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Sexual violence continues in Shan State
Increased cultivation on the Shan-Kayah border
G8 pushes Myanmar to accept foreign cyclone aid
RCSS Statement on Drug Problems
More drug flow into southern Mon state
B10.4 billion bonfire part of the war on drugs
Influential NGO demands halt to Hmong repatriation
Beyond Riparian Rights

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Sexual violence continues in Shan State
Shanland
By Hseng Khio Fah
27 June 2008

Sexual violence goes on in Shan State as the clashes between Burma Army and Shan State Army (SSA) increase, since the Burmese military beefed up its security forces, before the May 10 referendum and after the Cyclone Nargis devastated its delta areas, according to a Shan Herald reporte from the border.

A group of 6 soldiers led by Lt Tat Kyaw from Kunhing based Infantry Battalion 246, Company # 3, on 21 June abducted a 24 year old girl named Nang Nu on her way home at around 14:30 and raped her near Keng Lom where the Burma Army and the SSA fought last week. The soldiers were on duty to provide security for the military trucks coming from Taunggyi to Mongpiang, said the source.

“She was raped while she was returning from selling her bamboo buds at the market of Kali,” a villager told a Shan Herald reporter. “She arrived home with an unhappy face and told her parents how she was perpetrated by the Burmese soldiers. But the family dared not open the case because there was no witness. The village headman was also afraid to charge the soldiers for the crime.”

Nang Nu is looking after of her old father Long Pha Heing and her leper mother with a daily income from selling vegetables. Due to her mother’s disease, the family lives 1 mile far from Naloe village, Kali tract.

Similar incidents happened in Kunhing township.

On 24 May, a gang of Burmese soldiers who patrolling around Kunhing  area took a 21 year old girl who wishes to be unnamed coming back from harvesting hillside cultivation to Yala lake, north of Kunhing at 11:30 and raped her, according to the border sources.

“She returned back home with torn dirty clothes at around 16:00. She just sat and cried every day since she was raped. We couldn’t ask her anything. Now, she just acts like she’s gone out of her mind,” said her close relative.

“They [soldiers] threatened her with their guns and dragged her to the lake,” said a 10 year old boy eye witness.

The family went to tell the village headman to complain to the officials in the town but nothing came out of it. The victim lives in Nammawn village, north of Kunhing.

http://www.shanland.org/humanrights/2008/sexual-violence-continues-in-shan-state

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Increased cultivation on the Shan-Kayah border
Shanland
No. 19-6/2008 / 27 June 2008 / Drugs

Junta authorities cannot be faulted for their efforts to whitewash themselves when it comes to drugs, but impoverished people are turning more and more to poppy cultivation along the Shan-Kayah border areas, says Karenni Anti-Drug Action Committee (KADAC), an independent fact-finding group based on the Maehongson-Kayah border.

Preparations for the 2008-09 poppy season have started in vigor. All townships  on the borderland: Pekhon (Faikhun), Hsihseng and Mawkmai on the Shan side and Dimawso, Loikaw and Shadaw on the Kayah (Karenni) side are seeing more poppy fields, even more than the last season.

KADAC statement which came out yesterday says it has counted at least 3,800 acres of poppy fields compared to 3,500 acres last year.

The reasons for increased cultivation have been cited as:

* Continued forced relocations
* Forced labor especially to grow and tend the fuel Jatropha fields
* Various taxations by junta officials
* Upsurge in commodity prices

“We also grow other crops too,” a farmer was quoted as saying. “But our expenses and the market prices do not match. They also don’t guarantee sufficiency for the whole year.”

Poppy farmers however complain about low opium prices due to greater availability. “Last year, 1 viss (3.6kg) fetched K450,000 ($375),” said the report. “But early this year, it dropped to K400,000 ($333). Now it is K430,000 ($358).”

Japhet Kya-kwee, Secretary of the Lahu National Development Organization (LNDO), commented that opium prices vary in proportion to proximity to a refinery. “For instance, in Wanzing, Kehsi township (where the pro-Burma army Lahu militia led by Yosay is located), prices are as much as B27,000-30,000 ($805-895), which is a clear indicator of heroin refineries in the vicinity.”

