouting the pipeline around
the forest along existing roads, but PTT has
insisted on proceeding with the project, even after a government
committee rejected its initial environmental impact
assessment (EIA) in 1996 for insufficient data on wildlife and
forest impacts. Environmentalists have harshly
criticized PTT's flawed EIA, conducted by a private subcontractor,
in part because it somehow ignored the rare crab and
missed more than 40 elephants, claiming there were only
five in the forest. Opponents also objected to PTT's
control of the EIA and public hearings processes.
Rather than redesign the pipeline, PTT has
vigorously cultivated its "green" image with an expensive PR
campaign including television commercials and
tree-planting programs.
Not all the criticism is ecological. Critics also
question whether the country has the demand to justify buying more
than 80 percent of the Yadana field's gas in the
middle of a national economic crisis, which began last year and
has reduced the nation's projected gas requirements
over the next decade by 20 percent, according to industry
analysts.
Forest Blockade
Beginning in December, Thai environmental activists
took direct action, occupying
Huay Khayeng forest. As PTT's construction
contractor bulldozed a 40- to
70-foot-wide swath through the virgin forest, a
handful of protestors blocked the last
few kilometers of the pipeline route in an attempt
to halt the project and protect the
reserve. Eventually hundreds would take part in the
encampment.
"This watershed is worth much much more than the 2
billion baht [$45 million] the
government may have to spend amending the project,"
activist Phinan
Chotirosseranee of the Kanchanaburi Conservation
Group told the Bangkok Post in an interview at the forest
camp. "If I had known [their intentions] when they
first inked the deal," she continued, "I wouldn't have even let
them set eyes on my province."
The dispute grew into a national controversy in
January and quickly became a major test for the Democrat Party
of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, which is committed
to the broad democratic principles embodied in the new
national constitution adopted last October?including
the explicit rights of the Thai people to defend natural
resources and the environment, and to participate in
decisions about development projects.
On February 9, eight foreign conservationists
delivered to Chuan's office a letter of concern, authored by the
International Rivers Network and co-signed by more
than 50 organizations and activists worldwide, urging Chuan
to settle the Yadana pipeline dispute openly and
fairly.
"Foreign environmentalists have an obligation to
assist national groups opposing multinational oil companies like
Unocal and Total whose projects are detrimental to
the environment," said Pam Wellner, coordinator of the
International River Network's Burma project.
Chuan called a ten-day halt to construction on
February 12 and authorized a high-level panel to review the
environmental impacts of the project and make
recommendations to the government. Chaired by former Prime
Minister Anand Panyarachun, the committee of
economists, lawyers, and environmental experts heard testimony
from PTT and conservationists?in return for
environmentalists' commitment to withdraw from the forest following
Chuan's decision.
The committee concluded that PTT's environmental
assessment was too shoddy, and its decision-making
process too secretive, but it stopped short of
recommending that the pipeline be delayed or rerouted. After
reviewing the panel's recommendations and visiting
Kanchanaburi on March 1, Prime Minister Chuan announced
his decision: The project will proceed.
Oilers, Drugs, and Money
Meanwhile, in El Segundo, California, Unocal Corp.
maintains a low profile on the
environmental controversy in Thailand, noting dryly
that "development of the portion
of the pipeline extending from the Myanmar-Thai
border to Ratchaburi is the
responsibility of PTT." However, the company's huge
investment in the Yadana
pipeline, and its 36-year presence in Thailand's
energy market, where it is the
country's largest gas producer, belies its attempts
to distance itself from the
dispute. Unocal supplies 20 percent of Thailand's
total energy needs and supports
more than a third of its electrical generation.
Further muddying the waters, the chairman of the hastily assembled
Yadana review committee, former Thai prime minister
Anand Panyarachun, runs one of the country's biggest
industrial conglomerates?and is reportedly an
adviser to Unocal.
Unocal is also a major investor in Burma's energy
sector, where its partnership with PTT, Total, and Burma's
ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC, recently renamed the State Peace and Development
Council) in construction of the Yadana pipeline has
provoked a landmark lawsuit now underway in Los Angeles.
