[asia-apec 1496] Thailand: Peace Message from the Assembly of the Poor

[Kevin Yuk-shing Li]

A peace message to the public from the Assembly of the Poor, Thailand

Formerly, we were not poor. We had farmlands and self-reliant 
livelihoods based on nature, land and the rivers. We were not rich 
but had never been hungry. When the governments built dams on the 
land where we had lived and farmed for generation after generation, 
we protested. The governments used legal measures to evict us and 
gave us chickenfeed and futile land as compensation for uprooting our 
lives.

So we became poor, or to be more exact, the governments and their 
rural resources-exploiting urban development approach impoverished us.

We were admonished by the governments not to be selfish but to 
sacrifice for national development. If development doesn't make rural 
communities as important as urban ones. If it doesn't entitle local 
communities to manage their resources, nor does it provide 
sustainable self-sufficiency to each and every indigenous community.

But does mean, instead, that thousands of households and abundant 
natural resources must be ruined in exchange for a few megawatts of 
electricity, then we're not willing to sacrifice our sustainable 
resources and the future of our descendants for such worthless 
development .

The Assembly of the Poor came to camp out in front of Government 
House, time and again. We didn't come to ask for what's not ours. We 
came to urge the government to mediate to return what we deserve to 
get.

Is it wrong to demand for what has been robbed from us?

Is the assembly wrong to ask the government to follow, in good faith 
if there's any, the recommendations of the neutral committee that was 
set up by the government itself?

Instead of being sympathetic, the government accused the assembly of 
being greedy, demanding for what's illegal. We have been alleged as 
mercenary mobsters, trouble-making Lao migrants and funded by 
overseas groups to decommission dams. We beg you to believe that our 
rural way of life is simply based on self-sufficient culture. If it 
has not been for the encroachment of dams on our farmland and rivers, 
hardly anybody here would know we exist, in front of Government House 
or wherever.

It's ludicrous for the government to argue about illegal demands. 
Didn't this government revoke several laws and pass the new ones in 
favour of finance institutions and a handful of minority people who 
brought on economic crises to the nation so as the whole population 
have to shoulder the debt burden?

The assembly is just a marginalised group of poor people in Thai 
society. Apart from being greedy, we have always been portrayed as 
lazy. No matter how loud have we been protesting against such unfair 
criticism, we have already been judged as all-time social defendants.

But what about the actual culprits who have brought on social, 
economic and political crises and still got away with it?

Over the past several days, the assembly has thought it over and 
asked ourselves "What's most important in our lives?" Houses and 
farmland; we've already lost them all. The most important thing for 
us now is our "dignity". Physical assets such as houses, farmland and 
resources can be taken away from us. But we'll never let ourselves be 
looked down upon. Though deprived of wealth, we'll not let our human 
dignity being wrenched from us. We'll stand by dhamma, truth and 
righteousness.

We've realised that to preserve our dignity is to fight for justice 
and righteousness; not to fight for personal gains. We have to fight 
to keep our cherished local culture, our rivers, mountains, forests 
as well as wildlife and riverine animals for the future sake of our 
descendants.

We hold, on our own accord, hunger strike not to torture ourselves 
but to control our minds. We don't do it in protest of the government 
or the public at large. We refrain from taking food to maintain 
dhamma, to communicate the truth about poverty problems. To point out 
that our poverty doesn't come from personal laziness of any 
individuals. It is caused and has spread nationwide because of 
structural system of misdirected development and economic policies.

There are at present a great number of hungry people. Our plight is 
just a mirror of structural hunger of millions of people in this 
country.

While we're fasting, we'll send our loving kindness and well wishes 
to the government and the policemen who have to be on duty. They are 
not our enemies. Our actual enemies are unjust economic and social 
structures, which we, the government and every member of Thai society 
have to join hands to get rid of.

For the government, if it still considers itself as the people's 
government, it should treat the poor's problems as equally as they 
did with the economic ones. If the government had guts enough to 
amend and change legislations, regulations and structural policies to 
solve problems for the business sector, it must do the same for the 
sake of the poor.

Nevertheless, only the government and the assembly cannot solve all 
poverty problems. The Thai society's wisdom must be mobilised to find 
acceptable and fair solutions to all concerned. To find a way out of 
this plundering of natural resources---symbolised by dams 
construction---means not only seeking solutions to a few thousand 
members of the Assembly of the Poor, but will also be an example for 
other similar structural problems in Thai society.

Don't forget that Thai society forms itself in a pyramid shape. If 
the base of the pyramid that consists of a huge amount of poor people 
is not strengthened, soon the top of the pyramid will topple no 
matter how majestic the government tries to make the structure to 
appear. This should not happen if the government and every member in 
Thai society still let their social conscience control their action.

(Excerpted and translated from the Thai-language message sent to TDSC 
via the Internet by the Friends of the People, on 28 July 2000)



**********************************************************************
Prasittiporn  Kan-Onsri [NOI]
Friends of the People [FOP.]
99 , 3rd Floor Nakorn Sawan Road
Pomprab Bangkok 10100.
THAILAND.
Tel, Fax: (662) 2811916 , 2812595
email: fopthai at asiaaccess.net.th; fopthai at hotmail.com