In an article published last week in The Nation Aviva Imhof and Shannon Lawrence discuss recent hydropower developments in Laos. They argue that:
Dam builders, the Lao government and the financial institutions that support these projects are to blame for their failures…[and] Thai power consumers are unwitting parties to the destruction of Lao rivers and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers and fishers.
In their view, “for Lao farmers and fishers, dams are not power generators but threats to their rivers and livelihoods”. Linked to this are accounts of involuntary resettlement. For instance, at the site of the Nam Theun 2 dam (NT2) on the Nakai Plateau villages are currently being resettled. Imhof and Lawrence write that by the end of construction in 2009, “more than 6,000 minority people on the Nakai Plateau will have been forcibly displaced”.There are many accounts of dam projects negatively affecting rural livelihoods in Laos and as Imhof and Lawrence argue these impacts need to be addressed. Yet a difficulty comes when we recognise that many Lao villagers not only want their fish and farms but also electricity, televisions, motorbikes, employment and education for their children. In Laos there is a widespread yearning for personal prosperity (khwaam chalern) even at the cost of fish and farms.
This was apparent when I recently travelled from the plateau to villages that will not be resettled (these villages being inside the Nakai-Nam Theun National Protected Area, the watershed for NT2). Villagers from resettled villages on the Nakai Plateau who visit relatives in the watershed tell how their family there want large wooden houses with tin roofs and electricity like the plateau villagers have received.
One small village in the protected area reported how around eight families had moved in the last couple of years to live with relatives on the plateau in resettled villages – now only 15 households remain. Hence some – though certainly not all – villagers displayed an active preference to give up a life of fishing and farming in an area rich in natural resources for the benefits they perceived to be coming with resettlement.
Whether villagers receive the prosperity they are looking for is still open to question, as Imhof and Lawrence note, “they have been promised new and improved livelihoods, but if history is any indication, these promises are bound to be broken”. Yet it should be recognised that many villagers in rural Laos worry about the impacts of dams while at the same time actively searching for ways that the dams can deliver them the prosperity they want.
[For previous New Mandala posts relevant to Nam Theun 2 see here, here and here.]
11 responses so far ↓
1 anon // Dec 27, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Those stupid Lao have too much bad karma for killing their royal family. They’ve lost all moral sense and have become greedy like a nation of mini-Thaksins.
We Thai are lucky that we have our wise King who can teach us about sufficient economy and that there is more to life than “livelihood”. Lao brothers should try to learn from the Thai King.
2 Jaruwan // Dec 27, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Yes, surely we have a wise royal family who have a great sense of their own karma. The principles of economic rationalism and sustainable development are surely at the forefront of the King’s agenda!
It is funny those stupid Lao cannot adopt our Royal’s levels of hypocrisy. Surely they can watch our Crown Prince speed to the new Akha palace in his motorcade of Mercedes on our ever expanding array of concrete highways, and think: WHY CANT WE ACHIEVE THIS SAME LEVEL OF DECADENCE?
3 Johpa // Dec 31, 2006 at 7:27 am
Those stupid Lao have too much bad karma for killing their royal family. They’ve lost all moral sense and have become greedy like a nation of mini-Thaksins.
We Thai are lucky that we have our wise King who can teach us about sufficient economy and that there is more to life than “livelihood”. Lao brothers should try to learn from the Thai King.
Is the above quoted posting a joke or is it just a great example of the prejudices that the Bangkok folks have towards all others, such as the Isaan/Lao folk or the various minorities in Thailand?
4 nganadeeleg // Dec 31, 2006 at 10:43 am
Jopha: I read it as sarcasm – have a look at anon’s other comments and I think you will understand where he is coming from.
5 anonymous // Dec 31, 2006 at 6:07 pm
anon is short for “anonymous”. My name is not อานนท์. Don’t assume that all anonymous comments are made by the same person – they aren’t.
Comment number 1 was very serious, and I am not a racist. Without the wise King Bhumibol to guide us, capitalists would have raped Thailand’s environment a long time ago. Laos people succumbed to the stupidity of communism and the sin of regicide.
They threw away the moral compass with which to manage the environment. But at least the Lao people have the decency to love the Thai King and Princess Sirindhorn, and our Thai royal family has been gracious enough to extend the royal shade to the Lao people.
If the Lao people follow the Thai King and take care not to sell all their assets to foreigners like Thaksin did in Thailand, Lao will some day be green with life and happiness.
6 nganadeeleg // Dec 31, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Sorry, I did not realise we had more than one ‘anon’ posting on this site.