Meanwhile, Maj Gen Maung Oo, home minister and head of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC), claimed that the junta’s drug eradication has effectively brought down cultivation of poppy in Burma, reported Mizzima News.

http://www.shanland.org/drugs/2008/increased-cultivation-on-the-shan-kayah-border

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G8 pushes Myanmar to accept foreign cyclone aid
AFP
Thu Jun 26, 12:08 PM ET

The Group of Eight wealthy nations put pressure on Myanmar to let in more foreign relief workers after a devastating cyclone last month, after accusations it had obstructed aid, a Japanese official said on Thursday.

The G8 foreign ministers, meeting in Kyoto, agreed to maintain support for reconstruction in Myanmar after the cyclone left more than 138,000 dead or missing, the official said.

Foreign leaders have accused Myanmar's military rulers of worsening the storm death toll by stalling on foreign aid, and Italy said it had pushed at the talks for more involvement by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"We proposed a formal appeal by the G8 to the U.N. asking that Ban Ki-moon insist on transparency regarding the sums donated by the international community," Frattini told reporters after talks with his fellow ministers.

"We also hope that China can play a stronger role," he said, referring to a country that has been a steady friend of Myanmar's junta.

Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said there was agreement that the G8 would press Myanmar to accept more relief workers from the outside world.

Many of the G8 ministers also expressed concern about how to achieve a transition to civilian rule in Myanmar, he added.

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's confinement to her home in Yangon was extended in May despite international pleas to Myanmar's military rulers to free her. Pro-junta thugs last week broke up a rally marking Suu Kyui's birthday.

The G8 ministers agreed that any signs of progress towards civilian government should be encouraged, Kodama said.

"In order to improve the current situation, it is also important for us the G8 to apply not only pressure but if Myanmar side shows any forward looking movement it is also important to provide an incentive," he said.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds and Sophie Hardach; Editing by Rodney Joyce)

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RCSS Statement on Drug Problems
The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS)
Loi Tai Leng (SSA Headquarters)
26 June 2008

The RCSS strongly supports the UN effort of trying to wipe out the drug from the world.

For decades, poppy plantations have cultivated in the Golden Triangle, Shan State, Burma. Local people double poppy growing percentage and around 5000-6000 tones of opium production per year.

It is because the Burmese Army oppresses people, failed to introduce a sufficient economic system for the people.

Many farmers turned their backs from the paddy to poppy fields. The reasons are, growing poppy is easier and drug traffickers are ready to buy them in cash. Moreover, with that income, they could pay the taxes to the Burmese authorities and cope with their daily survival.

For years, the Burmese regime blind folded the international community about the real cause of drug problem and used it as a political tool to discredit the Shan State political activists and Shan fighters.

Simultaneously, the Burmese regime asked the financial assistance from the international community to solve the drug problems. In fact, with the financial assistance, the regime bought weapons to kill the innocent local farmers and waged war against the ethnic armed groups.

In the meantime, some foreign businessmen set up their pocket armies inside Shan State and work as militia groups for the Burmese regime. The drug traffickers set up drug refineries along the Thai-Shan border, in order to produce heroin, amphetamines and other drugs. Later, they transport these illicit drugs from Burma to Southeast Asia, EU and US countries.

Shan State people were hired as daily workers for the groups and hundreds of Shan State young people become drug addicts. Many of them are at risk of losing their future.

The RCSS is fully alert on the drug threat and has a big concern for its young generation and the future of Shan State. The RCSS believes the drug threat is not just for Shan State people but also to the world as well.

To solve the drug problems, the RCSS has appealed to the international community for help but no countries heed the calls. The RCSS has to sort out its own difficulties. However, on behalf of the people, the RCSS is committed to hold on its stance against the drugs.

Therefore, since 1999, the SSA was able to raid nine drug refineries and seized more than 100 kilos of heroin and 3000,000 amphetamine tablets along the Thai-Shan border. In return, the SSA has lost many fighters during the raids.

Prior to the SSA's drug campaigns, 19 drug refineries stationed along the Thai-Shan border. After that, many of the drug refineries stop its drug production. However, drug traffickers and the Burmese regime continue giving trouble to the SSA. As the drug traffickers have a global network, their men present almost everywhere and try to pressurize on the SSA.

However, in an effort to solve political conflicts and drug-political links, the RCSS has laid out six political guidelines; unity, independence, democracy, social development, drug eradication and peace.

