Voices of the Nam Phong (12.27) My name is Bua Naree. (12.29) My father is Paum, (12.29) and my mother is Mrs. Ngaem. (12.25) I’m 67 years old. (12.26) I’ve lived here [Khon Kaen Province] since I was born on 18 November 1933. ชชชชชชชชชชชชชช ชชชช ชชชชชชชชชชชช ชชชชชชชชชชชชชช ชชชชชชชชชชชชช ชชชชชชชชชชชช 67 ชช ชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชชช ชชชชชช 18 ช.ช. 2476 (1.0) At the very beginning, my parents migrated from different districts; my father came from Phanomprai District and for my mother I can’t remember. (1.1) Although, both my father and mother came from Roi Et Province where they grew up and eventually married. (1.2) After that, they had me and my two younger brothers who both passed away at an early age, so it was just me. (1.3) My mother didn’t have enough breast milk to feed me. She let me drink from a relative of ours in the village who had a baby at the same time, (1.4) and so I was able to
Transcript
Voices of the Nam Phong(12.27) My name is Bua Naree. (12.29) My
father is Paum, (12.29) and my mother is Mrs. Ngaem. (12.25) I’m 67 years old. (12.26) I’ve lived here [Khon Kaen Province] since I was born on 18 November 1933.
1 Buddhist temple2 Theravada Buddhism is the predominate form of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia. It is the state religion of Thailand, which more than 90% of the population follows. 3 The rainy seasons retreat, about three months long. It is a time for Buddhist monks to remain at the temple for study; also, a monk’s way of reckoning time spent in the monkshood.
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(2.6) When I was young my village was a small village, with around 70
houses. (2.7) The villagers who migrated to my village were relatives who
came from Roi Et Province. (2.8) Most of those who migrated to Khon Kaen
Province had the same surname. (2.9) For example, my surname is Naree; I
borrowed it from one of my relatives. (2.10) It’s not my family’s original
name.4 (2.12) My grandfather passed away when my father was a child. (2.13)
When my father grew up he moved to live with a relative, then migrated to stay
here, and thus used the name Naree. (2.14) When everyone went to register
their households, he used the surname Naree and has used that name ever since
then. (2.15) In the past, there were no strict rules about using surnames like
there are currently. (2.16) It was up to you. It was like that in Khon Kaen
(1.9) The livelihood that had always been carried out before was farming. It still is. (1.10) My parents farmed in their time and even my children were raised farming. (9.18) As for growing rice, I have been doing it since I was a child. (9.19) It’s different from studying in school because it’s the thing I have learned through my experience. (9.20) For example, a grown-up boy who can plough the field and a young girl who has learned how to prepare rice seedlings before transplanting can grow rice themselves when they are adults. (9.21) Almost all of our skills in growing rice come from the experiences we have practiced since we were young. (9.22) There’s nothing to teach. (9.23) When people have children, their children
5 Settlements set up for the 30,000 families relocated due to the construction of the Ubonrat Dam in 1964-1965. 6 1 rai = 1,600 square meters, 2.5 rai = 1 acre, 6 rai = 1 hectare
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will automatically follow the way they are used to seeing.
(1.0) My name is Sumnow Srisongkhram. (1.2) I am 35 years old. (1.1) I’ve lived here for six years. (1.3) Previously, I lived at Nong Bua Village, Lumphu District, UdonThani Province. (1.4) I married here in the period of rice growing.
(1.0) My name is Somphong Palasan. I am 33 years old. (1.1) I live at 36 Moo 3, Ngoo Dong Village. (1.2) I was born here before the factory [Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company] was established. (2.18) Now I’m single, but think that if I have children I won’t move to another place because I was born here.
(2.19) I’ll have to be a hired employee because I don’t have any land and farming is too hard. (2.20) But, I’ll have to move to another place if the factory buys all the land here. (2.21) [However], I’d have to have enough money to move.
(5.20) Before the Ubonrat Dam, we could grow rice only once a year. (5.5) Rice farming depended solely on the rain. (5.6) We were able to grow rice only when there was rain. (5.7) If there was no rain, we couldn’t farm the rice. (5.8) At that time, rain didn’t always come exactly at the same time throughout the year. (5.9) Sometimes it was dry for many months.
(6.17) People laid claim to unoccupied land to farm. Before that, the land had no owner and was empty. (6.18) Whoever wanted land just had to clear it themselves and grow grass in rows to mark off the area. (6.19) After clearing the land, they would burn it, and then it would be time to grow corn, cucumbers and rice. (6.24) Back then, we had to leave the land we had cleared out and had done farming on after harvesting in order to refresh the soil. (6.25) The following year, we would find a new place for planting. (6.26) If the previous land got better, we always came back to it every three to four years. (6.27) If we didn’t want to move, we just (7.0) stayed on the same land. (6.20) We’d work all year round and wouldn’t have to buy food as we do now.
(1.11) When I was teenager, rice fields along the Nam Phong River always flooded (1.12) every
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one to two years. (1.13) Since it flooded a lot, the rice in the granary was always running out and we didn’t have enough rice to eat. (6.1) Rice was kept in the granary for the next year in preparation for the possibility of flooding which would cause farmers to be unable to grow rice. (6.2) If they had a lot of rice they would trade it for other foods. (6.3) My family rarely bought food.
(5.31) Besides growing rice, some people made a living along the Nam Phong River by fishing and selling the fish or by farming other crops. (6.0) They farmed rice and plants along the banks of the Nam Phong River. Some grew rice and some grew corn or cucumbers.
ปลกแตงกวาบาง (6.1)(1.19) In the past, it flooded often and we
always had a lot of fish. (1.14) We had to catch the
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fish in the Nam Phong River by throwing nets, dang7 and uan8, into the river. (1.15) In the dry season, we had to cut bamboo and put it in the river so the fish could live in the bamboo. (1.16) We were then able to catch these fish with the use of our nets. (1.17) After catching the fish, I brought them home to grill on the fire. (1.18) I could barter for rice and store that rice in the granary for future eating during the rice-growing season.
มาอยและจะไดจบโดยการเอาแหไปลอม พอไดเอามาป งยางไวแลกขาวมาใสยงไวกนตอนดำานา (1.1)(6.4) Grandmother [Bua’s wife] was good at
trading for food, and I fished. (6.5) She traded and I fished by collecting nets from the Nam Phong River at night. (6.6) When it was almost morning, the one at home would prepare to trade at the other villages that were not yet flooded out. (6.7) We kept going on like this until the Ubonrat Dam was constructed. (6.8) We, and those from Khok Soong Village, always helped each other out. (6.9) We are still alive to this day because of this village. (6.10) When we traded with them we always came
7 A large fishing net held in a vertical position in the water by means of weights and floats.8 A ring net used for fishing; a purse seine.
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back with full baskets. (6.11) It was enough for living and we didn’t have to move. (6.12) We all had enough to eat.
(1.20) There was not much water in the river but in the rainy season there was a lot. 1.21) When the dry season came the water decreased. (1.22) This was due to the water from the north not flowing down here. (1.23) So, I was able to walk across the river.
(5.10) Droughts also occurred periodically throughout the years. (5.11) This is the reason some villagers were forced to move out of this village. (5.12) The village was not able to be a big village back then. (5.14) If there was no flooding, there was drought. (5.15) Then villagers started to move to other places to make a living.
(5.30) The main career for people at that time was growing rice and selling young bamboo shoots. (5.22) When the rainy season came, we took young bamboo shoots from the bamboo forest along the Nam Phong River in order to sell them in town. (5.23) After we got the young bamboo shoots from the forest, we burned and then pickled them in jars.9 (5.24) After leaving the young bamboo shoots in jars for awhile, we then picked them out and took them to sell. (5.25) We had to carry them on our shoulders and walk to the Nam Phong Train Station. (5.26) There was no bus at that time so I had to carry them on my shoulders until the skin on my shoulders became callused. (5.27) Some days I had to go to the Nong Kung Train Station. (5.28) There was no Friendship Highway then.10
9 In the rainy season (May/June to September/October), bamboo shoots begin to sprout, growing to a height of fifteen inches, depending on the amount of rain. After being cut and burnt, the husk is removed, leaving just the edible inner portion of the bamboo shoot. It is then cut into small pieces and boiled in salt water. Once cooled, the cut-up shoots are put into a special earthen vessel called a hai which is then filled with salt water. They are pickled for 15 to 20 days until they are salty and sour.10 Friendship Highway, built in 1958, from Saraburi to Nong Khai on the Lao border, an 11 hour journey cut down to 2 hours.
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(5.29) Vehicles didn’t come until Field Marshal Sarit’s period.11
2.17: In 1954-1955, I was called to be drafted into the armed services to be a soldier. 2.18: In those days, if you didn’t want to be a soldier, you could just pay money under the table at the time of registration in order to get out of it. 3.0: You had to pay a one-time fee of about 25 baht12. 3.1: This was a very expensive price in those days. 3.2: If you paid the money that one time you would never have to be a soldier.
11 Field Marshal Sari Thanarat was the head of a military dictatorship from 1957 until 1963. 12 Thai currency: 20 baht $1US dollar (in 1955), currently 43 baht $1 US dollar (in 2000)
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3.3: The Thai government didn’t draft people here [in Khon Kaen Province] like they did in other places [provinces near country boarders]. 3.4: In fact, the selection of a soldier was supposed to happen at the border crossing between countries. 3.5: Khon Kaen Province is in the middle of Thailand and had no enemy to attack it, so there was no soldier selection in Khon Kaen Province. 3.6: The selection only occurred in some neighboring provinces, such as Udon Thani Province and Nong Khai Province. 3.7: Some people migrated to Khon Kaen in order not to be drafted. 3.8: If you didn’t want to be a soldier you could move to stay with a relative in Khon Kaen and use their last name to register yourself at the house. 3.9: Still, there were some people in Khon Kaen who paid money under the table so they wouldn't be drafted.
3.10:During the time that I was a child, there was one leader of my village who was selected
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through an election. 3.11: Normally, there was no election process. 3.12: The choosing of a leader was done based on seniority and respectability. 3.13: Normally there was no salary for the village leader.
3.14: When village leaders from several villages had a meeting, our village leader would return with the information from the meeting to share with the villagers. 3.15: Villagers were then able to come together and deal with the information that was received, whether it was good or bad.
3.16: If they had elections, the headman, the higher district leader, or those from committee meetings still told people that if they wanted an elected position, they could. 3.17:It was easy to decide. There was no need for elections. 3.18: It was not like nowadays.
(3.20) Government officials didn’t have a role in the community then. (3.21) The village headman would travel by foot to meetings at the Nam Phong District office. (3.22) In the past, the Nam Phong District’s office building was not in the same place as the present. (3.23) They moved to the new place at Nong Kung District in 1947. (6.21) They didn’t have vehicles and it was too far to walk. (6.22) However, we could survive.
Noi(8.9) In the beginning, when the villagers and I
first moved here, there was no human habitation. There was only the forest that we then cleared so we could build houses. (10.1) In the old days, Non Dom Village was not developed like it is presently.
(9.9) At that time, we didn’t have to dig wells to get water because there was an organization that supported agriculture from Holland who came to Thailand and built the wells for us. (9.10) They also provided us with a budget of 2,000 baht for each household to invest in an agriculture matter because they thought we were poor.
(1.21) When we set up here, the Department of Public Welfare came and gave us land in order to grow jute13. (1.22) At that time the price for jute was (1.22) one and a half to two baht per kilogram. (1.23) This price generated enough money to raise one’s children. (1.24) There were price guarantees. (1.25) If it was not time to sell when the jute was green, we would then go and get money from a group of Chinese, which allowed us to live and eat before we were able sell the green jute.
13 Jute, similar to hemp, is either of two Asian plants that yields a fiber used to make rope, twine, and burlap.
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(9.18) As for growing rice, I have done it since I was a child. (9.8) Besides selling rice, I also took various kinds of vegetables to sell, for example, eggplants and chilies. (9.3) Rice could be sold at 47 satang14 per kilogram in the old days. (9.4) When I was living in Phu Wiang District, I took rice to sell at Don Mong Market in Nong Rua District. (9.5) It was loaded onto a bullock cart. (9.6) Four gunny-bags15of rice would get you 130-140 baht.
(8.18) Growing rice in the past was very different in comparison to the present time. (8.19) We used water buffalo to plough the fields when we finished growing rice. (8.20) We didn’t have to fertilize the fields; all we needed was to have enough water. (1.14) The soil was fertile and good.
14 Thai currency: 100 satang = 1 baht. At that time, 20 baht $1 US dollar (1955-1965). Currently, 43 baht = $1 US dollar (in 2000)15 A gunny-bag is a burlap sack
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(9.2) Besides the fertile land, there were also abundant forests.
(9.0) In the past, (1.15) we didn’t use chemical fertilizers. (9.0) I had no idea what a chemical fertilizer was or who invented it. (9.1) Even farm yard manure had never been used at that time because the topsoil was fertile, unlike in the present. (1.13) We got fertilizer for the rice fields from nature. (1.16) We didn’t use insecticides. (1.17) We grew chilies and eggplants. Plants didn’t have to be treated. (1.18) We got fertilizer from the pens where we raised animals, such as cows and water buffalo, and then watered the plants. (1.19) At that time we had food without chemical substances. (1.20) We had places to live and enough to eat. It was 1965.
the Ubonrat Dam, I had two pieces of land at Phu Wiang District. One was about 70 rai and the other was about 10 rai or so. (4.15) ตอนทยายมาอยเขอนแลว ตามทดนอยแปลงหนงประมาณ 70 กวาไรอกแปลง
หนงไมไดวด แตอกแปลงหนงกประมาณ 10 กวาไร (5.3) (10.2) The amount of compensation received [For land lost to the building of the dam,] was not worth it for the people who had good quality land. (10.4) For those people, they received a small amount of compensation. How could they only give us 400 baht per rai?
(…10.4) For the people who had bad quality land the compensation was okay. Their land wasn’t very good for growing rice, because the land was hard. Their land looked good in a photograph [that was taken by government officials to survey the land] because it was flat. But nobody likes that kind of land. People don’t like land with too many rocks. (10.6) But nowadays, selling rocks makes a good business. (10.7) In the past, the rice fields
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which were rocky couldn't be sold to anyone. (10.8) One could only receive 2,000 to 3,000 baht for 60 or 70 rai of bad land. -א (10.4) พวกทนาดนไมดไดเงนเยอะ พวกทนาดนขกระตาย ถายภาพแลวมนตดด มนแบนด แตไมมใคร
หนลกรงตามไรนา ไมเอาเลย 60 ไร70 ไร กพอทำาไดประมาณ2000-3000 บาท (10.6) (9.10) There used to be many villagers in the
village. (9.11) My village had a lot of people, I think more than 100 families. (9.12) If that village still existed, it would have been a big village because it was very fertile
(4.8) We did farming and agriculture because it was the only way of living we had. (12.9) I used to grow vegetables to eat at my old village. (12.10) I also grew some chilies (12.10) to eat but not very many. (12.11) I mostly grew them for my family to eat, so I wouldn’t have to buy them. (9.2) After I finished rice farming, I grew jute, pumpkin and cucumber. (9.3) It was not too hard for us.
(4.9) Before there was a dam, rice production was excellent and there was no flooding. (4.10) It never flooded here until they built the dam.
(9.0) I used to grow rice once a year. (9.5) When I grew rice, there was rainwater to grow it. (9.6) There was no fertilizer. (9.7) In the past, the rain that fell was seasonal. We had a rainy season and that was the time when farmers usually planted. (9.8) But nowadays planting does not happen in that way anymore. (9.1) In the past, I used to produce about 2,000 thang16 of rice, so I could live this way [only growing rice once a year] for many years. ทำานาไดปละครงเดยว ทำานาเมอกอนใชนำาจากนำาฝนเลย ปยกไมม แตดเหมอนเมอกอนฝนตกตองตาม
(11.2) In the Past, villagers grew and sold rice and jute in exchange for money. (11.3&11.8) We sold it at the Don Mong Market to the Leongha Company in Khon Kaen and still continue to do this today. (11.4) The market is near the center of Khon Kaen, the same way as if you we’re going to
16 1 thang = 20 liters = .58 bushels
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(11.4) Tum Village and Phang Village. (11.5) In the past, we didn’t use trucks because there were not a lot of vehicles back then. (11.6) We used carts pulled by water buffalo to transport our rice. (11.7) When it flooded, we used big boats to carry out products.