You might like this quote I came across:
“The Thai monarchy should be perceived as safeguarding, enabling and energizing the body politic until the political system is sufficiently mature to do so itself. Several times over the past two decades His Majesty has single-handedly interceded to defuse armed confrontation between democratic and authoritarian groups and encourage peaceful resolution of the conflict and the consequent resumption of some semblance of political stability. In so doing the monarchy has effectively provided parliamentary democracy with the time and political space to develop and affirm its own political bona fides and credentials. How successful the Thai democratic system has been in moving towards this goal is another question. Some have argued that the accelerated engagement and direct involvement of His Majesty in what might be viewed as the minutiae of the everyday functioning of government indicate extreme frustration with the performance level of the present system of parliamentary democracy and its obvious inefficiencies, corruption ,and lack of political will. His Majesty’s intervention could be seen as a clarion call to those holding the levers of parliamentary political power to clean up their act and get down to the business of responsible governance. Hopefully, the not-so-coded royal messages will be heeded, though the possibility cannot be discounted that they will not. If those in political power continue to place their personal interests over national interests, the public will further lose faith in the system.” By William J. Klausner
It is part of a lengthy article on Law & Society in Thailand, and so I am not accused of quoting out of context, here is a link to the full article (this is Part 5 of 7 – I found the full article quite interesing, although I am not sure when it was written):
http://asialaw.tripod.com/articles/lawwilliam5.html
7 anonymous // Jan 1, 2007 at 4:33 am
Why did you guys think I was being sarcastic?
Are we so cynical that we think that anybody claiming to love for the King is being sarcastic or is doing it for their own good?
Without the King, we would not have a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy today.
8 patiwat // Jan 1, 2007 at 5:19 am
Anonymous, the problem is that we don’t have a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarch today.
We don’t have a parliament with the authority to question, impeach, or hold a vote of no-confidence against the government. We don’t have a constitutional democracy since the constitution doesn’t guarantee any distinct human rights and elections were cancelled indefinately. And we don’t have a constitutional monarchy because the King has shown that he is above the constitution.
Some say that this situation is better than it was under Thaksin.
As for how the King views the role of dams in development, just take a look at the Bhumibol Dam, the Sirikit Dam, the Vajiralongkorn Dam, the Chulabhorn dam, the Sirindhorn dam, etc.
9 Thai Radio // Jan 1, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Back to the dam:
I understand that people resettled due to dam constructions may have some reluctance to recognize of those power generators.
But South-East Asia and Asia in general are plagued with pollution.
Pollution is a real threat on economies: not only it has detrimental effect on agriculture but people suffer too.
The cost in the long term may be more than huge.
So if some people have to move for the sake of a clean energy generator: I would say ‘mai pen rai’. Here the cost is nothing compared to the benefits.
10 Deathpower in Cambodia » Blog Archive » SEA News: Dams Bad. Really Bad. // Jan 3, 2007 at 9:29 am
[...] The good folks over at New Mandala continue their fine analysis and posting (see their current warnings about jumping to conclusions on the recent bombings, e.g.). This piece on the trouble with dams is quite good, and relevant all the way up and down the Mekong, especially in Cambodia, which I tend to think of as Asia’s liver, thanks to the Tonle Sap. I sense that the editors of New Mandala and I disagree on the possibility of dams doing good. I tend towards the extreme of seeing all large dam projects as simply bad, unsustainable, and terribly damaging to the ecology of the area. There are good examples of dams that are both large and productive, but these tend to be radically different in type from the dams currently going up all over Asia’s river systems right now. (Infuriatingly, one of these good dams is to be found at the soon-to-be-closed Ford Assembly Plant here in the Twin Cities; the dam here provides all the plant’s power needs without negatively impacting water flow or local ecology). The New Mandala folks say: Whether villagers receive the prosperity they are looking for is still open to question, as Imhof and Lawrence note, “they have been promised new and improved livelihoods, but if history is any indication, these promises are bound to be broken”. Yet it should be recognised that many villagers in rural Laos worry about the impacts of dams while at the same time actively searching for ways that the dams can deliver them the prosperity they want. [...]
11 Kwanjai // Sep 14, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I am Laotian/Vietnamese and that first comments really do make me think about how racist Thais really are! I guess rumors around Vietnam and Laos are true about Thailand I wouldn’t mind letting both of our country splitting up Thailand into 3 section any time soon and for those ignorant Thais out there we can just turn them into our Slave or be killed. This is just a thought on how much Thailand are alone in SouthEast Asia with no true allies at most cheers!
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