Additionally, the RCSS forbid its fighters and local people of using drugs and imposes a strict ban on it.

The RCSS future plans on drug campaigns

* Document drug traffickers inside Shan State

* Document the poppy farmers, (why they grow, village, district, townships and the percentage of the poppy production)

* Transportation routes and the drug purchasers

* To educate people and youth on the drug and its impact

* Will hold a peace talk with the Burmese regime and convince them not to oppress the people, to let people work independently. In an effort to eradicate the drug, the RCSS will cooperate with the regime. Will inform and acknowledge the Burmese senior leaders about its corrupted regional commanders.

* Crop substitution projects

* Find or create markets for the people to sell their crops

* To solve the drug problems, the RCSS will cooperate with the neighboring countries, Thailand, China, Laos and the international community.

Yawd Serk
Chairman
Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS)

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More drug flow into southern Mon state
IMNA
June 26, 2008

Even though the military junta claims that Burma will be drug free by 2014 the number of people addicted to drugs in southern Burma is increasing, local people said.
More and more Amphetamine is coming into southern Burma area with drugs easy to access, people said.

"Last month a coffee shop in my town was raided by the police on suspicion of selling amphetamine, " a coffee shop owner in Mudon town told IMNA.
Local people said, a number of youth use drugs laced with alcohol.

"Two of my friend's students used it. But luckily, the teacher did not know until they finished school," a high school student who arrived on the border said.

Amphetamine is called Say-pyar by students and it is a well-known name among male students.

Moulmein universities students said, the price of a tablet has gone up from 1000 to 4000 Kyats and they are available in the university compound.

A majority of the tablets are accessed from local authorities and some ethnic cease-fire group members.

Pa-an and Kawkreik township are the best places and easiest to access the tablet, said local people and amphetamine trafficked to Thailand is also increasing through the area. The number of amphetamines seized has also increased compared to previous years.

More than 28,000 amphetamines tablets were seized by authorities and more than 8,000 pills were seized by New Mon State Party in 2008 in Three Pagoda Pass border point.

Ten years ago there was no such pill in the border area said a resident in Three Pagoda Pass.

In a ceremony marking the global anti-drug day, the Burmese junta claimed the country would be drug free in the next six years after China provided US $ 100 million to end poppy cultivation.

However the United Nation has warned that opium production in the country has again soared. A majority of the poppy is grown in the strongest ethnic cease-fire group, the United Wa State Army controlled areas, in the east of the country.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report last year drug production had gone up by 46 per cent in 2006-2007.

For further information please contact to imna_news@yahoo. com , www.monnews- imna.com
Contact Editor: 66 (0) 81 3659140 (or) 66 (0) 892 072 825,
Please visit Burma News International Web-site: www.bnionline. net, in which IMNA is a member.
 
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B10.4 billion bonfire part of the war on drugs
The Bangkok Post

Ayutthaya - Authorities on Thursday torched illicit drugs worth 10.4 billion baht (about $320 million) to show their determination to crack down as drug traffickers try to make a comeback in the country.

The bonfire marking the annual UN anti-drugs day put more than four tonnes of seized drugs to the torch.

Twelve tonnes of controlled chemicals were also incinerated. These include chemicals that can be used for making drugs and substances that can be inhaled.

"The Thai government has a strong determination to solve the drugs problem," Health Minister Chiya Sasomsub said in a statement.

"No family wants their children to get involved in drugs, as drugs can damage people's brains," he said, adding that his ministry estimated there were about 200,000 drug users in the kingdom.

Illegal substances that went up in flames this year - Thailand's 36th drugs burn - include 32 million tablets of methamphetamine, 1.1 tonnes of heroin, 7.2 kilograms of ecstasy and 2.2 kilograms of cocaine.

The bonfire took place at an industrial park in central Ayutthaya province, overseen by Thai government officials and foreign diplomats.

Thailand's new government in April re-launched the controversial "war on drugs" championed by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

They said there would be no extra-judicial killings, which rights groups say plagued a similar 2003 anti-narcotics push, but the interior minister has warned: "If anyone does not want to die, don't walk this road."