(11.9) In the past, one krabung17 of rice could be sold for five baht. That was the best price, but now the price is higher for the same amount of rice. (12.0) In the past, we sold three trucks of rice [to the rice market], and we didn’t even make 10,000 baht. This was enough for living at that time. But now, the price of rice is higher than it was in the past. I don’t understand this because I get more money now and it is still not enough to live on. (12.2) Before, at the price of 1,000 baht of rice, we had to take a cart to carry the rice. (12.1) But now, if you want to carry that same amount of rice, worth 1,000 baht, on your back it wouldn’t be at all heavy to carry.
17 a wooden basket, which contains about 12 kilograms
(9.4) In addition to farming I would also catch crab and fish in the river nearby. (9.9) In the past, the land was very fertile and there were a lot of big fish in the river. (10.14) We used to be able to buy catfish and snakefish for three to four baht per kilogram and we could eat them for five days. (10.11) We also could catch fish at the dam but the price for them was low. (10.12) At the time when there was not yet a dam, if we caught only fish for sale like we have been doing today, we would have had no need to grow rice.18(10.13) If the price of fish in the past was as high as it is today, I think I would have been rich. (9.4) จากนนกไปหาปหาปลา ทลำานำามเยอะ (9.4) (9.8) เมอกอนคดวาอดมสมบรณด
(8.1) Actually, these [allocated] lands used to belong to the government as a conservation forest. (8.2) When the Ubonrat Dam project was implemented, the government moved the villagers from the Ubonrat Dam area to here. (8.3) They revoked the status of this land as a conservation forest so it could be used by the people who were in trouble due to flooding [from the dam].
(5.16) After the dam was built, the economic situation of the area got better because we could use the water from the dam to grow rice every year. (5.17) There was rice trading and no flooding [downstream]. (5.18) We were also able to pump the water from behind the dam for rice growing. (5.19) Even when there was no rain we could farm. (6.13) After building the dam we could grow rice two times a year. (6.14) Some people grew the out-of-season rice in their fields. Some grew soybeans. (6.15) Nowadays we don’t grow the out-of-season rice since gasoline is very expensive. It isn’t worth it [using gas to pump water from the dam]. (6.16) After the dam was built, the bamboo shoots started to disappear because the floodwaters [from the filling reservoir] flowed over them.
(7.1) There was no flooding [downstream] after the dam. (7.2) People started to claim that
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they had cleared [certain plots] of land. (7.3) Sometimes people fought over land, but they couldn't agree with each other since nobody had documents [land titles]. (7.4) Now, they still don’t have documents.
(7.5) After the Ubonrat Dam was built, the government built the Nong Wai Weir.19 (7.6) The Royal Irrigation Department set the area to measure the high mark [of the reservoir behind the dam]. (7.7) After the weir was built, the villagers’ land became low-lying government land. (7.8) Those who lived there prior to the weir construction could stay on their land, but they didn’t have the right to claim the land. (7.9) The government could ask for the return of the land at any time, but they allowed us to live there.
19 The Nong Wai Weir, a non-energy generating dam, was built in 1957 to provide irrigation to local villagers.
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(7.23) In the year 1974, there was a flood during the rainy season and we had to move to Khok Soong Village to escape the floodwaters. (7.24) After we moved to Khok Soong Village for a time, the water got lower since there was not much rain. (7.25) So the villagers moved back to Kham Bon Village.
(7.11) Then in 1978 to 1979, the land flooded [downstream] due to a [massive] release of water from the Ubonrat Dam. (7.12) It was not because of the factory since there was no factory at that time. (7.13): They [dam personnel] didn’t open the spring way to measure the height of the water or how much water the resevoir could contain. (7.14) When the water was higher than the limit, it was released. (7.15) Everywhere was flooded, all the way down to the Mekong River. (7.16) There was news about flooding in Mahasarakham, Roi Et, and Ubon. (7.17) My house almost flooded also. (7.18) Sometimes there were rumors about the collapsing of the dam. (7.19) The villagers had to move to Khok Soong Village with their families. (7.22)
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Villagers brought what they could. (7.20) Only those who had strong physical builds stayed in their homes. (7.21) If it flooded, they could get away and survive.
Grome(1.4) After I had lived here for awhile, the Ubonrat Dam was constructed. (18.3) When the government bought land to construct the dam, the price was about 700 baht per rai. But I only got 300 baht per rai because I made a decision to sell my land too late. (18.4) I didn’t think that there would be anyone to help me, so I sold it and moved
20 Referring to Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company Ltd.
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to this allocated land. (1.9) We lived here because this was the Self Help Settlement that the government allocated to us as compensation for being relocated. (1.7) ตอนทตามานเรมมเขอนแลว มาอยเขอนนเขาให 700 บาทยงไดเลย 700 บาท กบ
(1.10) The dam is certainly not what we wanted here because it made us lose all of our land. (20.4) Honestly, if our land had not been flooded out, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave and move here. (20.5) But we couldn’t say anything about it. (20.6) We begged the government in the past not to build the dam, but they didn’t listen to us. (20.7) I begged them because the water would flood out the basic necessities of our lives that we depended on, but they just told us that we would get many more advantages from building the dam. (20.8) The high-ranking officers insisted that there were more advantages than disadvantages and
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that there would only be a small amount of people who would suffer from the disadvantages.
(20.9) It’s just like the foot of an elephant stepping on a bird’s mouth. (20.10) We had no power to negotiate with them, so we stopped saying anything. (20.11) That’s it!
(20.12) If it happened nowadays, it might be worse than what is happening with the Rasi Sali Dam.21 (20.13) People are trying hard to do something, but the government does not listen.
อยางไรกไมฟง (20.13)21 The Rasi Sali Dam, located in Srisaket Province in the Northeast region of Thailand, was built in 1994, as part of the Kong-Chee-Moon irrigation and water diversion project that aims to divert water from the Mekong River into the Chee and Moon rivers. Built ostensibly for agricultural purposes, it yet has to be used as such. Instead, villagers claim, it inundated one of the Northeast’s largest remaining wetlands. Many villagers from Rasi Salai have joined the Assembly of the Poor. Their protests in 2000 forced the government to open the dam gates.
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(20.14) Before, if people resisted against the construction of the dam, they might, at the command of the powerful man who directed this project, have been seized and taken away. (20.15) We might have been killed. (20.16) That’s the way it was. (21.0) Nobody dared resisting this project. (21.1) Supposing that some people did act up, they would have been warned the first time. (21.2) If the villagers didn’t obey and did it again, they would have been arrested. (21.3) So, nobody wanted to resist the construction of the Ubonrat Dam.22
(18.5) I think that there was government corruption, but I’m not sure anymore. (18.6)There may have been corruption by some authorities in the past, but (18.7) I didn’t say anything. (18.8) We couldn’t say that we had been cheated
22 Most of the Northeast of Thailand was under martial law from the late 1950’s to the end of the 1980’s. Thus, villagers were unable to organize or speak out against the Thai government for fear of their lives.
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because we were afraid that we would be killed. (18.9) Nobody dared to accuse the government officers of being corrupt. (18.10) Even today, some people are still afraid to say anything like that. They fear that they will be shot. (18.11) Now I think I can talk about this because of the people I’m now associated with.23 (18.12) I think everyone has to die someday. (18.13) I don’t care.
(5.1) All my land was lost when the Ubonrat dam was constructed [due to the creation of the reservoir], including my 20-rai kenaf24 farm and the other area where my house was located. (5.2) Everyone’s land was surrendered to the government. (5.4) Moreover, I didn’t even get enough compensation for my destroyed land. (5.5)
23 Probably referring to NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) and other involved villagers.24 A fast-growing plant of the mallow family that can be produced as an annual and renewable crop. Originally from Africa, it is often used as a jute substitute for paper pulp production.
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It is all up to the tips of their pens!25 (5.7) They said that we would get 400 baht per rai, but I got only 300 baht per rai for compensation. (5.8) Some people who got their compensation at the beginning of that year received the 400 baht per rai in compensation. (5.9) For those people who received compensation later, they got less money than promised. Some people didn’t even get any compensation at all.
(6.0) So, I got payment for compensation later than when other people did. (6.1) When I moved to Nam Phong District, I received compensation payment from the Department of Irrigation. (6.2) They called us in and paid us according to how much land we had owned. (6.3) But it turned out that what we received in reality was not what the paper [contract] said.
25 Referring to officials of the state agency responsible for providing compensation.
(6.4) I didn’t know how to say anything. If I spoke too much, like this, then they would say that I was lying. But it’s the truth, the land is all gone. (6.5) They wouldn’t have believed me. (6.6) The land we received was what the government allotted to us. (6.7) The authorities said that if we wanted to move, we could always do so later. (6.8) We had to draw lots for the land. (6.9) If someone received rocky land, they just had to bear with it. เรากไมรจะพดอยางไร ถาพดมากไปเดยวเขาจะหาวาพดไมจรง แตวาทจรงแลว มนหายไปจรง ๆ
(6.10) Anyway, they gave me 15 rai of land. (6.11) Everyone got the same quantity of land but there were of different qualities. (6.12) Some land couldn't be cultivated and some land was made up of laterite26. เขาให15 ไร ใหมาไมเหมอนกน บางทกทำานาได บางทกทำาไร บางทกมหนลกรง (6.12)26 A type of soil, red in color (iron oxide rich), which is found mainly in the tropics, unsuitable for agriculture.
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(7.0) After that, I grew jute and sold it either here or in Khon Kaen. (7.1) It was really stinky. Damn stinky!, excuse me. (7.2) We did rice farming before we moved here, so we thought we could do it again, but we were only able to grow jute. (7.9) I grew jute for almost ten years and then turned to cassava farming.
(7.10) For ten years I grew jute to buy rice, but it didn’t work out well so I bought some land to grow rice. (7.11) If I had not bought this land, [our problems] would have been worse than they already are now. (7.4) I got the money to buy the new land from the compensation money I had been paid earlier. (7.5) In fact, I got the money from several sources and I also got some income from growing jute. (7.6) But let me tell you, the compensation we got from the government didn’t seem to help much at all. (7.7) Some people used all their money to buy milled rice. (7.8) They didn’t have the land to grow rice themselves, and some
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people still have to buy the milled rice to this very day.
(8.0) The new land that I bought was at the back of the village and it cost 60,000 baht. (8.2) I bought the land from the Kut Nam Sai people. (8.1) Now, even if the factory were to give me 1,000,000 baht for it, I wouldn't sell it. -א
(13.3) There were not many people in my village who possessed land for growing rice. Even the people who received a 1,000,000 baht didn’t buy land for growing rice. (13.4) I decided to buy some land so I would still have some money left in my wallet now. (13.5) The people who didn’t buy the land right at first said that they wanted to leave this place but finally they had to buy some
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land. (13.6) If they didn’t buy land they had to borrow money to survive. So I decided to buy some land. Even when I become unable to grow rice, my offspring can do it for me. (13.9) I shared the land with my wife’s younger siblings, each person got around 30 rai of land. We divided the land where we had eucalyptus trees.27 also. -א
(13.12) The land that I’m talking about is here [upstream of the dam]. (13.13) But I also bought some land downstream of the dam. (13.14) As I said, I have received compensation for removing from there. (13.15) I was paid only 20,000 to 30,000 baht, at 300 to 400 baht per rai. (13.16) It
27 A non-native tree that is originally from Australia that causes detrimental effects on the environment because they absorb large amounts of water and nutrients, decreasing the ground water level and increasing soil salinity. Eucalyptus is often raised for paper pulp production, reaching sufficient size for sale in only four years.
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was such a low price. (13.17) I think that it was an effect of the economic recession. (14.0) However, although we produced less there, we had no need to buy more food. (14.1) Even if we produced at a higher production rate here, we would still have to buy a great amount of food, EVERY TIME!
(14.15) I think that one of the major effects from the construction of the dam is that [the reservoir] submerged our rice fields. (14.16) We couldn’t grow rice there and had to move far away from our land. (14.17) We were just waiting for our compensation, so we moved again, this time to Nam Phong District.
(14.18) After the dam was built, some of the forest still remained, but most of the forest was submerged so all the trees died. (14.19) Now you can only see the tips of a few trees on my old land. (14.20) I still recognize the trees that haven’t died.
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(14.22) I can still see about 20 trees which had been very tall on my old land there. (14.21) In the beginning I had hired a boat to take me to see my old rice fields that had been submerged. (14.23) If the dam were to be blown up, I think I would have to go and take my old land back because nobody would want it since it had been submerged. (15.0) Supposing that there was no dam construction, I think I could’ve kept my land. (15.1) The field there was very appropriate for growing rice.
(15.2) The good points concerning the dam construction depended on who you talked to. (15.3) If it was someone who lived there [the relocation settlement], then they thought it was good. They could catch fish to sell. But for people who were forced to go there, it was not good. There were people who said, "that the people who went there were dogs [followers; those unable to think on their own] and that those people who lived
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there were crazy". They didn’t know which way to go. I think that this is true, the people who lived there were dogs. Even with a granary from a five roomed house, they [the government] just took that too. When people who had built a fence around their house, they paid four baht for each pole. Before, this would have been a lot of money. And they [the government] just took it! The people who had lived in older villages and had to move there felt negative effects. People who lived there just got benefits, they didn’t have to buy. These people were the dogs. They didn’t have to buy the things that we had to work for. Like the granary, they could just take it with them. We couldn’t think about having houses or a lot of stuff because we had to leave [be relocated]. If the floodwaters were to come, we wouldn’t have known how we would’ve lived. It was better to look for a new place. If we had hesitated to move, some people said that the road would have flooded. (15.8) So, I carried some things with me. (15.9) I carried some stuff when I was relocated, enough to survive. (15.10) Besides that, we sold the rest. (15.11) It was a necessary thing to do.
(16.0-5) There were people who moved up from there[relocation settlement], those whose rice fields had not been flooded. Suppose a person had fields that were not flooded because they had moved to higher land of the village. That’s how they got rich. Because they were there, others wanted to follow and live there, too. And so they partitioned the land and sold it to this and that person. For example, if there were a two-room house there and someone wanted to live in it, they would let them. It’d be a free house for them. [Or] people could move their house up there and live in it. Out of three or four houses, they’d be able to cart one [up there].
(16.6) Nobody came to help us with the problem of our land being submerged after the dam was constructed. (16.7) The government came only to help find a place for us to live, but they didn’t help with anything else besides that. (16.8) The place [we were moved to] was for the people who had suffered from their land being submerged by dam, but it was also the land of other people who were already living there.28(16.9) I think it was a good idea to take the villagers to this place, for we didn’t have to buy the land. (16.10) However, we faced a problem with the villagers who lived there before us. (17.0) The former villagers didn’t want us to take away their land, and we were not trying to. It was just the land where the government allocated for us to live at. (17.1) Therefore, in some villages, such as Nong Bua Noi Village and Huay Num Sai Village,
28 It is common in resettlement programs in Thailand that relocated villagers are put on land that others already occupy but have no documentation for.
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some villagers carried guns just to protect their land from us. (17.2) If we trespassed on their land, maybe we would have been shot. (17.3) They also painted the sticks that they used on their fence with red color to show that this land belonged to them. (17.4) Our land for growing rice was higher than their land. (17.5) When we opened up more land to grow rice on by just half a rai, they used a fence to obstruct us from growing our rice. (17.6) We were scared of these former villagers. (17.7) Somebody told the officers [about our problems with these villagers]. (17.8) So, the Department of Public Welfare made an appointment for us to meet with the former villagers. (17.9) They told us that we shouldn’t be afraid of anything. (17.10) They promised to do anything that we wanted. (17.11) However, we were still scared. -א พอมปญหานำาทวมหลงสรางเขอนแลวไมมใครเขามาชวยหรอกครบ แลวทยายมานไมใชหนาทของรฐบาลทจะหา
(17.12) There were many newcomers. (17.13) It was the allocated land, so each house was far away from the others. (17.14) At first, there was a small amount of people who came to occupy the land so there were many vacancies. (18.0) They just chose good quality land that had no rocks. (18.1) But later on, as a lot of people came here, people didn’t care whether the land was rocky or not because they had nowhere to go and the price of the land in other places was quite high. (18.2) The land for growing dry field crops is not expensive like the land for growing rice.