The plaintiffs, Burma villagers from the vicinity of
the pipeline, are suing Unocal for financial compensation for
human rights violations, including rape, torture,
extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and other "crimes against
humanity," allegedly perpetrated by SLORC on behalf
of the pipeline consortium. Unocal representative David
Garcia told MoJo Wire these allegations are "false
and unfounded."
Unocal also disputes allegations that its Burmese
partner, SLORC's Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), is
a principal agent in laundering a portion of the
estimated 50-70 percent of Burma's revenue earned from heroin
production. In March 1996, the U.S. State Department
reported that Burma is the world's largest producer of
opium and the source of over 60 percent of the
heroin seized on U.S. streets. According to Francois Casanier, a
researcher with the French organization Geopolitical
Drugwatch, "MOGE has been the main channel for
laundering the revenues of heroin produced and
exported under the control of the Burmese army."
Under the Bulldozers
Even as the Kanchanaburi Conservation Group and its
supporters began to pull out of the forest after the prime
minister's announcement, a new team of protesters
not bound by the previous agreement took their place. At the
end of February, Sulak Sivaraksa, the 65-year-old
leader of Thailand's Kalayanamitra Council, along with a group
of students and protesters, moved in to block
construction crews. "This is against what the prime minister
ordered," Sulak told reporters. "He promised the
public that the continuation of the project would be possible on
the condition that further construction will not
affect the forest and that threatened wildlife will be recuperated.
However, [PTT's contractor] did none of these.
Instead they are cutting more big trees."
The demonstrators lay down in the path of four
bulldozers attempting to clear the forest on March 4, blocking
further construction as the drivers threatened to
run them over.
The standoff lasted two days before police moved in
and used water cannons to disperse the demonstrators
before arresting about 50. Sulak was charged with
violating the Petroleum Act, a statute that protects PTT's
energy operations. He now faces possible fines and a
maximum prison term of six months.
"My friends and I may not be able to protect the
forest," Sulak said after the arrests, "but we want to demonstrate
that development without consideration for human
rights, environmental issues and local participation is
fundamentally wrong. Development must benefit the
poor, the grassroots, animals and trees. Most grand
schemes of economic development benefit
multinational corporations and the super-rich, but harm the majority of
people." Bulldozers resumed clearing the forest
along the pipeline route shortly after the arrests.
Constitutional Showdown
Sulak pleaded not guilty and, released on his own
recognizance, he now anticipates a show trial beginning May
13 at which he will attempt to justify the
occupation of the forest?and seek testimony from PTT officials as well
as the prime minister. "I hope that the trial will
enlighten the public on how PTT and the government have been
lying to us," Sulak said.
Environmentalists also hope the trial will be a test
of the new Thai constitutional right to protect natural resources
and the environment. Any ruling on these new
constitutional issues is likely to set a precedent that will affect
government and industry throughout Thailand. Yadana
opponents have already achieved a national precedent
with the first-ever public hearings on the
environmental implications of a major development project.
In the meantime, Thai environmentalists continue to
demand a new EIA on the project. Thai activists yesterday
picketed the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, where they
delivered a letter addressed to President Bill Clinton urging
him to ask Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai to stop the
project. Chuan leaves tomorrow to visit the U.S. with his
finance minister in an attempt to shore up investor
confidence in the shaky Thai economy.
Nationwide elections later this year will reveal
whether the Thai government's apparent violation of the new
constitution will have any impact in the political
arena. What seems certain is that PTT's "green" image will never
recover from the Yadana project. Neither will Huay
Khayeng forest.
Thai activists are calling on U.S. students and
human rights groups to launch their own protest of the Yadana pipeline
project this week, when Thai Prime Minister Chuan
Leekpai visits Washington. To learn more, visit the Free Burma
Coalition or the No
Petro-dollars for SLORC campaign.
Photographs courtesy of
Earth Rights International