Jun 26, 2008

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/previousdetail.php?id=128541

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Influential NGO demands halt to Hmong repatriation
The Bangkok Post

The French humanitarian aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres called on the governments of Thailand and Laos on Thursday to halt forced repatriations of ethnic Hmong to communist Laos, where they face possible political persecution.

An estimated 800 ethnic Hmong refugees from the Huai Nam Khao camp in Thailand's Prachin Buri province were forcibly returned to Laos by the Thai government last Sunday, and Thai authorities have threatened to repatriate another 6,700 soon.

The repatriations came after the Thai military rounded up about 5,000 refugees who had taken part in a protest march against an agreement between the Thai and Lao governments to send them back to Laos.

"Thai authorities claim that these were voluntary repatriations. It is hard to believe," said Gilles Isard, Medecins Sans Frontieres' head of mission in Thailand.

"Families have been torn apart. One of our Hmong staff members who joined the protest has been sent back to Laos without her children, and we know of other similar cases. Many of these refugees have expressed grave fears at the prospect of being sent back to Laos."

The aid group has been providing medical assistance to Hmong refugees in Thailand for the past three years. (dpa)

Hundreds of thousands of Hmong, an ethnic minority group that was used by the US military as a guerrilla force in their "secret war" against communism in Laos during the Vietnam War, have fled to Thailand since Laos went communist in 1975.

While many have been resettled in the United States, thousands of others have been rejected for resettlement or have chosen to stay in Thai camps rather than return to their homeland.

Thailand refuses to acknowledge the Hmong as refugees, classifying them as displaced persons or economic migrants instead.

It has been Thailand's policy to work with Laos in repatriating the Hmong remaining in Thailand to discourage further migrations.

The United Nations and humanitarian organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have opposed the policy on the grounds that the repatriations have been forced and there is no independent organisations monitoring the Lao government's treatment of the Hmong, a former enemy.

"MSF believes that the total lack of transparency surrounding the management of this crisis only exacerbates the problem," Isard said. "If the government of Thailand and Laos would accept an independent monitor, then this issue might be resolved." (dpa)

Jun 26, 2008

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/previousdetail.php?id=128535

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Beyond Riparian Rights
The Bangkok Post / Perspectives
Sunday June 22, 2008

Maybe it's worthwhile to take another look at water diversion efforts that were part of the previous Kong-Chi-Moon project before embarking on any new and grander schemes, writes SUPARA JANCHITFAH

Lampanieng canal after the dredging and enlargement is barren and steep, unlike the natural canal (inset) which is still verdant and accessible. — PHOTOS: SUPARA JANCHITFAH

The few little fish from the once-mighty river represented the entire morning's catch of a local woman from Tha Bo in Nong Khai province. At what should have been a prime spot for fishing, where the Huay Mong River meets the Mekong River, she pulled out less than a kilogramme of fish.

"I heard that China built two dams upstream," she said, adding that this makes the level of water in the once bountiful and free-flowing Mekong River lower than in the past.

What's more, because of the Huay Mong dam, or watergate, built as part of the Kong-Chi-Moon water diversion project, in the summer months water is pumped into the Huay Mong from the Mekong to feed the river line. During the rainy season water is released from the Huay Mong to the Mekong to prevent flooding.

The local woman agreed that one of the advantages of the dam is that it does prevent flooding in the rainy season, but the dwindling supplies of fish, a staple of the local diet, make it a poor tradeoff in the eyes of most locals.

Meanwhile, information and records released by officials still indicate the success of the project.

Villager Soonthorn Tridej expressed her dismay to see her canal being destroyed by the Lampanieng development project.

A few kilometres away from the river's mouth, another woman was walking on a bare stretch of the earthen dam embankment along the Huay Mong River, which is normally about three metres above the water at its highest point.

Carrying a fishing-net and two empty baskets, she hadn't caught anything that morning. With a somewhat bewildered look in her eyes, she discussed the Huay Mong water diversion project. She seemed unwilling to say anything negative about the project, but after a while she expressed regret that her family had lost about seven of their 15 rai of farmland due to the enlargement of the river, a key part of the diversion scheme.

"I feel pity that my land, where we used to grow rice, has now become part of the high dyke. I don't know if we got any compensation, you have to ask my father," she added.

Some eucalyptus trees grow on the embankment, but many parts of the dike are bare.