9.13: I think that the construction of the dam was not good for people who stayed downstream of it. 9.14: If they had built the dam just a little bit further back, I think it would have been better, and families wouldn’t have had to leave a good food source. 10.0:It was such a good place. 10.1: It was not fair that they paid me very little money for my good land.
21.8: Without the Ubonrat Dam, I would have expected to survive following along my own way. 21.9: I mean, I could have produced enough so that I could have made a living. 21.10: I had many pieces of land and I have six children. 21.11: I have sent my children to school. 21.12: I used a lot of money for my children’s school fees, so I became quite poor from doing this.
(7.27) The Phoenix manager came here to find a suitable place for their factory. (8.0) When they decided that the land here was suitable, they talked with the farmers and the governor about the land. (8.4) Then the owners of the Phoenix factory told the leader of the Self Help Settlement that they would like to place the factory here and asked the leader whether they could do it or not. (8.5) The leader of the settlement then asked the farmers who had land in this area and if they wanted to sell their land to the factory. (8.6)The farmers didn’t dare accept this offer because they didn’t have true ownership of these lands.29
(8.9)The land belonged to the settlement so it was the settlement leader’s duty to make the decision. (8.10) If they sold the land for factory construction, the farmers would have no more land to make a living, so the settlement leader told the factory that they needed to find another place to set up. (8.11) When those who wanted to build the factory
29 In resettlement schemes, villagers are often not given to title to the land allotted to them.
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couldn’t find the right place, they came back to this area again. (8.12) The third time they returned we made an agreement. (8.13) The settlement leader approved [a deal] where the land caretakers would sell their land for 3,000 baht per rai.30(8.14) The factory wanted 1,000 rai but there was only 400 to 500 rai that they could buy. This included my land also.
(8.15) When the factory decided to buy the land, they called the villagers to a meeting. I went to that meeting. (8.16) But on the day that the land was sold, my land was not in the area that the factory wanted so my land was not part of the deal with the factory. So I was not able to sell my land.
30 Farmers with no land titles were recognized as "caretakers" of the land they worked.
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(8.17) However my land was next to the factory’s boundary, and it’s still there to this day.
(9.2) When they built the factory, they asked the villagers to grow Kaew jute for them. (8.18) The original reason the factory came to the villagers was to grow Kaew jute, not eucalyptus. (9.0) Most of what was planted [at the time] was jute. (9.1) The fiber was sold. (9.3) Farmers rice fields were decreasing. (9.4) The farmers turned to growing [more] jute for the factory. After the jute was sold then there was an order for hemp. (9.6) The villagers found the hemp in the mountains to sell. (9.7) Sometimes the factory asked for krathin31, but the price for krathin pulp was not as high as it was for jute. (9.8) So, Phoenix stopped buying hemp and other fiber plants. (9.9) After that there was DC jute32 and it had a better quality than Kaew jute, so they told the villagers to grow it. We grew this until there was somebody who brought eucalyptus to our community. 31 An Australian wattle 32 DC Jute is a species of jute grown specifically for paper production.
(10.1) The land bought by the factory sold for 3,000 baht per rai. (10.2) The local people thought that this was a low price. (10.3) They wanted to receive more than that. (10.4) At that time the factory wanted to expand its land in order to lay pipes for pumping water from the Huay Jote Waterway to use in the factory. (10.5) Therefore, the factory then offered more than 3,000 baht per rai. (10.6) Later on, the factory was afraid that there might not be enough water to use, so they wanted to increase the size of the pipes. So they came and asked to buy from those who had bought and sold before but the villagers wouldn’t sell at the original price. (10.7) Again, the factory really wanted to buy the land from the villagers. (10.8) Anyway, the villagers refused [to sell their land for 3,000 baht per rai]. (10.9) So, the factory asked “How much do you do you want to sell at?”. And
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then the factory offered 500 baht per four square meters of land or about 200,000 baht per rai. Later on, the villagers though that this was a good price so they wanted to sell. (10.10) With this offer, some villagers sold their land to the factory. (10.11) During that time, the pulpwood price was high, 8,000 to 13,000 baht per ton. (10.12) When the villagers found out that the factory was gaining large profits, they wanted to receive more money.
After that was the period of time when the factory was expanding their factory. They were also increasing the number of farmers who would join to be a part of Project Green and bring the project to the surrounding communities.
(10.19) Phoenix built the factory up on high land. (10.20)When wastewater is discharged into the Huay Jote Waterway it doesn’t flow directly into the canal, it collects in a swamp first. (11.0) This swamp is not a natural swamp, it used to be a field. (11.1) The swamp formed because this area always flooded when the Nong Wai Weir was closed. (11.2) That water would flow into this swamp. The wastewater from the factory also flowed into this swamp, and there was only clear water that flowed into the river. (11.3) People were fine with this the first time it happened, but it has happened now for many years, since 1984. (11.4) We villagers allowed the wastewater into the waterway, but finally there was no place left [for the factory] to dispose of the lime residue [left from the pulping process]. There was a truck that illegally dumped the lime residue into the canal. (11.8)When it was full they started to dump wastewater into peoples fields. (11.9) The wastewater flooded and covered the rice, so fields were damaged when it rained. (11.10) Erosion dispersed limestone throughout the fields so that you could see white there. (11.11) When the supervisor of the factory saw this, he questioned why we let this wastewater into our
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fields. (11.12) "Pity the rice. (11.13) Why don’t you write a letter of complaint?", he asked. (11.14) I asked him, Can I do it? (11.15) He said that I could claim money for damages to the fields. (11.16) This idea came from the supervisor of the factory.
(11.17) The problem started in 1981 to 1983 and went on until 1984. (11.18) We villagers sent a letter of complaint to the factory. (11.23) I was the leader for drafting the letter in the name of the villagers who had problems. (11.24) I also consulted those individuals who had bad experiences. (11.25) In the letter of complaint we asked for the factory to examine the damage in the rice fields. (11.26) The wastewater from the factory had been flowing into the rice fields and
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those fields had become damaged. (11.19) Then the factory sent a supervisor to examine the fields. (11.20) They saw that the fields were dead, barren of anything. (11.21) The supervisor asked how many fields were damaged. (11.22) We just told him the truth. (11.27) Then the manager of the factory checked the fields and agreed with our complaint that the fields were damaged. (11.28) The factory agreed to give the villagers compensation.
(12.1) For compensation, a method was needed to calculate the amount of rice that could be produced in the fields. (12.2) The thang method was used to assess rice quantity in one field. (12.3) We said that one field would yield 100 thang of rice. (12.4) The factory said that at the most, the field was worth 40 thang. (12.5) We
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said 40 thang was not enough. (12.6) So, the factory increased its offer to 50 to 60 thang. (12.7) Then we brought the figures to exchange for money. (12.8) One bucket of rice could sell for seven baht per kilogram and one thang could hold 20 kilograms of rice. (12.11) That’s how they gave us the money. (12.12) To get this way of calculating, they invited farmers from nearby provinces and districts to join in and consider it together with us. (12.13) The price of the rice was dependent upon the market price. (12.15) That’s how we sold [our rice]. (12.16) But per field we assessed it together and came to an agreement with these other farmers. (12.17) We agreed together that we would sell it like that. (12.19) It went on like this every year and we got money every year. When we made claims they always gave us payment in this manner.
(12.20) For the damaged fields, Phoenix had a project to use backhoes to clear up the waste. They asked to overstep the surface near the waterway by three meters for this project and we gave it to them by request. (12.21) They dug mud near the river and threw it near the waterway. (12.22) When the wastewater went, it drained conveniently, so in those years we had no problems and didn’t need to make claims. (12.23) Although, in some years, the wastewater leaked out under pressure and flooded our fields so we made claims. Phoenix went to see the problem and paid us some compensation.
came and said that there would be a good factory coming [Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company]. 1.27:
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They told us that a factory would be set up. 1.28: During that season, the factory manager, Mr. Cherm Watchaisin, came and asked to buy the rice fields from the villagers in the area where the factory would be set up. 5.4: The villages that are close to the factory are Nown Bame Village and Huay Jote Village. The nearby villages that are a little bit further away from it are Nong Bua Noi Village, Kham Bong Village and Kham Bon Village. 1.29: Mr. Cherm Watchaisin also said that the families from the surrounding villages could come work in the factory. 1.33: The factory bought a lot of land from the farmers. 1.30: At that time it was alright to live here 1.8: Then in 1981 they built the factory.
6.4: The people who moved to these industrial areas had no work except for growing jute and selling them to the factory. If we wanted to sell them [for a higher profit]we needed to soak and then peel the bark off before selling them. But I never sold any to the factory because I switched to growing cassava and sugar cane. 6.5: However, sugar cane couldn’t be produced at good price. 6.6: I traded cassava for 40 to 50 satang per kilogram. 6.7: Eventually, I turned to growing eucalyptus trees.
4.6: The idea of resistance in the first place started when I saw my corroding zinc roof [in 1997]. 4.7: Actually, my house had been built just
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ten years ago. How could there be holes in my roof? 4.8: When I went and told the factory, they said that zinc roofs only last four to five years. 4.9 I told them that my house was only finished in 1993 and so it had only been four or five years. 4.10: They said that they wouldn’t count any zinc roofs that had been used five years or more. I asked the company for 88 sheets of zinc roofing but they gave me only 30 sheets. They said there was a shortage in the market. 4.11: When I told this to the irrigation officers, they all laughed because I complained to the factory only for the reason of the corroding of zinc roofing.
4.12: Generally, zinc is durable. 4.13: In the past, when I built my house, I had torn the zinc roof off of my chicken coop to use on my house. 4.14: It didn’t corrode but the zinc roof that I had torn away from my house was easily corroded by the
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chemical substances that are derived from the boiler at the Phoenix factory. 4.15: These chemical substances could whiten wood tissue, and tough and dark wood could become white [bleached]. 4.16: When I woke up in the morning, I could see a lot of smog from the boilers along with its stinky smell. Very smelly.
1.31: The factory didn’t really emit bad smells until Project Green33 came. It was then that the bad smells came. 1.35: The wastewater that was discharged had a very bad smell. 1.36: It flowed down to the Huay Jote Waterway. 1.37: The fish died. 1.38: Then the resistance started.
8.1: About the bad smell, the factory had already modified its standards. 8.2: We talked to a representative from the factory so we could get a factory representative, a representative of ours, and also [village] committee members to get together and walk around my village to see for themselves. 8.3: We asked Phoenix that if there was a bad smell from the factory, would you let us fine you? 8.4: The factory said that there must be some bad smell because that is what the [low industrial] standard would allow. 8.5: I didn’t know about the bad-smell standard. 8.6: It turned out this way because every time we made a deal, we were always at a disadvantage.
4.17: Considering the factory, it is a never-ending story and it always causes stress when we talk about it. 4.18: We have too many topics to think about when concerning the factory. 4.19: When we complained about the odor problem, they said that they could adjust it to meet the levels of the standard. But it still stinks. 4.20: We thought, "how can people who work in air-conditioned rooms all the time smell that stinky odor?". 4.21: Even the people who drive by here, not very close to here, can smell it too.
5.0: We are not allergic to any kind of chemical substance, but if we have to inhale the smell for a long time, it may collect in us and cause health problems that can lead to death. Who knows! 5.1: When we consider the zinc roofing, the people who have higher professional levels than we do, such as teachers, don’t drink water that comes off of zinc roofs. They can buy it [bottled water].5.2: But for me, I have to drink
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water that comes off the zinc roofs.34 5.3: My village is too close to the factory so the rainwater is not clean enough to drink.
……………………………………………..…10.2: After the factory was built, it was easier
to make money. 10.3: I think this is an advantage of it. 10.4: However, if the factory were not here, there wouldn’t be many people in the [self help] settlement. 10.5: I intended to buy much of the farmland around here. 10.6: Ones that didn’t care to buy land at first don’t have their own land [now]. 10.7: The compensation they received from the dam construction was uselessly used up. 10.8: But after the factory was built, the villagers could get jobs and gain more income. 10.9: Members of each family had a better chance to make money and build their own houses. 10.10: Though the salary might not be high, it was sufficient. 10.11: For example, my eldest son who has worked in the 34 Most villager’s sole source of drinking water comes from rain collected off of zinc roofs in earthen jars.
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factory since it was built earns a salary of more than 10,000 baht now.
1.12: The factory flooded us with awful smells, Noise and toxic substances. 24.4: If the chemical substances came with rain, that meant we couldn't drink the rainwater. 24.5: And we are not able to buy drinking water. 24.6: If we drink the rainwater, we might die because of it. Who knows?
24.10: The [chemical] substances that drifted here, also made this area smell bad. 24.11: That is because the factory overused the substances. 24.12: But they didn’t think so because they thought they could make many millions of baht per day. 24.13: To make it simple, if they planed to make a profit of 2,000,000 baht, they didn’t want to make less than what they had planned. 24.14: That's what I think. 24.15: I don't have a high education but I have never been wrong about such matters.
1.13: How unlucky are we! 1.14: Upstream from the dam we are affected by flooding [from the reservoir], and downstream from the dam we are affected by many serious pollutants.
10.16: But people who were able to work for the factory said the factory was good because they received both a salary and bonuses. 10.17: Those men who receive a salary from the factory said that if we had been saying bad things about the factory, then they wouldn't receive a high amount of bonus money. 10.18: Previously, there was a detective from the factory who came to investigate this thing [villagers talking negatively about the factory] and so I asked where he came from. 10.19: He didn’t reply.
22.4: I think there are both advantages and disadvantages of Phoenix being here. (23.17) One of the disadvantages that I consider from the factory was when (23.8) the [government] finished building the road [from Mittraphap Highway35 to the Ubonrat Dam]. There were only big, heavy 35 Also known as the Friendship Highway, the main highway of the Northeast.
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vehicles that used it. (23.9) The villagers themselves had to fix and maintain the road by using their development budget [that was allocated to them by the government]. (23.10) Some of the money to fix the road could have come from the factory, though. (23.11) The road is not as good as what the standard says. (23.12) The government only allowed vehicles that didn’t weigh more than ten tons [to use the road]. (23.13) But those factory trucks weigh about 20 to 30 tons, so that is why the road is destroyed. (23.14) When we would go to call on the factory to do something, they blamed us for destroying the road and said that we were selfish. (23.15) But when we looked at it, we were sure that it was because of those overloaded trucks from the factory. Sometimes there were even double trailers being used. (23.16) So, what do you think it was? 24.7: I wanted to tell the factory truck drivers not to drive too fast. 24.8: They said that going 100 kilometers an hour was not how fast they wanted to go. 24.9: Actually they wanted to go 120-140 kilometers an hour so they could gain more profit.
(24.0) About the destroyed road, they [Phoenix] told us to blame the Tambon Administrative Organization for not giving us enough money. The factory didn’t want to help us. 24.1: That year, employers [from the Tambon Administrative Organization] gained a lot of special bonuses and they didn’t want other people to take away their income, so they tried to protect the factory. 24.2: But for those who were in trouble, they couldn't just sit still.
(22....)For coming here, I thought there were both advantages and disadvantages. The
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advantage was that our children would be able to find jobs. Our children asked us not to protest against the factory because they just graduated from school and got jobs at the factory. When the factory workers heard about the protesting, they came and threatened our children who were still in school. (22.) They told our children to, " go to your parents and grandparents and tell them to stop protesting! Because when you finish school, you won’t be able to get a job at the factory if your parents continue to protest against the factory". They also said, " to stop protesting, because we’re going to get our bonus. But if you still protest against the factory we won’t get our bonus". Even the villagers in our village still get mad at us. What I am saying is the truth. But for those who work at the factory said that what we have done is because we are uneducated and local people. If the villagers come from far away and bring their families to contact the factory [about pollution problems] the factory personnel say they are not free to talk with them. The villagers who come are simple folk and are you just going to let them die, or what? But if the people from the factory can’t work they come and say that it is my fault that
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they cannot work because we oppose the factory. 22.15: The reason we protest is because we just want to see something change in a positive way. 22.16: We would like to see the “development” of the factory. 22.17: It's not that we want to see it fail, but [we want] its improvement. 22.18: The factory said that they were at the correct [industrial] standard, but why does it smell so bad in the village? 22.19: People outside of the village told us that they were surprised how we dealt with such a bad smell. 22.20: They asked, "where does the smell come from?", and the answer was definitely the factory!
