Mistakes Aplenty Over Gas Pipeline

One can only look on with dismay at the continued confrontation between protesters and the police at the construction site of the Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline. Tensions remain high in Songkhla, and renewed violence could break out at any time. If it does, it will only create further rifts in Thai society and move any efforts at reconciliation one step further away. There is a desperate need now for both sides to move back from the antagonism they are generating. While both sides share the blame for the numerous bloody clashes over the past few years, it is the authorities who will have to shoulder the greater responsibility should there be a new round of violence any time soon. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's attack on NGOs for receiving foreign money to organise protests has contributed nothing towards resolving the conflict.

Last Friday about 500 police officers were moved by Songkhla provincial authorities to a position near a camp site where 400 protesting villagers had been gathering. The move was carried out in the name of security for project construction teams who have begun to bring in heavy equipment to the site.

Such heavy-handed action at a time when tensions remain unresolved between demonstrators and project developers is a serious mistake by the government in two major ways. First, the police operation has the potential to cause violence.

According to reports, most of the police dispatched to the construction site are from the same detachments which clashed with the protesters last December as they marched on the JB Hotel in Hat Yai where the Cabinet was holding a mobile meeting.

Two separate investigations by the National Human Rights Commission and the Senate Committee on Public Participation had already concluded that the police were to blame for the use of force to brutally crack down on a peaceful demonstration. Both bodies have urged the government to take action against the police commanders and officers who took part in that violent crackdown. They also called for compensation for those protesters whose property was damaged by the police.

Not only has the government turned a deaf ear to those calls; it has made a second mistake by allowing pipeline construction to start whilst a variety of other conflicts are unresolved. The protesters, as well as several hundred academics who have repeatedly called for a review of the project, have raised a number of fundamentally valid questions. They suspect the project is neither economically nor environmentally viable.

For example, they argue there is not enough demand for the gas to be delivered by the Thai-Malaysian Joint Development Area unless new heavy industries are developed. But to have a large industrial estate in Songkhla, where a gas-separation plant is planned, would add a heavy burden to the environment as well as limited resources, especially fresh water, which is already scarce in the province. Given that Thailand does not need such a quantity of natural gas, at least in the next five years, wouldn't it be wise for the protesters and the government to reassess the project's viability together? Several open forums tackling different aspects of the project should be established to make this new national investment more transparent.

The authorities must concede their mistake. The project has not been carried out in a democratic way, because those affected were not consulted early on in the process or allowed to participate in any decision-making as required by the Constitution. The prospect of economic gains from the project must not take precedence over the higher principles of participatory democracy, benefit-sharing and peaceful conflict resolution, which are prerequisites for sustainable development.