Prasong Pongsawat, the chief of the Huay Mong Irrigation project, said that there are no 100% winners from any project. "The project was completed some 20 years ago (in 1986), and the villagers volunteered their land as it prevents flooding. They benefit from it (the project)," he insisted.

Major Concerns

The Huay Mong development project is part of the larger, suspended but now re-proposed, Kong-Chi-Moon water diversion project under the Water Resources and Irrigation departments.

The Kong-Chi-Moon project was the subject of a National Environmental Board (NEB) study in 1993 which concluded that the Irrigation Department should reconsider it on the basis of six major concerns. For example, the environmental impacts associated with deforestation and salinity from the project, and also potential duplication in the project (see next series).

Water from the Huay Mong river must be released to the Mekong River in the rainy season.

One of many plans of the Kong-Chi-Moon project is to take water from the Mekong to Huay Mong and divert it to the Lampanieng canal, which would then be connected to the Ubonrat Reservoir in Khon Kaen province. Such a route would have to go through a range of mountains between the Huay Mong and Lampanieng waterways. The reservoir would then supply irrigation water to many parts of the Northeast (see graphic).

In March of this year, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej proposed a strikingly similar project over the objections of many experts. There have been many questions raised about the project - its feasibility, what are the pros and cons, etc. But one of the most basic questions to be answered is this: Are villagers willing to sacrifice their ancestral land for the development project?

Nong Bua Lam Phu villager Wichien Srichannon is among many who are not willing. Unlike many villagers who had no idea about the documents they signed giving the go-ahead for the Kong-Chi-Moon project, Wichien did read them, and he did not sign the paper which stated that "the project will dredge the Lampanieng and villagers (will) allow the soil to be placed on empty land (the whereabouts of the 'empty land' was not specified.)"

"I have learned from people upstream how they have suffered from the implementation of the project. They are deprived of their land because the project did not only dredge the waterway, but in fact it has enlarged it," said Wichien.

When Wichien did not sign the paper to allow the state agency and its outsourcing company to enter his land to dig and enlarge the Lampanieng waterway, he received a letter saying that he had no right to oppose the project because the land in question did not belong to him.

Wichien remarked that in fact the land does belong to his mother-in-law, but it will be inherited by his wife. "Our family cultivates on this piece of land and my mother-in-law did not sign any paper or give any approval to allow the state agency to do anything on the land either."

Wichien has opposed the project by many different means, such as submitting petition letters to concerned agencies, but yet the company contracted to do the dredging still entered onto his land. "I have to carry my licensed gun to chase them away," he said, although he is aware that it will only stop them temporarily.

"At present we are asking the Administrative Court to give us justice," he added.

Many other villagers not as determined and knowledgeable as Wichien have lost much or most of the land they held when the Lampanieng development project began in 2004.

Wang Nam Kao villager Thongmuan Pimkod has lost almost all her land. Five rai and 200 square metres became part of the Lampanieng waterway and its dyke, leaving her about 300 square metres of land she cannot cultivate.

"I went to to see my daughter who works in Bangkok. When I came back I could not even recognise my land. There were no more trees. It was just empty land with soil and rubbish piled up," she said.

The Lampanieng stream is the bloodline of many locals in Nong Bua Lam Phu province. The small waterway has more than 1,549 square metres of water catchment area, and travels about 150 kilometres, fed by 116 tributaries from various mountain ranges, to nourish more than 909,395 rai of agricultural land. The canal has never run dry, say locals, and wild vegetables and trees grow on the banks. It is an integral part of a unique and important riverine ecosystem.

But after the operation to enlarge the river, to pave the way for the water diversion project, locals see the banks as barren and full of difficulties.

"It is quite hard for ordinary villagers to draw water from the steep waterway into their fields, and this creates conflicts among villagers, as those who live away from the river banks cannot divert enough water to irrigate their fields," said Wichien, adding that it is now more expensive to divert water for irrigation as well.

In the past, villagers had their own water management system. They built check dams by contributing their own labour and money. They had their own rules and regulations to govern distribution of the water.

Wichien said four local check dams were destroyed during the dredging and enlarging of 30 kilometres of the waterway before the project was suspended. The waterway was enlarged on average to a width of 82 metres, not counting the two dykes on the sides, each about six metres in width, compared to seven to 10 metres in the past. Most villagers accept dredging but not the enlargement.