(23.6) But if we started to say something, [about the spoiled land to the factory] then they said that we were using the law to force them [to
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make changes]. (23.7) Actually, we just wanted to be able to go to the factory and ask for help from them [when we had problems caused by the factory].
23.20: But of course, there is always somebody that will be [adversely] affected. 23.21: If we ask for help from the government, they say that they can’t remove the factory. 23.22: But we don't want them to remove it, just make it better. 23.23: It doesn’t mean that the government has to satisfy all our needs, just a few.
temporary employee in the supporting unit of the demonstration fields. 1.15: I worked as a eucalyptus dealer. I bought the trees from the villagers and then sold them to the factory. 1.16: I gave eucalyptus saplings to the villagers and also
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bought bamboo which was ordered from Prachin Buri Province. 1.18: If you drive past there, you will see four greenhouses, all of which have steel structures. 1.19: We always held the meetings there.
1.6: After the factory was built, I was an employee in the materials department for four years. 1.7: After that, the factory didn’t want to employ us anymore because of the economic crisis [of 1997]. 1.8: They reduced the number of employees in this department and used employees from other departments instead. 1.9: The material department was divided into three units: the material purchasing unit, the material supporting unit, and the Project Green unit.
1.23: Presently, I’m a temporary employee of the company. 1.24: I work as a painter, which means that I earn the lowest wage in the company. 1.25: I’m a daily employee and I don’t grow rice, but I do have eucalyptus plots.
1.20: By the way, I haven’t shown any physical [health] problems from the factory. 1.21: However, in the future, I’m not sure. 1.22: Nobody knows what the physical effects might be.
4.1: There used to be a government unit, the Department of Public Health of Region Four in Khon Kaen, that came to test the level of air pollution. 4.2: However, it was in the cold season [November to February] when the direction of the wind was toward the west. 4.3: They placed the testing spot in the east. 4.4: Thus, they could never measure the real level of smell [air pollution].
12.24: In 1992, the Nam Phong River experienced a crisis. There was little rainfall that year and the water level in the Ubonrat Dam was low. 12.25: If more water was released, then the water behind the dam would decrease. 12.26: So if water was released, the people who lived upstream of the dam wouldn't have water to use. 12.27: Downstream of the reservoir, the water had to be drawn for a water supply, too. (13.0) If we dammed up too much water, then the people who lived downstream from the dam would have had no water to use. 13.1: Therefore, water from the dam was released on different occasions. 13.2: They released water at night and stopped during the day for the people who lived downstream. 13.3: This releasing of water continues to happen to this day.
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13.4: The factory also pumps water for their factory operation and then releases the wastewater.
13.5: During that same year, the Morad Sugar Factory had spilled a large amount of molasses into the Nam Phong River, causing a crisis to occur. 13.6: When the molasses, accompanied by the wastewater from Phoenix, flowed into the river, the wind had blown from the south to the north. 13.7: All of the fish and shellfish died.
2.0: I started growing eucalyptus when the support for Project Green began. 2.1: They offered me a proposal to grow 20 tons per rai with a maintenance payment for the eucalyptus set at 500 baht a year per rai. 2.2: They also would assure the agreed upon price if we could grow the eucalyptus at 20 tons per rai. 2.3: In fact, the maximum average was 11 to 12 tons per rai that eucalyptus trees could be grown in an area of three by three meters. 2.4: However, this topic has been discussed many times.
ปลกระยะ3 x 3 เมตร แตเรองนกเปนขอถกเถยงกนมาหลายครง (2.3)
2.8: When I was a full-time employee, I worked as a “buffer”36 for the company. 2.9: I was the one who helped negotiate and solve the problems with the villagers. 2.10: I was ordered by the head of the materials department to negotiate in many villages. 2.11: I had to meet with the members who were suffering, those who had damaged land. 2.12: The company couldn't work very well in
36 As a buffer, Sompote was an “in-group” person to negotiate with other villagers
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cooperation with the villagers because the executive board was not good. 2.13: They divided tasks into many units. 2.14: Some of them had good talks with the villagers but some didn’t. 2.15: Moreover, some units worked ineffectively. 3.0: It was like being a two-faced person, when you go talk with people, there is no one who respects you.
1.10: The purpose of Project Green was to drain the wastewater into the farmers’ eucalyptus plots. The duty of the environmental department was to drain the wastewater for us to release into the fields. 1.11: We drained 120,000 cubic meters of wastewater a day. 1.12: The wastewater was divided to be released into Zone A and Zone B.
ออกไดวนละ 120,000 ลกบาศกเมตร โดยในการระบายจะแบงออกเปนโซน A และโซน B (1.9)
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4.9: Sometimes, Phoenix personnel pretended to dig collective ponds beside the Project Green land, but in fact, they sneakily laid down pipes into the Huay Jote Waterway. 4.10: Around 8:00 p.m., they would secretly release water into the waterway. 4.11: It has always been like this. 4.12: I was the person who opened and closed the pipes according to the order of my boss. 4.13: There was a main pipe connected from the factory to the sub-pipes into the waterway. In fact, small waterways also connected to the Huay Jote Waterway. 4.14: The villagers didn't know about this. 4.15: There were three to four spots where they did this. 4.16: I'm not sure if they still do it nowadays or not. 4.17: Back then I didn't think it was the right thing to do, but I couldn't do much about it because it was my job. 4.18: Actually, I'm sort of a hardheaded person, so I went to go talk to factory about this. 4.19: That’s how I got fired! 4.20: The factory preferred to employ only easy-going people to work for them, people they wouldn't have a hard time controlling.
4.21: When I worked there, my duty was to turn on the pipes at fields A-27 a0d A-22 [of Project Green] at 8:00 p.m. 4.22: They divided the land into zones, A, B, C, D, E and F. 4.23: Especially during the rainy season, the land couldn’t hold the wastewater and the wastewater had to be released. 5.2: They did this only during the rainy season because during this season the ground was saturated by rain, so it was impossible for the ground to absorb the wastewater rapidly after it was released. 5.0: The factory wouldn't close the pipes until midnight or sometimes the pipes were open until 5 or 6 in the morning if the place [they were releasing the wastewater] was far enough away from people’s sight. 5.1: The factory managed to give the officials overtime money if they came into work before 5:00 a.m., in order to turn off the pipes at dawn so the villagers wouldn’t see. They did this, especially in the rainy season because during this season the ground is full of
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water. The land of the project was unable to absorb anymore water into the ground. So it would flow into the farmers fields, until they were destroyed. It also got into the land of the factory. (5…)Project Green was set up far from the Nam Phong river but close to the Huay Jote Waterway. I don’t know if they laid down pipes to run to other places besides to the Huay Jote. I feel that releasing the wastewater from the project has had many negative effects on the farmers.
(4.14) การทำางานของผมในตอนนนคอ การเปดนำาแปลง A27 และ A22 ตงแตเวลา 2 ทม (A27 และ A22 เปนแปลงทอยในโครงการโปรเจคกรน) เขาแบงเปนเขต A เขต B ถงเขต F อยางนเสมอ ยงหนาฝนพนทรบนำาไมไดกตองไปปลอยนำาตรงนนออก ซงเขากใหปดประมาณ 6 ทม
3.4: The real serious problems are that of the wastewater and bad smell. 3.5: Noise is another problem, but it is not as serious because it happens less frequently. 3.6: My girlfriend’s house is next to the Huay Jote Waterway. 3.7: Somedays the company releases wastewater into the waterway
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and then the fish get the chemical substances [in them]. 4.5: The wastewater that is released into the Huay Jote Waterway and the Nam Phong River is in the form of water that seeps down from the soil’s surface. 4.6: Some of the wastewater is released onto the Project Green land, which is located near the Huay Jote Waterway. 4.7: The wastewater that runs into the watery ditches of Project Green [in the eucalyptus plantations] destroys them. 4.8: Then the wastewater flows into the Huay Jote Waterway.
5.6: I think the wastewater from this project has negatively affected the agriculture here. 5.7: The trees in the natural forest have died. 5.8: This forest is in plots A-54, A-27, A-53 -57, and the trees from about 20 to 30 very fertile rai are now completely dead.
5.9: Now I think that Project Green is not good. 5.10: Phoenix should find a new method or way to solve the wastewater problem. 5.11: About the smell and the wastewater, the factory needs to make it better. 5.12: If not 100%, at least 50%. That would be alright.
us. 2.0: The project encouraged us to grow eucalyptus trees and promised to give us 800 baht per ton of trees in addition to a maintenance payment of 500 baht per rai per month.S 2.1: Later, Phoenix encouraged us to do this project for only one year. 2.2: I thought that I would hire a truck to take out the trees but the price was too much. As a result we must oppose the factory but the factory doesn’t respond.
2.3: Another problem was the wastewater [released by Phoenix]. 2.4: I knew that the pipes installed on our land were drainage pipes. 2.5: When the factory released wastewater into our land, the plants and rice died. 2.6: When we complained about this problem, the factory insisted that the water had met standards before it was released. 2.7: The factory said it had the right process for treating wastewater. 2.8: They didn't admit their guilt.
3.6: The people from the factory were pretending to drink the wastewater and said it was clean. 3.7: They had also taken some pictures for proof that the water was drinkable. 3.8: Phoenix said that we lied about the water being bad. 3.9: “If it was spoiled, how could they drink it?”, the
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Phoenix authorities said. 3.10: Some of the people, who supposedly drank the treated wastewater, were the factory workers and some of the higher-up authorities from the plant. 3.11: Actually, they might have held the water in their mouths and then spit it out later or they might have had some kind of medicine to take. Who knows? 3.12: In other words, how did they drink it if the wastewater was really spoiled? 3.13: And they even took photos! They really drank it! (3.3) แตคนทอยโรงงานเขากลองกนใหด เขากบอกวามนสะอาด เขาลองกนใหด ถายรปไวดวย
2.13: Even though the factory didn't directly drain the wastewater onto our rice fields, but to the eucalyptus plots, our lower rice fields were affected from the wastewater passing through the soil surface of the higher eucalyptus plots to our lower-lying rice fields. 2.14: It was the eucalyptus that they encouraged us to grow in the first place on our lands. 2.15: They said they would give us a good price and release the “treated” wastewater [onto our lands]. 3.0: The point is that the lower-
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lying lands have been affected by the released wastewater. 3.1: It gradually seeped into the lower fields and flooded all over the place as if we had a well. 3.2: Even though the wastewater [to the rice fields] was clear, the rice was still affected. 3.3: If there was too much water, the rice wouldn’t grow. 3.4: But if there was no water, the rice would also die. 3.5: Our rice fields turned into salt land, because there were some toxic substances in the water.
3.15: Normally when we stepped into the water [the wastewater that drained into the rice fields from Project Green], our legs would begin to sting. People who were sensitive to the water suffered. It didn’t happen to everyone. 3.16: We even took people who had suffered from the water to go prove to the factory, and they said that it wasn’t due to the water, but due their frail immune systems 3.17: That's what they said to us! (3.18 – 3.19)But if it were the rice seedlings they would
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have surely died. We therefore complained to the factory and conceded because they saw that the rice seedling really did die. So, they gave us 50 thang per rai for the young rice plants that had died.
2.9: Even though I’m a simple farmer and not a researcher or a geologist, I can, by sight, examine the problems that have happened to the soil. 2.10: The rice seeds that we tried to culture died. The young rice plants died as well, or they just grew a little and then withered. 2.11: The factory refused to listen to what we were complaining about. 2.12: This continued to be a chronic problem up until now.
1.34: When the Chitnothai Company came and built the second mill here [Line-2]37, there was Project Green. 2.0: The factory thought of how they could do better with the [wastewater] problem. 2.1: They decided that they would just discharge the red wastewater. 2.2: It's what we see draining into the fields. 2.3: That's when things became worse here because we had the bad smell everywhere.
2.7: The company had come and persuaded Headman Chuang to come and persuade the villagers to permit them to discharge the wastewater from the factory in order to do agriculture. 2.8: At that time, I was growing a type of bamboo on eight rai of land that the government was encouraging us to grow. 2.9: To the south, they were growing sugar cane. 2.10: Then my son, Sompong, who was working for Phoenix, told me that growing eucalyptus would be better. 2.11:
37 In 1994, the factory underwent major expansion adding a second mill, its Line-2 operations.
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Growing anything else wouldn't make a lot of money.
2.12: Project Green came and started discharging the wastewater onto the eucalyptus plantations. 2.13: At first, other [villagers] said not to take the water because it was bad. 2.14: However, I saw others taking it, so I just did. (2.15…) My bamboo died. 7.0: The bamboo stopped producing new shoots because the wastewater affected them in such a way as to make them rot. (…2.15) The factory said that they couldn’t do anything and wouldn’t pay for the loss. 2.16: They deceived me. 2.17: I didn’t know what to say, or how. 2.18: At this time, I just thought I should grow eucalyptus. 2.19: So, I cut all the bamboo and sold it. 2.20: I then planted eucalyptus and then increased the area for growing these trees to 14 rai.
3.29: [Then] Phoenix came to ask headman Chuang to persuade the villagers to plant trees, to do tree farming. 2.4: The Phoenix company made a contract with the villagers that guaranteed the price of eucalyptus at 20-tons per rai at 800 baht. 2.5: According to the contract, there were four to five years before the trees could be cut.
3.25: The factory kept all the contracts. 3.26: That meant we didn't have any contracts in hand. 3.27: If we really had [valid] contracts, we should have been able to have others witness them. 3.28: Headman Chuang could have done it.
3.30: Phoenix brought the wastewater to the fields to make it appear as if they were following the contract. 3.31: We had set a guarantee for 20
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tons of eucalyptus trees per rai, but really [each rai] only produced five or six tons. 3.32: The factory suffered a loss. They were afraid that they [the farmers] wouldn't want to do it anymore, so they took the pipes out. 3.33: But we believed this was a way of cheating us, too. 3.34: No one told us the pipes were being removed. 3.35: Phoenix secretly removed them themselves. 3.36: We spoke with one of their representatives, Mr. Wisit. 3.37: We said, “If you were coming to remove the pipes, why didn’t you tell us, the members? 4.0: Before, when you wanted to install the pipes, you came and made a deal with us. 4.1: That’s why we let you lay those pipes down on our farms. 4.2: But when you wanted to tear them out, you just did it without saying a word?” 4.3: Phoenix couldn't say anything, they just gave excuses.
3.6: When the factory came here and tore out the pipes without telling the villagers, (3.7) they
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also purchased and cut down the trees for the last time. 3.8: I had cut the last trees here. 3.9: I asked the man in charge what we could continue to do here, if we made a guarantee again. 3.10: He said, “What would we guarantee? 3.11: They've taken the pipes out already!”.
2.21: So when it came time to sell the eucalyptus, Phoenix broke the contract and gave only 580 baht per ton.38 2.22: So, we asked if they were going to give the [agreed-upon] price or not. 2.23: We went and spoke with the head of the project, Mr. Wittaya, and asked if the price per ton was 580 baht or not. 2.24: He said that the price was set in the contract at 800 baht. 2.25: They were giving us 580 baht for the trees we planted. 2.26: They had deducted 120 baht for cutting the trees and 100 baht for hauling them, so a total of 220 baht was deducted. 2.27: So the price was 580 baht regardless of anything else. 2.28: I couldn't tolerate this and argued heatedly. 38 Villagers were also not given copies of these original contracts, as testified by villagers and local NGOs.
2.30: However, they continued to be evasive. 3.1: This was the group of people that started Project Green. 3.0: They said that Project Green members couldn't assemble together with up to 300 people. 3.2: Phoenix then set up a time for a meeting with Ajaan39 Pramuan. 3.3: He lives in Kham Bon Village. 3.4: Phoenix came and proposed a price of 650 baht per ton of eucalyptus and we villagers voted. 3.5: Most people said this was a good price. I didn’t want to accept that price. But I couldn’t be the first one to disagree with the majority.
3.12: Until the pipes were taken out of the ground, our land was heavily polluted. 3.13: With this happening, we understood that they had cheated the people. 3.14: They cheated the members. 3.15: They had lied since they first made the contracts for those trees until now. 3.17: They said that this was our problem and we would have to take care of it ourselves. 3.18: I said that we wouldn't stand for this.
