Mining thugs must be stopped

Thursday, May 15: Three hundred armed men attack villagers guarding a concrete barrier in the dead of night. Fighting goes on for six hours, countless villagers are injured, the barrier is broken down and the police do not respond. Only the next day she comes to take a look.

This scene is not unique. “What happened in Wang Saphung (Loei),” writes Bangkok Post reporter Paritta Wangkiat, “is the result of government agencies failing to enforce the law or listen to complaints from villagers. And they fail to punish a polluting industry and its armed thugs.'

Wang Saphung* is a gold and copper mine that has been in operation since 2006. In 2008 and 2009, the Pollution Control Department found dangerously high concentrations of heavy metals in water sources. The hospital in Wang Saphung examined 279 villagers and found cyanide in the blood of 54. It refused to make any connection with the mine. During a public hearing in 2012, XNUMX officers formed a human wall to prevent opponents from having their say.

The desperate villagers, who have been complaining for years about water pollution, declining rice harvests and health problems, decided to take the law into their own hands. They constructed a concrete barrier to stop ore transport to and from the mine. The mining company went to court, the village was visited by armed men at night and in April a group of armed men led by Poramet Pomnak stormed the village. The villagers refused to open the barrier.

Poramet denies having anything to do with the May 15 attack. [His position is not mentioned in the article.] He also denies working for a member of the Provincial Council, who is also an important client of the mine.

Authorities dismiss objections

Panitan Jindapoo, director general of the Department of Primary Industries and Mines, says the villagers are exaggerating. He's not the only one who dismisses the guards. All government agencies involved say the mine is legal. There is nothing they can do about the complaints. The villagers would be troublemakers.

The villagers have now pinned their hopes on the army, but they have not received the response they had hoped for. Soldiers have taken up position in the village. They have asked the villagers not to hinder the transports. They also urged them to cut off contact with environmental groups, which would only exacerbate the conflict.

Paritta closes the article with the lament that Thailand has had too many tragedies of environmentally polluting mines, which are supported by a short-term profit-hungry government. Paritta appeals to the junta to deliver on its promise of reform by honoring villagers' rights to protect their environment.

(Source: bangkok mail, June 14, 2014)

* Wang Saphung is the name of a district in Loei province. In the sub-district of Khao Luang, six villages are located near the mine. They formed a protest group in 2008.