Comments on: A conduit of vulnerability or prosperity? http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/ New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:39:39 +1100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Melody Kemp http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/comment-page-1/#comment-145081 Melody Kemp Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:06:01 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/#comment-145081 John, I was in Luang Prabang attending the cremation of Phra Khamchanh at the end of July. Everyone was very jumpy as we had heard that Hmongs had killed and been killed in Bokeo an there were rumours of a revenge attack on the cremation. So that when the Govt let off fireworks a lot of people jumped out of their sinhs. mind you ther are times when I think the world Hmong is synonynmous in usage here with the use of terrorist in Australia.. I work with a Lao writer editing and teaching rwiting to Lao. Story telling is a great medium. We have a great collection of stories recording the aftermath (which by the writing, is a contemporaneous aftermath ) of the Nam Ngum dam.. We hope to get funding to collect, edit other stories to do with the chnages you mention, but funding is hard to come by. Dev agencies focus on the pragamatic and not the cultural. Other Jon...I can give you photos of Gamuda Berhad's destructive forays into the Nam Kading protected Area . this before STEA had given the go ahead for the dam they will build that will effectively stop fish migration up the Kading. Melody John,
I was in Luang Prabang attending the cremation of Phra Khamchanh at the end of July. Everyone was very jumpy as we had heard that Hmongs had killed and been killed in Bokeo an there were rumours of a revenge attack on the cremation. So that when the Govt let off fireworks a lot of people jumped out of their sinhs. mind you ther are times when I think the world Hmong is synonynmous in usage here with the use of terrorist in Australia..

I work with a Lao writer editing and teaching rwiting to Lao. Story telling is a great medium. We have a great collection of stories recording the aftermath (which by the writing, is a contemporaneous aftermath ) of the Nam Ngum dam.. We hope to get funding to collect, edit other stories to do with the chnages you mention, but funding is hard to come by. Dev agencies focus on the pragamatic and not the cultural.

Other Jon…I can give you photos of Gamuda Berhad’s destructive forays into the Nam Kading protected Area . this before STEA had given the go ahead for the dam they will build that will effectively stop fish migration up the Kading.

Melody

]]> By: John Roberts http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/comment-page-1/#comment-132461 John Roberts Mon, 30 Jul 2007 00:50:41 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/#comment-132461 ...I heard a rumour that this route was recently closed for several days following the arrest of some Hmong in Huay Xai. This has not filtered down into any of the back-packer blogs and we heard nothing in the Golden Triangle but does anyone know more? …I heard a rumour that this route was recently closed for several days following the arrest of some Hmong in Huay Xai.

This has not filtered down into any of the back-packer blogs and we heard nothing in the Golden Triangle but does anyone know more?

]]> By: jonfernquest http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/comment-page-1/#comment-130928 jonfernquest Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:00:08 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/07/25/a-conduit-of-vulnerability-or-prosperity/#comment-130928 "Resettlement plans have been carefully drafted, but past experiences warn that they may not be sufficient to ensure adequate compensation as agreed-upon standards are rarely applied, regulation on land tenure and titling is unclear, and malpractice in disbursements is rampant." In the age of the blog software, RSS news feeds, and news aggregators, there should be someway of getting locals to monitor incidents locally, and have reports with photos feed into and be integrated with larger-scale world human rights news feeds, so people can see the injustice and exploitation going on, if and when it happens. Given that the these incidents are documented and made publicly available, there seem to be other issues: First, authorities in Laos being sufficiently responsive to these incidents and issues when they arise, assuming that they can, assuming that it isn't some local power lord mafia like figure that the government has cut a deal to keep law and order in exchange for autonomy. The center doesn't necessarily have control of abusive peripheries. All of Matthew McDaniel's old material, journals, logs, drill pretty deep into what was going on in Chiang Rai's hinterland and are a good case study. In Burma, Soros funding makes sure incidents make it to the media, but media overload is the result. Have you ever tried to wade through and make sense of the massive amounts of information coming out of all these grassroots organisations? Also media overload breeds authorities unwilling to respond because they see external NGO monitoring as a usurpation of sovereignty. Isn't the World Bank funding the roads? I don't suppose human rights impact issues are be channeled through them as they arise. Seems like road building should have convenants in this respect with the government receiving the funding. But on the other hand, I remember how long (and the abandoned projects) it took to get a successful road from Mae Sai to Keng Tung (oral history of that road building project worth recording), and that road used to look like the road you've shown in the photo in places. I wonder how comparable the before and after situations will be along this new road? “Resettlement plans have been carefully drafted, but past experiences warn that they may not be sufficient to ensure adequate compensation as agreed-upon standards are rarely applied, regulation on land tenure and titling is unclear, and malpractice in disbursements is rampant.”

In the age of the blog software, RSS news feeds, and news aggregators, there should be someway of getting locals to monitor incidents locally, and have reports with photos feed into and be integrated with larger-scale world human rights news feeds, so people can see the injustice and exploitation going on, if and when it happens.

Given that the these incidents are documented and made publicly available, there seem to be other issues: First, authorities in Laos being sufficiently responsive to these incidents and issues when they arise, assuming that they can, assuming that it isn’t some local power lord mafia like figure that the government has cut a deal to keep law and order in exchange for autonomy. The center doesn’t necessarily have control of abusive peripheries.

All of Matthew McDaniel’s old material, journals, logs, drill pretty deep into what was going on in Chiang Rai’s hinterland and are a good case study.

In Burma, Soros funding makes sure incidents make it to the media, but media overload is the result. Have you ever tried to wade through and make sense of the massive amounts of information coming out of all these grassroots organisations?

Also media overload breeds authorities unwilling to respond because they see external NGO monitoring as a usurpation of sovereignty. Isn’t the World Bank funding the roads? I don’t suppose human rights impact issues are be channeled through them as they arise. Seems like road building should have convenants in this respect with the government receiving the funding. But on the other hand, I remember how long (and the abandoned projects) it took to get a successful road from Mae Sai to Keng Tung (oral history of that road building project worth recording), and that road used to look like the road you’ve shown in the photo in places. I wonder how comparable the before and after situations will be along this new road?

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