7.12: We just wanted them to improve the quality of the wastewater. But they claimed that its quality was good enough. 7.13: When the wastewater appeared on our land, we asked for compensation in the form of fertilizer or money. 7.14: But the factory never wanted to pay us.
5.8: As for the wastewater, if we have some fresh water in our fields, the rice is still there when the fields are [contaminated] with the wastewater.
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5.9: But if there is no fresh water, it will cause terrible damage because of the collection of white sediment and the salt, causing the soil to stiffen.
4.4: We villagers are against the factory and I, along with some others, are still fighting Phoenix. 4.5: Like yesterday, we went to the Ministry of Industry in Khon Kaen [to see if they could help us with our problems concerning Phoenix]
(7.14)We still struggle with the factory not wanting to pay compensation. 8.0: We’ve been to Bangkok many times to complain to the Ministry of Industry, but it didn't work because the plant insisted that the wastewater wasn't spoiled water.8.7: They made a deal. A specialist would come and check the soil quality from Project Green where the factory was dumping the wastewater
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[and where it was getting into] the rice fields. 8.8: The specialist sided with the factory.40
11.3: Since I have been growing eucalyptus on my land, I don’t think that the financial condition of my family has improved. 11.4: If the factory had not cheated me and honored the contract, I would've had some income from this. 11.5: When I sold eucalyptus from my 16 rai of land I received 200,000 baht, which I thought was a lot of money. 11.6: However, I had to grow the trees for 4 to 5 years, which was a long time before getting any money. 11.7: It's better to grow sugarcane or cassava because we can sell it yearly. 11.8: But it's very hard for me to do that because I’m too old.
คงทำาไมไหวเพราะแกแลว (11.7)40 Villagers and local NGOs often argue that such specialists are paid off by the factory, thus skewing results.
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Sumnow1.5: My father-in-law has a rice field near the
factory and the field was affected from the wastewater problem caused by the factory. 1.6: The factory was here by 1994 and during that time Project Green was going on.
3.2: The origin of Project Green came in response to the incident from the molasses spill of the Morad Sugar Factory in 1992, [which caused great damage to the Nam Phong River]. 3.3: This problem also affected Phoenix because the factory used to drain its wastewater into the Nam Phong River. The Morad Sugar Factory was sued on many points and they went bankrupt. The fish died. 3.4: [After the molasses incident] the government decided that the Phoenix factory should not drain its wastewater into the river directly anymore. 3.5: The government asked Phoenix if they could find another method. Could they use the wastewater on crops instead? 3.6: Finally, the factory brought researchers from Mahasarakham University in
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Mahasarakham Province to study and solve this problem. 3.7: The group of professors and students that were invited said that the wastewater was most appropriate for eucalyptus trees. 3.8: But at that time the factory didn't have a demonstration field for the idea and the factory said that the project and its test field would be done simultaneously. (3.4) - แลวเกดขนไดอยางไรคะข- ความเปนมาของโครงการโปรเจคกรนตามทผมร คอชวงป 2535 ทางโรงงานนำาตาลโมราดเขา
1.7: Project Green was started in 1993 and I moved here in 1994, so I faced the ongoing problem of dying rice. 1.8: There was no government unit here to take responsibility for the pollution problem. 1.9: Every villager faced the problem. So did I.
1.10: I then started to collect data about the problem from the villagers and took photographs. 1.11: I was going to send a letter of complaint to the pulp factory. 1.12: While I was collecting data and taking photographs, I heard that NGOs had come to Nong Bua Noi village. 1.13: I decided not to send the information I was collecting to the factory but I took this information to the NGOs instead. 1.14: I thought that if we took this to the factory they definitely wouldn’t help us because previously some villagers sent information about the problem to the factory and the factory’s owner did nothing. 1.15: At that time, there was a meeting at Nong Bua Noi Village. A lot of data concerning the problem was collected, such as the pollution problem affecting the eight to nine nearby villages.
1.16): From the data from eight to nine villages, I found out that there were many
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problems, maybe nine issues. 1.17: For example, the place for cremating our dead in the forest, which before had been our cemetery, was destroyed from the wastewater from Project Green.41 1.18: The place was always wet because the wastewater was being drained into the fields 24 hours a day.
1.19: Another problem was weevils42 from the bamboo and eucalyptus logs. 1.20: You know, there are weevils who live in the stacked bamboo and eucalyptus logs. 1.21: With bamboo and eucalyptus trees being carried [and collected] at the factory, the weevils would come out and fly to nearby villages. 2.0: I imagined that when you took the rice out of storage, within five minutes, weevils would come and eat all your rice and turn it black.
41 Traditionally, the cemetery in the forest is never moved, due to the belief in animism. So when the cemetery near Phoenix was flooded, it was very hard for villagers to find a new cemetery to place their dead. 42 A weevil is any of numerous beetles that characteristically have a downward curving snout and are destructive to plants and stored plant products.
2.1: During that time, there were many problems. 2.2: For example, rice seedlings were dying, weeds were dense, the place for cremation and cemetery were destroyed, and so on. 2.3: However, after we complained about these problems to the government agency and discussed it with them together and we got some quick help.(2.1) ชวงนนจะมปญหาอยหลายเรอง ไมรวาอยในโครงการฟ นฟจะมหรอเปลา มนมเรองของกลาขาว
2.4: At that time, this agency solved all of the problems for us. 2.5: I think it was because it was the first time that we complained, so they quickly came to help us. 2.6: One of the problems solved was the one that concerned the weevils. 2.7: Previously, eucalyptus logs were moved directly to the factory’s storage. 2.8: Therefore, we purposed to the factory to spray pesticide in the storage area before the logs were placed there. 2.9: As for the cremation and cemetery site in the forest, we
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suggested that the factory build a funeral pyre. 2.10: Besides that, they gave 1,000 liters of rice per rai to those people whose rice fields had been destroyed. 2.11: And for the trees, if the wastewater destroyed them and they were within ten meters of the rice field and bigger than ten inches in diameter, the factory would pay 1,000 baht for each. 2.12: If the trees were smaller than ten inches in diameter, then one would be paid 700 baht [for each]. 2.13): All the fruit trees, mango and jackfruit trees, and for the mulberry and banana trees that were destroyed, the factory would pay for only trees which were destroyed, not the entire field.
2.14: After Phoenix had compensated us, we told them not to release the wastewater anymore. 2.15: The area around Kut Nam Sai Village, which was the first place where wastewater was released, the villagers required them to stop releasing
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wastewater and Phoenix stopped releasing the wastewater. 2.16: When they stopped, the factory changed the drainage place to Khok Soong Village, in Ubonrat District. 3.0: This drainage of wastewater began to cause many problems to many villages in the Nam Phong and Ubonrat Districts because the factory was located between them. (2.15) เมอเขาชดใชใหแลว เรากกำาหนดใหเขาหยดการปลอยนำา ทางโซนแถวกดนำาใส เขากหยดแลว
3.9: In the first year, Phoenix persuaded villagers to become members of the Project Green. (3.10) They promised that they would buy one ton of eucalyptus for 80 baht and one rai contains 20 tons. 3.12: They also promised to give us a maintenance expense of 500 baht per rai. 3.13: At the start, there were 113 members, but I cannot remember the total land area that these members were on. 3.14: In the first year, no problems occurred because our land was dry and not fertile. 3.15: The wastewater increased fertility dramatically to our land. 3.16: Our rice grew up
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perfectly.4.0: In the second year, however, the project released wastewater all the time. 4.1: We had to wade in the wastewater to harvest our rice fields. 4.2: Finally, in the next year, our rice seedlings were dead owing to the saturation of our land from the wastewater. 4.3: The problem from Project Green had started.
4.4: I think the research they [Phoenix] did was in the laboratory only. 4.5: They may not have really understood the soil quality here. 4.6: This Project Green might be appropriate in another place. 4.7: The soil here is very sandy and it is easily saturated. 4.8: Actually, the wastewater is good for eucalyptus. But if it gets too much, the eucalyptus doesn't grow well. 4.9: You know, there was a field that was over-saturated, and the result was death of all eucalyptus trees.
4.10: They first promised the members that they would buy eucalyptus, but four years later they changed the contract. (4.11) Because we couldn't get the 20 tons as mentioned in the contract, they were not willing to pay at the agreed price. 4.12: Actually, the members didn't know the details in the contract clearly. 4.13: And I wasn't sure that the contract guaranteed the price for 20 tons per rai, or guaranteed that we must produce 20 tons per rai. 5.0: The thing that we knew was that we would get a lot of money if we could produce 20 tons per rai, including the 500 baht of the maintenance expense per rai a year. 5.1: Later I realized that the contract said that the eucalyptus would be bought only if there were 20 tons per rai. 5.2: The rest would be bought at a lower price. 5.3: Actually, even if we got 20 tons per rai, we wouldn't get 800 baht per ton because we had to pay for the transportation fee for the eucalyptus.
6.0: For wastewater drainage, the factory released it 24 hours a day. 6.1: Then they found that it caused problems here. 6.3: Mostly, they released the wastewater at night at every drainage place. 6.6: In our fields, there were valves to release the wastewater, and at nighttime a factory worker would go to open the valves. 6.7: There were three shifts for the work: daytime, from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., evening time, from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., and nighttime, from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. 7.0: The duty of a worker was to drain the water after he received the order from his boss. 7.1: When there was a lot of wastewater, the boss ordered him through a walky-talky to release the wastewater somewhere. (5.17) แรก ๆ โปรเจคกรนนเขาปลอยนำาตลอด 24 ชวโมง มาชวงหลงเขาเหนวาทนม
ใน ถามนำาเยอะแลว เขาตองระบายออกอยเสมอ ไมทหนงกทหนง ทไหนมปญหากไปเปดทอน (7.2)[After efforts of villagers to monitor the quality of the river]
10.4: One thing that I would like you to know was that the quality of water in the Nam Phong River got better, but the wastewater from Project Green that drained to our fields was very terrible. (10.5)Project Green is done on higher land and our fields and farms are on low land . (10.6)[When the wastewater is released] it first effects fruit trees. Afterwards, it was rice fields that were lower. And then to the fish-raising ponds. And then in the very end it goes into the Huay Jote swamp and into the waterway. 11.1: We used to check the water that came out of their pipes. (11.0) The dissolved oxygen levels were low, from zero to one. And the water stank, too.
(9.12) In 1993 when Mr. Sanan Khanchornprasart was the Minister of Industry, the factory found local people to join as members of Project Green. 9.10: We brought the eucalyptus here and expanded the species to grow instead of jute. 9.11: The villagers were then able to gain membership with the factory. 9.13: The factory would give them 500 baht per rai a year and guarantee that each rai of land would produce 20 tons of raw materials. The factory would then in turn buy the wood at 800 baht per rai. 9.14: People who were interested in becoming members had to join the project through a four-year contract. 9.15) Eucalyptus that grows for four years will become the same size as a house pillar, about a 4-inch radius in size. 9.16: Even though the trees have the potential to grow larger, most of the eucalyptus that are sent to the factory are of that size. 9.17: After the four-year time period the members cut down the eucalyptus trees and send them to the factory, ending the contract. 9.18: Those who wanted to continue with the project had to make new contracts. 9.19: For the people who didn’t want to continue, the factory uprooted the
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eucalyptus from their land and let the farmers grow other crops.
9.20: My land was next to the factory and I planted eucalyptus too, but I was not a member with Phoenix. 9.21: When I produced eucalyptus, I sold it to the factory as others did. 9.22: After I cut down the eucalyptus, I let it grow again by its self. 9.23: For the land that was not cleared, I left it to be a forest. (10.0)I didn't have enough people to farm the land so I just let some of it go.
10.13: The factory was expanding and trying to increase the number of villagers who would
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become members of Project Green to grow eucalyptus, so the factory could release more wastewater. 10.14: The factory claimed that there were two benefits of Project Green: to avoid draining the wastewater into the Huay Jote Waterway and to encourage eucalyptus to grow faster with the increase of water. 10.15: They said this would enable the raw material to reach the factory more quickly. 10.16: So the villagers agreed to this and more people became members in support of this project.
13.9: At the beginning, rice production was very good. The factory hadn't improved anything and we wondered what chemical substances made for the high rice production. 13.9: Maybe it was dioxins, salt or potassium nitrate and some other substances that were mixed up in bleaching white the paper pulp. 13.10: The factory used a lot of these chemical substances and [we thought] they
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could be a fertilizer for the rice. 13.11: The rice grew well, but after a long time the soil became too spoiled and hard to plant anything. 13.12: Therefore, the rice grown was not of good quality anymore because the soil had became salty. 10.17: This was due to the wastewater that was released into the eucalyptus fields, which started to seep down into the villagers’ rice fields causing the rice to die.
13.13: The reason that I’m able to talk like this is because previously one irrigation department officer came and saw that the villagers were very troubled. 13.15: When he saw the dead rice stalks in the fields, he said that it was the soil becoming salty. So he wanted the factory to decrease and increase some substances that the factory used in fertilizers because the soil was being destroyed. 13.16: The rice fields were becoming salty.
13.18: There was another irrigation department officer who was the owner of some land here who came to check out what was going on as well. 13.19: There was a discussion about this problem at Khon Kaen University at the conference room of the Faculty of Education.
13.20: The first time this problem had occurred, I was someone who complained about this to the factory. 14.7: The villagers who suffered from this project formed a big group. 14.8: This group was different from those who protested in the past. 14.9: In earlier days, I was the leader to claim compensation from the factory, but only with 11 to 12 families.
14.10: When Project Green was first set up, I told the villagers not to accept the 500 baht per rai that the factory had offered. 14.11: The villagers didn’t listen to me though, because those who had a lot of land would receive a large sum of money. 14.12: That is why they went for the deal.
14.13: The Phoenix factory would pay us for four years and guarantee the price and the weight of eucalyptus at 20 tons per rai. 14.14: Some pieces of land consisted of up to ten rai; that would probably contain at least 60 tons of eucalyptus per rai. 14.15: Therefore, villagers sold eucalyptus to the factory. 14.16: On the other hand, the factory felt that they would lose benefit from the farmers so they [later] refused to guarantee the price they promised for the trees. 14.17: Some villagers didn’t want to stop growing eucalyptus, so they continued.
14.18: The factory people said they wouldn't supply water for the farmers anymore, and the farmers said that that was all right as long as the factory gave them a maintenance expense [500 baht per rai per year]. 14.19: Actually, I would have liked to receive this expense also but couldn't become a member since my land was too close to the factory. 14.20: Besides, there were not many landowners there. 14.21: It wouldn't have been worth it to lay down the pipes for the villagers. 14.22: They found other land to buy, which connected into one larger piece of land.
1.2.2: First, there were only nine villages that had problems with their farmland. 1.3.2: Then other villages pressed the factory to remove the pipes from their land. 1.4.2: So the factory moved the pipes to Khok Soong Village. 1.5.2: It turned out, that the Khok Soong Village was where the wastewater was being released. 1.6.2: The Khok
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Soong Village is an example of a village that has been disadvantaged compared to Kut Nam Sai Village. 1.7.2: Though our village gets the money for land maintenance, we don't get any other type of compensation. 1.8.2: So I have to say that Khok Soong Village does not get as much compensation as other villages.
3.22.2: The government has been controlling the factory’s acts, the quality of wastewater, but still the government can’t completely oversee [what’s happening]. 3.23.2: Even though we continue sending our letters of complaint to the government, and the government has many times sent officers to take care of the problem, there has been no progress with the wastewater problem that has occurred.
(3.24.2) But we couldn't fight against the factory because we were poor and had no power. (3.25.2) Even the laws concerning industrial regulations couldn't manage the [pollution] problem.
(3.26.2 - 4.1.2) I think that we’ll take the concerns of the villagers and go tell the government about this. In fact, we’ve done this already. We documented it to go and complain already. The government sent people to come look, but it was just impossible. We couldn’t fight the factory. We wrote the letter but we still couldn’t fight the factory. They just say, “your worried, you came here, you can take your mangos and go home tonight!” You take your bags when you go, then your bags are full and you can return home and live like this. We can’t do anything! Even the laws can’t fight them.
