Activists Toy With Yadana Pipeline Builders

By James Fahn

The Nation

Feb, 1998

 

KANCHANABURI - It should have been a moment of triumph. Phinan Chotirosseranee, a Kanchanaburi housewife, who is leading a rag-tag group of activists protesting against the construction of the Yadana pipeline, was returning from a two-day foray deep into the jungle, having successfully defended a stand of thick forest from the workers' chainsaws, at least temporarily.

Her exploits had made Sunday's newspapers, and her colleagues at the protesters' main camp were abuzz at the striking photos splashed across front pages showing students wrapping their bodies protectively around stately old trees.  They eagerly waited to greet Phinan as the 51-year-old environmentalist struggled up the final hill.

But upon reaching the top, Phinan immediately collapsed into the arms of her friend and burst into tears.  Perhaps it was the arduous trek which had gotten to her, or perhaps she had simply become overwhelmed at the enormity of the task she had set for herself, but over the next few minutes all the despair borne of a battle fought against tremendous odds poured out in the sobs which wracked her body.

'May mii kray ma chuay rawjring," she cried.  "Nobody has come to help us."

Finally, her emotions spent and her energy so drained that she had to be helped into a car, Phinan was taken back to camp.  There, she silently brooded over events.  Out of respect, her colleagues left her alone as they quietly went about their affairs.

For weeks now, pipeline opponents have played a cat-and-mouse game with Tasco Mannesman, the contractor building the project on behalf of the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) to pipe natural gas from Burma's Yadana field to a power plant in Ratchaburi.

Taking advantage of a nine-kilometer road built bv Tasco Mannesman to bring in equipment, the protestors have set up a camp at KP26, a site along the pipeline's route 26 kms from the border post at Ban I-Tong where the pipeline is to enter Thailand.  Communicating by walkie-talkie, students and villagers from the protest camp carry out surveys of the mountainous terrain as their leaders plot how to protect the forest. Nor are they above petty sabotage. "Sometimes if we come across [the contractors] bamboo markers which lay down the route for the pipeline, we'll n take them out," confided one protester.

'And in some cases, we have tried to cover s up the marks put on trees signifying they

should be cut down,"

Most recently, upon receiving word that some loggers hired by the PTT had been spotted moving into the most pristine section of the Huay Khayeng Forest Reserve, a team of protesters led by Phinan marched five kilometers through the jungle to KP22 (a site on the pipeline route 22 kms from the border). There, using non-violent tactics, they managed to save the trees for the time being.

Nevertheless, everyone knows who is the cat and who is the mouse in this contest, and the game itself may soon be over. The protesters are vastly overmatched, and pipeline construction is moving ahead both to the east and west of their camp.  In fact, if they truly want to "close the forest" to the contractor, they will have to maintain two camps and try to protect the forest in between.

On Sunday afternoon, a revived Phinan attempted to explain why her spirit seemed so broken earlier in the day.  "I came up that hill, and I saw my friend and just broke down.  We have fought this project for over a year, and we're always retreating, retreating.  Now we only have this small stretch of forest left ... ' her voice trailed off.  'Sometimes, I think there aren't many people fighting with us, but in fact when we have meetings, I can see there are a lot."

The question now is what will happen when the pipeline builders, who have already reached EP31 and are advancing by an estimated one kilometer per day, finally reach the demonstrators' encampment.

"We'll just dig under them," laughs one of the Tasco Mannesman workers.

"We'll play dead," suggests one of the environmentalists.

“I just don’t know,” says Phinan, shaking her head.

If the protesters' cause seems doomed, however, so does the forest itself, despite the claims of the PTT that it will grow back as good as new.

A trip to the construction site shows just how much devastation building a pipeline can cause.  The pipe itself is only a few feet in diameter, but each segment weighs over 5,000 kilogrammes, and the equipment needed to put it in place is massive.

As a result, Tasco Mannesman is cutting a swathe which looks to be between 20 and 25 meters wide through dense forest: a bright orange strip of earth running through brilliant green flora.

"You can see it's good forest here.  It's like this all along the pipeline route from around KP19 to KP32," says Neung, a Ramkhamhaeng student who has surveyed the area extensively and, despite being a- protester, guides us around the construction site as if he worked there.  He points to a stream: "You see, this is a 1A watershed, but it will soon be gone.  It's a real shame."

A bulldozer drags off the heavier logs, while a huge mechanical claw grips a pile of foliage and dumps it onto the back of a truck to be hauled away.  Dust is everywhere.  It lays centimeters thick underfoot, and huge clouds of it billow up with each passing vehicle. “Soon this place will be a desert," sighs Neung resignedly.

The biggest threat to the forest is not the route being cleared for the pipeline itself, but rather the poachers and encroachers who will inevitably use it once the contractors are gone.

“It has already started,” says Phipob Thongchai, another leader of the protesters.  "The nine-km road leading to this camp [at KP26] used to be a footpath.  Now that it has been widened, one of the encroachers with land along it has brought in some earth-moving equipment.  He's a police general, so who's going to stop him?  It's really disgusting."

Phinan also testifies as to how quick the encroachers are to spot an opening. “We first came here on Dec 7. By Dec 14, the road had been built. Then we set up camp. By Jan 6, people had already come here to mark out their land. They were just standing around, picking out parcels. That's how bad it is."

The protesters are therefore urging that the pipeline be constructed along the paved road which winds from Thong Pha Phum up to Ban I-Tong, but the PTT claims the road is too curvy and the pipeline could suffer from landslides.  Phipob and Phinan suggest that it is better to expand the road now rather than cut an entirely new route through the watershed forest.

The government and the PTT, however, seem to think it is too late for any route changes, and the protesters' cause has been hampered because they entered the debate so late in the game.  Although the pipeline route has been well known and documented in newspapers for years now, Phinan says she and her colleagues only found out it was passing through Kanchanaburi at the beginning of 1997.

"I admit that we were a bit selfish.  We had thought it was going to pass Ratchaburi -- our MPs said it wasn’t coming through Kanchanaburi -- and so we didn't pay much attention to the issue," explains Phinan.  She also believes the Kanchanaburi route was chosen by the PTT because it is longer, would require more funding and thus provide more opportunities for corruption.  In fact, it was probably chosen to keep the pipeline's route in Burma as short as possible for security reasons.

While the pipeline's impact on Burma has made it a source of controversy the world over, the Thai protesters have barely mentioned the subject. Apparently, they believe that raising the human rights issue would be counter-productive.

“Most Thais don't see the importance of the Burma issue," explained Phinan frankly.  “Korn [Dabaransi, the former industry minister] once said to us, 'It's a foreign issue, so let's not talk about it'. In fact, a lot of people seem to think it's a good thing to take resources from our neighboring country, but we know what is happening to the minority groups there.  As one of our banners says, 'the gas may be cheap, but our families will have to pay a high price'."

All in all, Phinan's experience with the gas pipeline has been vastly different from the successful fight she led against the Nam Choan Dam a decade ago.  "We had a lot more time with that battle; we fought for nine years before we won," she reflects.

'And the students helped us a lot more because they were much more idealistic then; today, most of them seem to care only about getting good grades and good jobs. Also, Nam Choan was going to destroy very good forest in Thung Yai [Wildlife Sanctuary], but in this case some Thais -- not all -- are happy to see us exploiting Burma's resources."

Despite all the hardships, however, and despite the temptation to give in to her obvious despair, Phinan refuses to give up.  "We're not dead and buried yet, so there's still hope," she vows.