Said villager Ampan Busuk: "It (the water diversion project) destroyed our weir. In the past buffaloes went into the river to drink water, but the banks are too steep for them to climb back out now. Some have died in the river because the water is too deep."

Taking it to court

Villagers feel they have no one to turn to. No NGOs operate in the area dealing with these sorts of issues. Local politicians and state agencies have been unresponsive to their pleas for justice. Recently they began submitting petitions with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and have also filed charges against the Irrigation Department at the Administrative Court.

The matter would have been easier to take on if they had banded together and filed a class-action lawsuit. But as it is, the cases were filed individually, starting in 2005. There are 148 suits in total, each with a similar line of complaint. Four cases have been withdrawn and four have been refused by the court. As of May this year, the Administrative Court has ruled on 23 cases, in each ordering that the Irrigation Department must compensate villagers whose land was lost in the operation of the project, at the rate of 100 to 150 baht per square metre.

However, the Irrigation Department is appealing to the court, negotiating to pay less compensation.

"The department wants to pay us only 50 baht per square metre. Think about it, at that low price how can we buy new land," said Soonthorn Tridej, another villager who has been deprived of much of her land by the project.

But what villagers want more than compensation is to have their land back.

If these villagers still had their land they could grow anything, said Wichien.

He added that that "the compensation money they may be receiving is nothing. Certainly, they cannot replace their land at today's prices."

But the project has hurt him too, even though he has resisted the dredging along his stretch of waterway.

Before operation of the Lampanieng development project he could harvest about six to seven tonnes of paddy rice per cultivation from his 12 rai of land, which could be sold at about 10,000 baht a tonne. He also grows vegetable on his small plot of land which gives him an income of about 7,000 baht a month.
These days he is producing less, however.

"This is due to the fact that less water can be diverted into my field, as the project has destroyed the clay weir that my father-in-law and his friends constructed long ago," he said.

Many of Wichien's neighbours who lost their land have had to take their children out of school. "One of them lost 18 rai of his 22 rai of land. His family suffers a lot and the children are now going without a formal education," said Wichien.

Apart from using the water for irrigation, villagers use the waterway for fishing.

People along the Lampanieng are just one of many groups whose livelihood has been hurt by water diversion schemes whose managers never sought consultaion with the villagers they affect the most. As a result, the outcries of locals are emerging from here and there with more force.

Prom Srisangcom is a villager who represents people affected by the Huay Luang water diversion project, another branch of the Kong-Chi-Moon project (see related story).

A few weeks ago, Prom was among a group villagers who went to Udon Thani provincial hall to ask the governor and Irrigation officials to look into their troubles, and to ask for compensation for the land that they lost due to the department's water diversion projects.

"Villagers have had to shoulder the adverse consequences of these projects in silence for many years," said Chanthra Sanguannam, from Kumphawapi district of Udon Thani. Her 24 rai of land was inundated by the construction of the Kumphawapi dam (part of Huay Luang project) in 1989.

"I have no land to cultivate. My family has been torn apart - my daughters have to work at a construction site in Bangkok," she added.

"Many affected people don't want compensation. We want to demolish the dam so that we can get our land back," said Prom.

When contacted, Sommai Kerdnimrit from the Region Five Office of the Irrigation Department said that the Huay Luang project was transferred to his department in 2002, but was initiated and implemented by the former Energy Development and Promotion Department.

"Many villagers affected from the construction have already been compensated at the rate applicable to the year the dam was erected. However, when the dam increases its holding capacity from 154 metres to 160 metres above sea level, more villagers will be affected. We will then compensate them according to the Government Land Expropriation Law."

Affected villagers say that the department is offering only about 35 baht a square metre, which to them is unacceptable.

Sommai remarked that if villagers aren't satisfied they can file charges in the Civil Court.

But going through prolonged court proceedings is a daunting and expensive task for most villagers.

"It's as if we've run into a great mountain range. It's not easy for villagers with only a rudimentary education," said Lampanieng villager Ampan, who begged state agencies to think more carefully and consult locals before implementing development projects in the future.

Note: This is the first in a series on troubles surrounding the Kong-Chi-Moon water diversion project.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/220608_Perspective/22Jun2008_pers001.php

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