(4.9.2 – 4.11.2)We can’t live together like this now, we’ll just let the factory be here. It should be like this nowadays. I would complain but I am not
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able to. Can’t fight them! We would like to have the laws to work for us, but they don’t! The government is just like they were before. "If you come I’ll [phoenix personnel] just shoot you". Then the purple [Phoenix] comes and it just happens. This is like Mrs. Somsri with the Pak Moon Dam43. Before, we had a lot of members but whoever were the good leader were shot. We don’t have anyone anymore. The meaning of shooting isn’t with a gun, it’s with money instead.
5.8.2: Here Phoenix corners the market so they can stay here. 5.9.2: They bring extra wastewater here and the wastewater runs into the fields of other crops. 5.10.2: Villagers will then go and complain. 5.11.2: The factory therefor comes
43 Pak Moon Dam is located in the Northeast region of Thailand, at the mouth of the Moon River just a few kilometers from the Mekong River. Funded partially by the World Bank, it was completed in 1993 despite years of protests by local villagers. Pak Moon managed within a couple years to destroy one of the country’s richest natural freshwater fisheries and thousands of lives of villager’s who depended on fishing. The twelve-year struggle against the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and the World Bank by Pak Moon villagers, as leading members of the Assembly of the Poor, continue to this day.
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up with a plan to not let the wastewater flow onto the land, but into the Huay Jote Waterway and the Nam Phong River.
กใหไหลลงคลอง จากคลองแลวกจะลงหวย (5.14.2)5.12.2: In the rainy season, if the water flows
and the rain falls, the factory then orders employees to open the pipes to allow their water to mix with rain water. 5.13.2: On days when it doesn't rain, in the evening, they will release the wastewater into the waterway after people have returned home.
5.14.2: The water flows into the Nam Phong River. 5.15.2: In the evening, around bedtime, you can see the wastewater swiftly flowing to the river all night until 4 or 5 a.m. and then they would close the pipes. 5.16.2: When the valves are closed, the streams return to normal, the wastewater diminishes, and ordinary water flow returns. This way people didn't notice it. 5.17.2: I'm not sure on the exact dates that this happens. 5.18.2: When
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the authorities come to check, they [the factory workers]would turn off the pipes. 5.19.2: They held back the bad water and only let the clear water be seen. 5.20.2: A little bit of wastewater would flow out.
5.21.2: For years the Ministry of Industry set up a committee to inspect and test the wastewater. 5.23.2: When they came out, they said, “Oh, my goodness!”, took a lot of money [a bribe], and then left. 5.24.2: Nothing happened because of the power of money. 5.25.2: They conspired over this. 5.26.2: And they have stopped testing now. 5.29.2: Here we really wanted to fight them but we couldn’t really, we couldn’t fight their money.
5.30.2: Now, investigations have stopped. The Ministry of Industry already got tired of doing it. 5.31.2: They said that they had set up committees to investigate, but they couldn't do much.5.32.2: I think it is because of the power of money. 5.33.2: When the committees came this way, the factory would secretly turn on the pipes on the other side, and vise versa. 5.34.2: If they went anywhere, the employees could communicate via walky-talky.6.0.2: It's not possible to walk with them. 6.1.2: It is faster than that. 6.2.2: If they see an ear [investigators] coming here, they radio everywhere. It is the same as before. 6.3.2: We can’t really fight them.
[After discovering the Phoenix Plant was illegally releasing wastewater into a public waterway] 6.4: When we found out that they were
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doing this, we went to complain. 6.5: They refused [to hear] our complaints and said that they didn’t release the wastewater. They made false accusations that we were the ones who did it. (6.5) ชาวบานกทราบวาเขาปลอย พอทราบแลว กไปบอก เขากอางวา เราเปนสมาชก ถาเขาไมเปด เขาก
7.2: I had the task of checking the wastewater quality for the villagers. 7.3: I did this task because recently we didn't have success in negotiating with the factory, so we decided to organize a group to conserve the environment of the Nam Phong River. 7.4: We started doing this seriously in 1995.
8.2: We [the villagers organization] received support in the form of money and training from the province. 8.3: In turn, we helped the province to take care of the river. (8.4 – 8.7): They came and trained the members about the Nam Phong pollution and what they could do that was good. 7.6: If we let a governmental unit oversee the problem, then surely they would come to see the problem today and would solve the problem later. But we live close to the river and are able to check the river ourselves. So they taught us. Nowadays,
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we check the river two times every month, on the first and the fifteenth. We inspect no less than five points. We compare downstream with upstream, and at the mouth of the Huay Jote Swamp, where it flows into the canal. There are maybe seven points checked. We inspect each section for five things: speed, particle content, temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen. We also have a tool to check the conductivity value.44 We received support from the provincial office, both money and training. So our assembly can now help the government take care of the river.
8.8: After Project Green started, we faced the problem of dead fish and dirty water in the Nam 44 By checking the river for its speed, particle content, temperature, pH, DO [Dissolved Oxygen], and conductivity value, villagers are able to asses the healthiness and life-sustainability of the river.
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Phong River. 8.9: The problem happened when the river became motionless. 8.9: We called attention to this problem which was due to the Ubonrat Dam, and the officers there helped us by releasing water from the Ubonrat Dam to the Nong Wai Reservoir to make the river flow all the time.
8.10: Moreover, the Department of Industrial Works came to check the river about twice a week, I’d say. It was a lot better than before. But it still wasn’t to the satisfaction of the villagers. 9.1: When they examined the water, they knew that the water was polluted and still, it would be within the quality standards of the industrial works department. 9.2: I didn't know whether the standard was right or not, whether it was set too high or not, or whether it was set too low or not. The water that they claimed was up to standard, still caused fish to die. I don’t know how that could be. They would even show us the results of their tests.
Before, we used to say that the equipment Phoenix used was no good. We let that go on for a few months. And then we tested the water together. 9.3: We used our boat and their equipment. 9.4: The results we got were close [to theirs]. 9.5: Actually, we used our own equipment as well. We only checked for dissolved oxygen. Some of the oxygen in the water checked was low in some areas. In some areas it was high. From what I know, if the value was at about two, the fish start not wanting to be there. If lower than two, the fish die. If more than that, the fish can live. Downstream of the dam the oxygen is low. Above the dam the water is good. But at the Sua Ten stream, I don’t know where the water’s coming from, and so there’s the problem.
10.0: The plant has done nothing to fix [the oxygen levels] of the river. I don’t know where they got this standard from for checking the water. When they say that the wastewater has been treated and passes the standards set, I don’t know what the industrial works department uses to measure it! But the villagers say that whatever the water touches, dies. We still insist that the water is polluted. Our rice fields have been affected by this polluted water—but the factory says it’s just discharged water. For sure the factory and the department are in on this together in fixing the test results, because the villagers don’t know what the results of the tests all mean. They only know that your water kills our rice! [But] from the results of the tests, they say that the water is better. I don’t know if it’s because there’s been a lot of rainfall or what! But the test results didn’t show a great improvement in the water. They say they’ve spent a lot of money already improving the water. But there’s still rice dying!
ไมมากหรอก เขากบอกวาเขาปรบปรงจนหมดเงนไปเยอะแลวแตวามนกยงมขาวตายอย (10.12)(11…) Now I am the assistant chairperson of
the villagers organization. My role is to collect information that might help the “Nam Phong River Recovery and Conservative Villager Assembly”. You could call it the complaint center of the villagers. When we have a problem about damage to our rice fields or fish dying [in the river], villagers come here and report it. Then we go collect information and help the government check and monitor the water quality of the Nam Phong River. At first, we didn’t get paid for our work. [But] this is where my heart is, so here I came. (11.3) ตอนนเปนรองประธานชมรม มบทบาทเกบขอมลชวยเหลอ ชมรมอนรกษสงแวดลอมลำานำาพอง
The government came and checked the water and it was up to standards. We couldn’t say anything against the factory. They checked the water where fish had died, not where the water comes out from the factory.
It’s like this. If we told them today, then they would have to spend the time traveling here, right, and not right when it happens. If the fish die in the middle of the night, we let them know in the morning. By the time they get here [to check the water], things have changed. The [bad] water may have flowed on. And so when they check it, they say, “Hmm. There’s nothing here. It’s up to standards.” They don’t monitor it any further.
12.0: There’s also the Ministry of Industry and the Environmental Health Center that come to check the water. As for the problem of the fish dying, those that had been checking and nothing was found—we wanted to help, but the government didn’t accept the information we tried to give them. 12.1: They say that we might have made mistakes in our checks. The factory does not believe us. They believe the government. If the government says they’re at fault, the factory will agree to pay [fines]. That’s how they challenge us.
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The villagers think that the government doesn’t dare accuse the factory of being in the wrong. Because for government officials in some areas, the factory will buy this and that for them—donating air conditioners, refrigerators, desks—things like that. (12.1) มกระทรวงอตสาหกรรม และศนยอนามยสงแวดลอมทมาตรวจ ปญหาเรองทปลาตาย ทตรวจ
We pointed out to the government officials every time the fish died, our rice died, and other things died. But every time, the factory challenges the government to say that the rice and fish died because of their water. If the government dared to make the accusation, [the factory claims], they would agree to pay compensation. But so far no one has been brave enough to say such things. They’ve only been brave enough to say that the soil has been ruined, but not from the water from the Phoenix factory, but from what they couldn’t say. They say that maybe it was caused by too much rainfall, too much water, or something along those lines, blaming other things.
13.0: In the future, I want the government to accept the people because the people are the ones in the [affected] area. We know the day, the time, what’s happening. 13.2: After they’d taught us to test the water quality, we knew enough of what to do. Whenever we’re able to check the information, we should be believed to some degree. If the government accepted us, this sort of problem wouldn’t have happened, because we are in the area. We know what the soil here or the soil there is like, how the water flows down. 13.7: We farmers know the real problems. We want the government to believe people in the local area. And then the problem won’t arise. 13.8: Before we can ask whether the government has the power to help us, we have to talk and understand first whether they’ll trust the information of villagers, and then we can have change for the better.
ดขน(13.7)13.9: For the third [pulp producing] mill, they
[Phoenix] keep buying up more and more land around here. 13.10: The problem is that there will be some plots which haven’t been bought up that get surrounded by plots that have. They want to buy it all up so they can have a single big piece of land, but at a price that the villagers don’t want to sell at. There is still a lot that hasn’t been sold. 13.11: In my opinion, the villagers will finally sell their land, irritated because all their land has been ruined. Whatever they plant won’t grow. But the feeling that oppresses the villagers is that they want to wait until there’s more problems than there are now and then they [the factory] will decide to buy at a high price. But in the end, the factory will not raise the price. Instead, the price will just keep going down. 13.13: Whatever the factory sets the price at in the end, the villagers will have to sell at that price. The negotiations will extend on and on. I don’t know if the factory is using Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai’s approach45
45 Chuan Leekpai, leader of the Democratic Party, served as prime minister of Thailand from 1992 to 1994, and 1997 to 2001. His administration was notorious in the eyes of the poor for endless delays in
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here or not, because it’s so slow, boring the villagers.
13.16: If the villagers are not strong or sincere enough to fight, it’ll be terrible. 13.17: I’ve told the villagers that this problem was their problem, not just mine. If you don’t come and have me make demands by myself, I won’t go. I have to go with you, together.
รวมกน (13.17)The problems stem from the policies of the
government. Wherever there’s a dam, factories will be set up right then. One comes right after the other. There’s a dam, and bang! It’s right off at the service of industry which needs water immediately.
14.4: I think that if the villagers fight, I don’t think they’ll build a third mill for the factory. 14.5: But if the villagers retreat, the third mill will be built because they have enough land to do it. They’ll build it immediately. 14.6: I have heard that they might build another mill in Pranchin Buri or another here. But I think that they will build it here because they’ve already bought up a lot of land.
14.11: Right now, our group wants to find a way through this. 14.12: We don’t want to say who’s right or who’s wrong. 14.13:We should find a way through this together, about how we’re going to live together.
2.17: The Phoenix executives don't really want to solve the problems. 2.23: When there have been problems, I have always joined the fight with the others. 2.24: [But] I couldn't act as a committee member or the leader of the [villagers] group because I was working at the company. (2.10) ผบรหารฟนกซไมคอยมใครทอยากจะแกปญหาจรง ๆ จง ๆ (2.10) (2.15)
3.1: The reason I joined the protesters against Phoenix was because I wanted to see justice and gain the rights that we should have, such as medical expenses. 3.2: The villagers who live outside of the factory, who don't have this aid, are poor. 3.3: For example, they don’t have money for the doctor, and if they don't have aid, doctors are unwilling to give them medical assistance.
13.21: When the Nam Phong crisis happened, causing the fish to die, an NGO [Non Government Organizer] foundation that I didn’t know about at the time came to Thailand.13.22: They came here to take pictures. 14.0: They also interviewed me for information about what we were doing. 14.1: After talking to us, they appointed us to go to a meeting at the Public Health College in Khon Kaen for one night. 14.2: We went to give them information about how life has been since we had been relocated to the new [self help] settlement when the Ubonrat Dam was built, and how the condition of soil had worsened. 14.3: When they had enough information, they set up another meeting and asked the factory to come talk with us. 14.4: They had a plan to solve the problem. 14.5: This plan was to clean up the Huay Jote Waterway for the farmers and divert the wastewater to another place. 14.6: They [Phoenix] have since set up Project Green, which allows wastewater to flow onto the land, as I said before.
1.0.2: During the hard times, NGOs came to help us. 1.1.2: This helped the farmers to begin forming a group. 1.11.2: We went to the factory to complain. 1.12.2: In the first few years the factory agreed to our requests for damages and gave us compensation. 1.13.2: The NGOs had used my information to assess the damages caused by Phoenix.
6.4.2: We couldn’t really fight them. 6.5.2: We hoped that when NGOs came to help, we could just consult with them. 6.6.2: However, the people who live here and who have been troubled from the problems assembled together to conserve the Nam Phong environment. 6.7.2: The NGOs came to advise us by suggesting possibilities in making complaint letters and to help with dialogues. 6.8.2: We ourselves couldn't really fight with the factory because we are uneducated. 6.9.2: It would be
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different if people who have studied and have knowledge in this field came to help. 6.11.2: Ajaan Yaut and Ajaan Saneh came to talk with us a lot. 6.12.2: Their role was to give us knowledge about how to talk and negotiate with the factory. 6.13: Many other people came before to help also, such as (6.14.2) Ajaan Sompop Bunnak and Ajaan Prasit Makwong from Khon Kaen University.
-א 1.10.2: Even now the government hasn't done anything to help us. Once we had more members in our [villager] group and there were NGOs helping, it was then that we went and made demands of the government. They met some of our first demands. 1.14.2: After the NGOs came here, the factory also decided to investigate the facts. 1.15.2: They brought in the Department of Land Development to analyze the soil and wastewater quality. 1.16.2: If Phoenix was polluting, then the factory would
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pay. If they weren’t, then they wouldn’t pay compensation. If they won’t compensate us then we will keep fighting.
1.17.2: We [the factory and villagers] had been fighting for a long time, but neither the factory or we could make a decision. 1.18.2: Then the NGOs accompanied us to complain in front of the Ministry of Industry [in Bangkok] about our problems with Phoenix. 1.19.2: After that the government told us to go back home and it ordered the factory to compensate us 12,000 baht for each household. 1.20.2: From 1978 until now, this was the third time we requested compensation from the factory and haven’t received anything at all. 1.21.2: The factory played a trick on us.
1.22.2: I think that if the factory changes the manager we would be paid. 1.23.2: The former manager was Dr. George Wison, or something like that. 1.24.2: I think last year [1999] there was a new manager, so Dr. George didn’t have the power. 1.25.2: The employees didn't listen to him anymore.2.0.2: He couldn't manage the work efficiently, thus causing a new board to come and run the factory.
(2.1.2 – 2.12.2) However, this new board managed itself in a whiney way, not wanting to pay compensation to the members [of the group]. 2.3.2: They said this is just a problem that will never end. They wanted to find some way to manage us. If they didn’t want to do something, they wouldn’t do it. If they didn’t want to do anything, they’d just do what they wanted to do. That is, they didn’t want us to complain anymore. The factory allotted a 3,000 baht monthly salary for each headman of the villages around here.
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Whoever made a Noise [about the factory], they [the headman] would receive the complaint but do nothing. If they were told of something, they wouldn’t listen.
So the villagers sent for the NGO who had come to help the villagers—helped them every time, you know—and they said for us to organize, to go and camp out there. We should do it like this. Just the other day we went and talked with the Ministry of Industry [in Bangkok], to make claim for our problems concerning the flood. The rice had died. The natural trees had died. The sugar cane had died. The cassava had died. The soil’s quality was degraded. We asked that the factory be fined for their bad water that destroyed our soil.
2.13.2: The Department of Factories forced the factory to provide compensation to us. 2.14.2: But the factory found a way to trick us. 2.15.2: They delayed paying the compensation. 2.16.2: They said that the factory didn't belong to one person and that the process took time. 2.17.2: They were cheating us by postponing our compensation from 29 August until 2 October. 2.18.2: But, on 2 October they sent a letter telling us that they no longer wanted to pay compensation. 2.19.2: It was a hard time for us.
3.13.2: This is not a short-term problem. It is a long-term problem affecting the villagers. 3.14.2: However, the factory doesn't do anything, and the conflict continues. 3.18.2: If the factory was able to buy the villager’s land, it should do so. 3.19.2: The problem should be fixed. 3.20.2: We don't want to face a conflict like this again and again.3.21.2:
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Maybe they have hired a gunman to shoot us because recently one of our villagers was shot.
2.20.2: Later we changed our plan from [pressing for] compensation to [pressing for] maintenance expenses and the expenses that the factory had to pay us to support our livelihood. 2.21.2: We kept thinking about the activities concerning our livelihood. 2.22.2:Finally, we decided on livestock raising as our activity. 2.23.2:We told the factory that we wanted four water buffalo for each household. 2.24.2:They accepted this request [in principle], but not for four water buffalo, so we refused. 2.25.2:So we went down to Bangkok on the 29 August [2000]. 2.26.2:The factory told us that they would respond on 2 October. 2.27.2: The owner of the factory accepted our request, but only for 11 villages. 2.28.2: We refused their proposal again, because it
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wasn't different from the usual revolving fund which the government gives out.
2.29.2: Those who were suffering said that they wouldn’t be able to get [any of the fund]. Like this, if we’re unlucky, we wouldn't have a chance to get any [benefit from the factory’s fund.] This revolving fund, if there’s someone without a problem, they have the right to draw lots [to receive benefit from the fund]. Those who are in trouble don’t get the chance. Unfortunately, we won’t live forever—we’ll die before we get anything. So we talked yesterday, the Ministry of Industry said if you folk don’t accept their offer, then send a letter to the factory asking them to reconsider the issue and ask how much they’ll help. Whatever, you’ll have to talk again. About their saying they were going to help—the villagers
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can’t accept it anymore because it is a revolving fund. They might die before they see anything, never knowing if they’ll get anything or not.
There are 11 villages out of more than a thousand households. 3.6.2: So how could every household get the fund? 3.7.2: Actually, we didn't know the number of water buffalo and the date that the factory would give them to each family. 3.8.2: Another problem was about who would get the fund first. 3.9.2: So now we will write a new letter of complaint to the factory and surely we will have another discussion. 3.10.2: For the new letter, we will tell the factory to pay compensation to us individually, no matter how many water buffalo there are. 3.11.2: If they don't want to give us any water buffalo, they can give us compensation in money. 3.12.2: The important thing is that they must give us compensation
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individually, not as part of the revolving fund that the government already gives.
want compensation but the factory hardly gave us anything, so we demanded that they buy water buffalo for us instead of giving us money [in the year 2000]. 19.8: We wanted four water buffalo per family, at the price of 15,000 baht each. 19.9: We wanted this for everyone, even for the person who used to have 40 water buffalo and 400 rai of land, which was a lot of property. 19.10: We had made an agreement, between both groups that those who had lost more and those who had lost less property, that the factory had to give us four water buffalo per person, not per family. 19.11: Only one person per family was sent to demand
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the compensation. 20.0: So in one family, they’d get four water buffalo.
Sumnow14.14: Last year we asked for water buffalo.
Why water buffalo? Because in the past we’ve demanded and gotten mostly money [as compensation]. Once we’ve gotten the money, we went and bought other things. So we tried to find another way, and we came up with asking for buffaloes, because they can be used for their labor. (14.15) They can eat grass and keep the fields looking nice. They poop and the manure can be put into the soil as fertilizer. 14.17: But we haven’t gotten any response at all. Just evasions. 14.18: We’ve made agreements with them all along. If we get the buffaloes, if they’re still discharging their water into our fields, we can keep reporting it to the factory as usual.
2.5: At present, I don't grow rice or anything else except for eucalyptus. 2.6: I’m afraid that my land will be destroyed after having grown eucalyptus. 2.7: We villagers are demanding help from the government.
2.22: In our opinion, if the company buys all the land here, all villagers will have to move out to more remote areas. 5.13: For me, I never thought to move to a different place, except for if the factory bought all my land. 5.14: After that, the factory [could pursue] its project to expand.5.16:
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And suppose we would like to move and find new fields and a new home, (5.17) how could we afford that? 5.18: We don’t have enough money to do that. 5.19: So, I’ve thought to work in another province or to work abroad. 5.20: But, I don’t think that it is worth while because the cost is expensive. 5.21: I live like this and live day by day. I can’t hold on to money because I use it to eat every day.
5.22: I don't have any advice for others because I have to look after myself. 5.23: But for myself, I plan to do many things in agriculture. 6.0: I like to plant trees. 6.1: I love trees and I want to raise local chickens or raise fish in a floating basket. 6.2: That is my idea for an agricultural life. 6.3: I want to look for a time to do farming like this.
children and grandchildren in agricultural practices. 9.38.2: I haven't forgotten what I have learned over the years. 10.20.2: I attained my experience from many places. 9.39.2: On agriculture, I don't always do it, but I do go and promote it by talking. 9.40.2: When I hear things I come home and introduce [new] agricultural practices to my children and grandchildren, who will continue to pass down good things that they have seen. 9.42.2: [For example], on the 28 October 2000, I talked about alternative/sustainable agriculture and the organization of the hospital46. 9.43.2: Whoever was interested could go. It wasn't divided by villages and districts. 9.44.2: There, we saw the system used in WangNoi District. 9.45.2: There are three districts involved. 9.46.2: WangNoi District, Phon District and Ubonrat District come together every month. 9.47.2: People from Ubonrat District go to see the work in WangNoi District, and people from
46 The Ubonrat District hospital who supports community development and organizing activities under the auspices of SCDF (Sustainable Community Development Foundations), an NGO.
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WangNoi District come here. 9.48.2: People from Muang Phon District go to WangNoi District.
9.49.2: We always alternate and teach our children and family about alternative ways of living.10.0.2: I don't go to grow rice with my children anymore. They do it without me. 10.1.2: It's not necessary that I go because I have a lot of work here, many meetings each month.
10.2.2: My son does the same kind of agriculture that I did in the past. 10.3.2: I taught him what I did.10.4.2: Farming has been his way of life. 10.5.2: He has been farming for a long time so I trust him to do it. 10.6.2: In the past, we did things together and then I bought water buffalo to
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look after.10.7.2: I did agriculture for many years, and now he can do it.
10.8.2: I had to look after my water buffalo. 10.9.2: Even if it rained I didn’t stay at home. 10.10.2: When my son didn't have anything to do, he came to look after the water buffalo also. 10.11.2: We did this for a long time, and then he got bored. 10.12.2: He told me that I should sell the water buffalo if I wanted to have a comfortable life, so I sold them. (10.10.2)-א ไอเราเองกตองเลยงวว ฝนตกกไมไดอยบาน กเลยงแตววมาตลอดวนไหนทไมมงาน
10.13.2: Now I always work like this [work with village issues and village organization] 10.15.2: Even though there are those who give me bamboo strips to weave, I don’t have the time to do it because I’m always on the go, nonstop. 10.16.2: Yesterday I went to Khon Kaen and tomorrow I have to go again and the next day.
10.21.2: The things that I want to suggest are things that people used to do and also some things that have come from other places. I want to tell the villagers to have fish ponds, to plant long living trees and seasonal plants, grow galangal, ginger, lemongrass, or things that can be sold in the market. 10.22.2: They can plant banana trees and rely on them, such as selling the banana flowers or the fruits. They can plant them around the fish pond near one’s house.
10.23.2: There is one fish pond here at this house and another one near my daughter’s house near the temple. 10.24.2: In the morning and evening, we feed the fish. 10.25.2: When we don't have enough food to eat, we can catch the fish to eat. 10.26.2: I’ve seen the agricultural movement grow quickly since I was a child until now. 10.27.2:
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I didn't think that it was possible. 10.28.2: We have machines [now].
10.30.2: In the past, agriculturists had enough food to live, not to sell. 10.31.2: We didn't want to sell our products back then, but now they are sold for money.11.0.2: In the past, we didn't have a place to sell our products because there was no road. 11.1.2: Now there are many factors.
11.33.2: Maybe I will sell my land because there is nobody to work the land. 11.34.2: My son wants to work in the factory. 11.35.2: When my grandson grows up, I can give him the money from 47 tractor
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the land. 11.36.2: In the future, if it is like this, the locals will have to work in the factory and there will be no agriculture. 11.37.2: Everyone says that it will be like this. 12.0.2: Those families who have money and a vehicle, when they get up, they will have only packaged food. 12.0.2: They will not even have to cook for themselves. 12.1.2: They don’t cook fish. 12.2.2: This is because they can buy packaged food easily. 12.3.2: It is comfortable, convenient, and fast. 12.4.2: Doing it yourself, like in the old days, is more difficult. 12.5.2: Early in the morning here, eating is done quickly. 12.6.2: Finish eating and go. 12.7.2: In the evening, it is the same. 12.8.2: Here they still have these characteristics.
12.9.2: Even someone who has rice fields over there, more than 100 rai, will sell it all. (12.10.2) If
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they bought the land at 500 baht per square waa
like they say, I’m afraid that I will have to sell the land close to the factory. 12.11.2: I think that I will wait for one piece of land to sell at 500 baht per square waa but they haven’t offered yet. 12.13.2: If it sells and then they buy more, no one will be doing anything.
12.14.2: The villagers will all have to go to the factory. 12.15.2: It’s happening not just to our village but to other villages, too. 12.16.2: Everyone is in the same situation now, everywhere nearby. 12.18.2: Get up and get ready to go to the factory. 12.19.2: It is not too bad of a lifestyle. 12.20.2: They think that life like this is more comfortable.
10.8: In the past there were a lot of fish here, but now some species here have disappeared. 10.15: Since I have moved here, I haven't been able to catch as much fish as I wanted, like I did before. 10.9: Maybe the fish are unable to lay their eggs, or maybe the fish are gone due to some other reason I don't know about. 10.10: Anyhow, the fish are gone.
(8.3) Right now I have a rice field of 21 rai, ten rai to farm, and some land that I bought from the Self Help Settlement. (8.4) That makes about 50 rai. (8.5) I have a land title to this piece of land now. (8.6) They wouldn't let us sell our land in the beginning, but now we have the full right to do so because we have land titles.
12.4) Nowadays, 1,000 to 2,000 baht can't really buy anything. The money disappears or is used up. (12.5) Formerly, I thought that 1,000 to 2,000 baht was a great amount of money. (12.6)
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People would talk about how rich you were. (12.7) But now, even with 1,000,000 baht, people just don't really care about it. (12.8) The value of money is dependent on the time. -א (12.3) เงนทได1000-2000 บาท ยงไมซอของเลย หมดแลว เมอกอนผมคดวาใครทมเงนถง
(14.2) Since I have moved here, I seldom grow vegetables. (14.4) If I grow them, I have to be going here and there [to grow and take care of them on my land]. (14.7) We depend on processed and packaged food. (14.8) When we have money, we go to get it. (14.9) It is so convenient for us: we don't have to grow anything. (14.3) The other people do it, so I also buy it instead of growing it myself. (14.10) Our expenses are very high, but I don’t know exactly where the income comes from. (14.5) I even have many children, but no one comes to take care of me and my wife. (14.6) They are all working. (14.11) We could survive from the property that we already have, maybe. (14.12) We also used our collective money that we have collected in the past for our living because
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our kids don't come to take care of us anymore. (14.13) We are not as others.
21.4: Now, I don't care about anything else, in spite of death. 21.5: All of my children have warned me not to be like this, but I said I was very old so I didn't care about dying. 21.6: I can’t stop complaining about what I think is right. 21.7: If the factory does something in the right way, then I will stop.
21.13: I still grow rice even though I feel very tired, because I have nothing to do besides this. 22.0: In the past, if I was tired, I would just have a meal and I would feel better. 22.1: Now, there is nothing that can help. 22.2: I’m worn out everyday. 22.3: I feel sleepy after meals.
26.4: None of my children want to work [growing rice] anymore. 26.5: They only try to encourage me to sell the land. 26.6: I don't want to do it because it is close to the road. It’s good and convenient. 26.7: Land up above, far off, is expensive (26.8) and I wouldn't get much money if I sold to the factory. 26.9: They only give 50,000 baht per rai. 26.10-11: “Sell it, father!” they say. It’s so irritating to me. So I tell them, “I can’t sell it for 50,000 baht per rai. If it irritates you so much [meaning his children], have them give me more than that, then I’ll sell it to them. They give a lot for it” [I say]. “I’ve never seen them give this much before,” [my children say]. But I don't want to buy other land somewhere far off. It wouldn’t be convenient for when I’m farming and if I needed something I couldn’t get in quickly and buy it.
9.11: At present, I’m considering carrying out sustainable farming. 9.12: That is, I would like to make a fish farm by digging a pond and laying plastic pads at the bottom. 9.13: I think this can support my family. 9.14: Actually, I barely ever buy any of my food to eat. 9.15: Going fishing [provides] enough for us. 9.16: I seldom buy cooked food from the market because it is not delicious. I don’t like fried or stir-fried food. 9.17: In fact, my wife and I don’t have big meals everyday. 11.9: I also don’t use a lot of money everyday. 11.10: Even though I don't have much money, I don't think that I’m in too much trouble. 11.11: Sometimes my children bring some food to me.
5.12: In Nong Bua Village, no plants survive where there is wastewater being released onto this land from Project Green. (5.13) We tried to grow our crops for three years, but it didn't work out. 5.14: The plants couldn't reach their maturity because the soil was hard and salty.
5.15: Now I don't grow rice but grow only eucalyptus trees. 6.0: And in my spare time, I have nothing to do. There's only smelling the odor from the factory for an old man who has nothing to do. 6.1: I can’t help it.
10.15: The thing I’m afraid of right now is that I will gradually die from the chemical substances from the factory. 10.16: We used to ask the factory to bring a doctor here to check the health of the people from the 11villages around the factory, but the factory didn’t arrange one to come. 10.17: It has gotten better because when we went
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to the factory to ask for medication to cure our sickness, they provided it to us. This was when the wastewater from Project Green was still being drained onto our farmland. 10.18: But after this project was over, the factory stopped providing medicine here. 10.19: The headman went to the factory and complained about this, so we still receive medication even now. 10.20: I hardly go there to ask for medication because my son always manages that for me. 10.21: I’m healthy at the moment, but when I was ill, I would use my senior-citizen card for treatment of the illness at the hospital.
11.0: I have no advice for new agriculturists because I have spent my life living simply for a long time. 11.1: I’m not extravagant. 11.2: Soon I think I will sell my land to the factory because I’m sure that my children aren’t interested in agriculture.
11.12: As I told you, this is the way of my life.(11.8) กอยอยางนแหละ (11.8)
Beginning of a Village Savings GroupBua
8.11.2: Now agriculturists are becoming self-sufficient. 8.12.2: They can return to that type of farming. 8.13.2: The director of the district hospital is trying to find members who are willing to be trained to restore [traditional] agriculture [practices], so that they can have self-sufficiency to live according to the King’s theory about a self-sufficient economy. (8.9.2) เดยวนเกษตรกรกำาลงจะหนมาพงตนเอง อยางทบอกวา อตตาห อตโนนาโถ ตนแล
8.17.2: They have introduced a money plan to villagers that builds a village [savings] bank for them to deposit money into. 8.18.2: At the bank, money can be working capital for members to use in their work. 8.19.2: They can borrow money from this bank, then do activities. 8.20.2: When it is time to pay back the money, they can do so. 8.21.2: Then the living standard should be better.
8.22.2: What we don’t have, we can build and then we can stay and have a life that will create a better standard of living. 8.23.2: We will do it. We are working on it. 8.24.2: Some housewives have started to do this. 8.25.2: If their husbands want to work in a foreign country, then they can borrow the
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money.8.26.2: If someone wants money for fuel for the water pump that pumps water into the rice fields, they can borrow, too. 8.27.2: If someone has any debt and can’t find money to pay back to the lender, they can borrow.8.28.2: We never thought to cheat [the village saving bank].
8.29.2: We will do this for the time being, but in the future, we don't know what the situation will become. 8.30.2: In the past, we thought it could be possible, but we didn’t organize all of the people. 8.31.2: Still, not all of the villagers have been organized yet. 8.32.2: I think if we can get organized, it will be very good. 8.33.2: The government will not have to worry anymore because the money from villagers will be taken and deposited into the bank. 8.34.2: The amount of money we are saving is not small. 8.35.2: The bank takes it and makes a profit. 8.36.2: It's better if we use it as working capital to help villagers. 8.37.2: It leads to members to work together and have
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integrity, I think this is good because our money will not leak out to any other places.
8.38.2: The government does not lend money to help. 8.39.2: We can help ourselves. Right now there are many places where we can do what we are doing here. 8.40.2: I have a book about Klong Bia sub-district. 8.41.2: I can’t remember the name of the province, 8.42.2: [maybe] Surat Thani Province , or somewhere in the South. 8.43.2: It says that the hospital went to observe, and after that they kept their money like a business. 8.44.2: First they would deposit money into the bank and now they collect interest like commercial banks.9.0.2: But it took a long time to collect a lot of interest. 9.1.2: They have money for villagers to borrow. 9.2.2: They can borrow money for a one-year period or two to three-month period. 9.3.2: When it is time to pay it back, they have tens of millions of baht. 9.5.2: This is in the Klong Bia sub-
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district. 9.6.2: I don’t know the district but I have the book here somewhere.
9.9.2: I heard that the Soon Khon Kaen Hospital will leave the government system, the same that has happened in Praew District. 9.10.2: However, I didn't go to see them. 9.11.2: Somebody went and they said that it [having a village savings bank] was good. 9.12.2: NGOs say that the new system is good too, and not to rely on the government too much to give funding. 9.13.2: We can manage by ourselves. (9.5.2) ตอจากนไดยนขาววาทางโรงพยาบาลศนยขอนแกนจะออกนอกระบบ และกมอำาเภอ
4.8.2: I think I can no longer complain about this problem [with Phoenix] to the government because every government official has acted indifferently with regard to our requests. 4.12.2: If we moved away from our homes, I think the burden to protect the Nam Phong River here might be that of the government.
4.14.2: People who live in Khon Kaen should be aware of the polluted water and realize that the water supply they use comes from here, not from somewhere else. 5.0.2: Of course, everyone, students and faculty at Khon Kaen University and those from the Maliwan Road48 to here, use water from here [Ubonrat Dam].
48 Maliwan Road is a major road heading west out of Khon Kaen City, toward Phitsanuloke.
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6.20.2: Everyday the government can speak in councils and assemblies. 6.21.2: Nowadays, like they [other villagers] say, the government supports the rich and do not support the poor people. 6.22.2: They talk and have things and we don't have the same. 6.23.2: They do things and have money that hides their faces. 6.24.2: We couldn’t really fight against the money.6.25.2: The villagers who are small farmers here say things and don’t have the same effect as [when they speak]. 6.26.2: We don't have power like them.6.27.2: It makes the villagers feel neglected and upset.
7.26.2: But I don't think that the [parliamentary] representatives can help us with the Phoenix problems. 7.27.2: We have had many talks, but they always find a way to give us something else. 7.28.2: The village wants a bridge built over the waterway. 7.29.2: We went to ask the factory, but they wouldn't give anything, the same as in the past.7.30.2: Now I want to tell them what I want. 7.31.2: I want to do this. 7.32.2: I have
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told them already so many times, but it is useless. 7.33.2: I told them, but we have nothing.
6.28.2: There used to be one representative [Member of Parliament], Ajaan Janta, when Kukrit [Pramoj]49 was the Prime Minister, who came to us. 6.29.2: He came to visit people in this area and said, “If any of your brothers or sisters are troubled about anything, then send a letter to me. 6.30.2: I’m a representative now. 6.31.2: I want to help everybody. 6.32.2: I have seen the money pile up. 6.33.2: The pile is big. 6.34.2: The money is there in Bangkok. 6.35.2: If someone wants something, then let me know, and I will help. 6.36.2: I would like to come and give it to you.
6.37.2: So, we asked for electricity and a bridge for crossing the waterway to Bau Village. 6.38.2: And we asked for a healthcare center because the one at Khok Soong Village was too far away. 6.39.2: He wanted to bring the health department to our village. 6.40.2: We requested these three projects in 1980. 6.41.2: That year, the government had a policy to expand electricity to rural areas, but they didn't have the budget to do it for us. 6.42.2: They had two projects, one which was electricity from Accelerated Rural Development for the countryside. 6.43.2: And the other one, I can’t remember. 6.44.2: The government needed to help the villages, but they didn't really do as we had requested. 6.45.2: They needed us to help with the money also.
11.2.2: Mr. Kukrit gave money [in 1975 or 1976] from the treasury reserves for development. 11.3.2: Then we had the Kukrit Road built. 11.4.2: Whoever gives money for something, they get that named after them. 11.5.2: We have many good roads. 11.6.2: It is easy to go anywhere now.11.7.2: Mittraphap Road is wide and has a lot of traffic and agricultural trade. 11.8.2: In each family, life has improved.11.9.2: I think that in the future I want it to continue on like this [general improvements].คณคกฤทธ (11.3.2)-א เอาเงนกองคลงเขามาพฒนากมถนนคกฤทธ อะไรกคณคกฤทธหมดละแถว
11.10.2: It is good if the factories don't use a lot of hazardous materials, unlike the Phoenix paper factory.11.11.2: Factories are good as long as they don’t create a lot of pollution like Phoenix does. 11.12.2: For example, in the East of Thailand, there are more than 1,000 factories and they can just be there.
11.13.2: The economy from there to here is better than the economy in Bangkok right now. 11.14.2: A professor from a university in the East came and described things. Some people still say that if more factories come [here], then they’ll take them because there is still more to be gotten from factories.
11.15.2: However, some people think that factories create a lot of pollution because when they look at the roads, they see a lot of garbage; they don't know where to throw away this garbage. 11.16.2: The mountains are full.
11.17.2: The land inherited from parents has been sold to factories and people are left with nothing. In the past, I have seen this. 11.18.2: It is
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enough. It needs to stop. 11.19.2: The economy is good. There is no need to keep building factories. 11.20.2: Bangkok is not better than the East. 11.21.2: The income is the same.
11.22.2: Then a professor compared the economy between the Northeast and the East. 11.23.2: In the East, they have rivers, and the ocean. 11.24.2: Factories there can release their wastewater into the ocean, causing less impact. 11.25.2: Here in the Northeast they release wastewater into the river. 11.26.2: When the Northeast has pollution, the economy goes down. 11.27.2: The East is better off than the Northeast. 11.28.2: Now it is enough.
11.29.2: Tapioca and flour factories are releasing polluted water into the [Nam Phong]
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river. It is very bad. 11.30.2: There is enough pollution from the tapioca factory.11.31.2: If people paid more attention and worked harder, the land around here would be good for agriculture.
12.21.2: For us here, if you are not in a tourist area, then there is a factory nearby. 12.22.2: I have heard that Ubonrat District has already been declared as a tourist area, so it is not allowed to have a lot of factories. 12.23.2: But the Nam Phong District already has a paper factory and other factories around. 12.24.2: The government has set up an industrial zone [estate] so there will be many other factories down here. But they can’t build up around the dam because of the tourist issue.
many factories is the right way to develop. 23.3: If you want to make it [development] right, it is like
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this, for example. 23.4: If you are rich, you should give the villagers something. 23.5: Help them to develop the road or help some families that have many children. 24.16: As I told you before, there are advantages and disadvantages to development. 24.17: I want to see that we are all equal. 24.18: As for what the government did by building the Ubonrat Dam, it is the right thing that they let us grow rice two or three times a year. 24.19: But it is not good for those who couldn't do it because they couldn't use the electricity even though they could see it, and (24.20) also the water that they could see but couldn't use. 24.21: Why was that? 24.22: There is no canal or stream to bring it here. 24.23: It was not equal development. 24.24: I myself never used water from the canal or stream at all. 25.0: We used rainwater. 25.1: Although, I dug the ponds around my rice fields but when drawing the water up for use, it was all black. 25.2: We still needed to wait for the rainwater. 25.3: That is why I said that the development was not distributed everywhere. -א การสรางโรงงานเยอะ ๆ นผมคดวามทงผลดและผลเสย ถาจะทำาใหมนถกตองกอยางเชน ถาโรงงานรวย
25.4: And what I think about “development” is that it is something that we all can move or go towards together. 25.5: For example, if they want to have more factories, they need to be more concerned about the people who will be affected. 25.6: I think they are now millionaires, but those who are suffering have been ignored. 25.7: It is like when something was broken or when there was too much dust on the roads, and we asked them to take care of it and they did it, skimpily. 25.8: If we think they have done something wrong, sure, we have to complain to them. 25.9: That is why they consider us hardheaded people.
25.10: Development in a way is like buying ice-cream for your grandkids. 25.11: Why did I say that? 25.12: Well, because people who live further
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would get only the left over stick of the ice-cream. 25.13: If they could really have the ice-cream, that’s good, right? 25.14: This is the truth. 25.15: For those who live far off, suppose they got some money, it’d all be skimmed off before it got to them. Who knows where it’d all go? 25.16: Like I said, it’s not equal and that’s why the problem can’t be solved. 26.0: I don’t know who’s involved in the corruption. 26.1: Suppose a village has 10,000 baht coming to it, only 5,000 baht reaches it, or something like that. 26.2: So, where did the other 5,000 baht go? 26.3: Even some villages almost never see the money.
development is we need to understand one another, understand the others in the group, in our households—before we can develop. Whatever we want to do, we can then do it. Once the factory and
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the villagers can understand one another, then development can happen in a good way.
Hopes for the Future Noi 5.5: I myself want to see the odor problem resolved by the factory. I don’t want to see it disturb the villagers any further. 5.6: We can tolerate the Noise but we can’t bear the odor. 5.7 It causes breathing problems for us.
5.8: For the wastewater, if we still have some fresh water in our fields, the rice will still persist when the fields get some wastewater in them. 5.9: But if there is no fresh water, it will cause terrible damage because of the collection of white sediment and salt, causing the soil to stiffen.
5.10: I wish that the factory would buy the land in this area so I could move to another place. 5.11: But the land in this area hasn't been tested for its quality [and is not being] considered [for sale to the factory] because it still has some eucalyptus trees on it.
10.0: The one thing that I really want to change is the villagers’ current living conditions. 10.12: Another change I would like to see is that the people around here get a chance to work in the factory. 10.13: However, it is impossible. 10.14: If there were too many factories around here, it wouldn't be beneficial for us because the one factory that is here has already caused enough damage.
6.8: Since I have lived here, I have never received any help from the government. 6.9: I have never demanded anything from them either. If they want to offer some help, I wish that they could offer our children employment in the factory. 6.10: Most of the workers in the factory have a supporter [patron] and I just wonder how they get workers to work for them.
are troubled. The landowners will move to live somewhere else. If they can’t live here, they’ll just live somewhere else. Where ever their heart feels comfortable, that’s where they’ll live. It’s a problem already, they don’t want to live here. It’s troublesome. They can’t survive here. When they plant rice, it’s not pretty. Whatever they plant, dies.
If they [Phoenix] can move somewhere else, that would be good. But they can’t move now. And if they can’t move, they’ll have to buy our land and we will then leave. So now, we’re talking like this. You can’t live; you can’t live with them, so you don’t have to stay. We can’t live together, so we don’t have to stay, the factory can just be here. Things have to be like that nowadays. I would complain, but I can’t. Can’t fight them! The laws can’t fight them!
8.1.2: If I could speak directly to the government, I would want to ask them to please help the small-scale agriculturists in the village to
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have a better standard of living. 8.2.2: If they can help, we want their help. 8.3.2: Don't just help the folk who fish. 8.4.2: Give us a better standard of living too. 8.5.2: If we can’t be equal, that's alright. 8.6.2: Don’t make life more difficult. 8.7.2: If it's possible, I want something to be found, some sort of project that can help support [us]. 8.8.2: If something’s found but it’s not money, it can’t help anything. 8.9.2: If we get money, then it has to be borrowed from foreign countries, it puts us in debt, just as before. [Both interviewer and interviewee laugh at this.] 8.10.2: Debt is what we are distressed about.
3.15.2: I hope that the government will lay out a law to control the factory. 3.16.2: The law should, order the factory to clean the wastewater, and if somebody has suffered from the effects of the wastewater, the factory should compensate that person and not let it get to where we have to
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spend days [protesting] in front of the Ministry of Industry [in Bangkok].
Sumnow15.4: What I would like to tell the government
is that if they want us to watch over the river, they should believe our information because the government has allowed us to be the monitors. 15.5: However, when we get the facts, they don't believe us. 15.6: If they would believe us, there wouldn't be any problem.
Somphong3.8: If I had a chance to talk with the factory’s owner, I would like him to solve the problem of full-time jobs because people from other areas are the full-time employees. 3.9: When I was a full-time employee, there were more than 1,300 employees. 3.10: Now there are only 1,090 employees because the company has had a policy of reducing the
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number of workers. 3.11: Nevertheless, why don’t they reduce the number of employees who come from other places? 3.12: Why is the company reducing the number of local employees? 3.13: The company wouldn't have to pay for the water costs, electricity costs, and the costs for rented houses, if they reduced the number of employees who come from other areas. 3.14: In addition, it wouldn't have to pay for the factory bus. 3.15: If they hired us, they wouldn't have to pay anything for us because we have our own houses and we already have to pay for everything by ourselves.
4.0: I would like the government to take action against the Phoenix factory to help solve the villagers' problems of the awful smell in the air, the Noise, and the waste from the factory.
about the problem that had just occurred, I would have asked them to help us with land for agriculture.-א (20.3) ถาเปนเมอกอนทปญหามนเรมขนใหม ๆ กอนทตาจะยายมาทน ผมอยากใหชวยเรองทดน
ททำาไรทำานา (20.5)
23.20: But of course, there's always somebody who's affected. 23.21: If we ask for help from the government, they will say that they can’t remove the factory. 23.22: But we didn't want them to remove it, just to make it better. 23.23: It does not mean that they have to make us satisfied with everything, but at least a few things right?
19.0: It is up to the government to decide how they want to help us with this problem, besides the land that they have allocated us. 19.1: Whatever they want to help us with. 19.2: Previously, we didn't demand anything from them because we
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didn't know our rights. 19.3: I want them to help the people who have been suffering from [having been relocated due to the construction of the Ubonrat Dam]. 19.4: I will feel very appreciative if they would help. 19.5: Many people in my village have suffered from this problem, so they had to move here. 19.6: Nobody came to help them.
26.12: If someone could really help us now, I would ask them to make the factory believe what we have said. 26.13: They said that we were aggressive and selfish, but we actually don't think for just ourselves, but for the public’s benefit as well. 26.14: What we want is someone who could confirm that we were affected by the factory. 26.15: We want them to come and smell those bad smells and see what really caused the roofs to erode. 27.0: When we told them, they said we bought bad quality roofs here. 27.1: And if we didn't want to drink the rainwater from the roofs, we should buy some water instead! 27.2: We don’t
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have enough money to buy necessities, so how could we afford drinking water in bottles? 27.3: If they paid for us, there wouldn't be a problem. 27.4: If they really wanted to help, why don’t they listen to us? 27.5: All they said to us was, that we did this to agitate them. 27.6: Thus the problems have never really been solved.
27.7: We are really suffering now. 27.8: Can’t they just make it a bit better? 27.9: People there said we were rich from the compensation, so why should we want more? 27.10: I wanted to ask if they wanted to trade positions with us.
