Danny Campbell

(Ed. note: Activist Sulak Sivaraksa and 40 other protesters were arrested in March for allegedly obstructing the Yadana gas pipeline construction at the Huay Kayeng forest site. The author of this article, one of the protesters, recounts below the incident and explains why they are against the project. For chronology of other demonstrations and an appeal of the Asian Human Rights Commission in support of the cancellation of the project, see the May issue of Human Rights SOLIDARITY.)

On 28 February, I travelled to the Yadana protest camp in Kanchanaburi province with Ajarn Sulak. We arrived in the early hours of the morning and huddled in blankets slept until daybreak. The resident protesters were in the process of packing up and leaving, as was agreed by the concerned parties at the outset of suspension of work on the pipeline in order to have a "fair" hearing on its construction and conform to that committee’s outcome. Sulak and the students who chose to stay were under no such obligations, so a stand was taken, although unlike Custer’s little fiasco, all the moral high ground was in their camp. I consider it a privilege to have been there and had my own awakenings in that most magnificent of places - the untamed jungle. One moment alone out there can fill you with deep humility, and the more time you spend there, the more you realise its worth, spiritually and biologically. It is not only the favourite meditation environment for many Buddhist monks and other holy people, but also a home, the only home the Karen have known and, as good people should, they have looked after it, all of it - trees, bamboo, multitudes of fauna and plants. Also to the elephants, deer, bears, fish and birds, for they know their home has plenty, it is possible to live in harmony. After all, everyone knows that elephants have long memories, they would not share their home with the unjust.

As it is so often to the case with things of great beauty, there are those who see only a reflection of their own corrupt souls that harbour desire for self-aggrandisement. Those, whose longings to wield that worldly symbol of power and hard currency, know no limit or morals. Their attempt is to justify their violent personae by calling their schemes development, along with proclamations of it being necessary, and is wanted by all and would benefit all. This is not true. The only people who will benefit from projects like the Yadana pipeline are transnational corporations like Total, Unocal, PTT and their shareholders holding bloody hands with brutal military dictatorships like Burma’s State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) or whatever their name may be at present and other corrupt and inept governments, whose rose-tinted views of the west leave them grovelling for cash handouts from morally dubious international banking systems when their schemes fall apart.

A Real Victim in Front of Me

This is what they brought to the jungles of Kanchanaburi: this monstrous pipeline built by "slaves" and directly funding ethnic cleansing of the gentle forest people. This is what led Sulak and the students, spiritual workers and I sitting in front of the bulldozers in the hot midday sun. There followed an inevitable stand-off between all the machinations of so-called progress and this band of brave students and Sulak, a law unto himself, sitting and standing, preventing work from continuing in a peaceful manner, non-violent action at its most effective. Initially I was concerned that violence would be used against them, the way in which much of the media had been bought outright by the powers that did not make me feel confident. There was a real tension initially, not from the workers, but there were a few faces in the crowds who looked like the last thing they had come to do was to work. Eventually the presence of journalists, one in particular (he knows who he is) who had retained that most noble quality of the human condition and integrity, assured us that it would not go unnoticed.

The workers themselves were good men, working for the currency that dominates the majority of people in this life; no blame can be attributed to them. After a dialogue with some of them it was made clear that many were not happy about the destruction of such a perfect forest. Of course there were those who reasoned relentlessly of the necessity of such things, a good example of the way cynical economic enterprises such as this one: not only it had the local people destroying their environment and thus their inheritance, but had them believing that it was a good thing. One of the more poignant voices I remember was that of a Karen worker, which was translated to me thus: "I do not want to destroy the forest, but I need the money, please do not blame me." This he requested of the students; they understood his predicament and offered solidarity. This reaffirmed the importance of this protest: here was a real victim in front of me. Not that everyone was unaware of what was going on a few miles to the west - murder, rape, slave labour, forced relocation and repression of elected domestic leaders, who themselves have called for foreign business investment in Burma’s tyrant rulers to be denied.

It seems fair to me that while these forces are allowed to act with impunity and subject to no accountability, those whose freedom and conscience allow them a chance to act should do so wholeheartedly. So for day after day we sat, six days in total, in front of the tractors. By night at the base camp, we sat around a fire; stories and feelings were exchanged. Sulak in his simplistic outlook reminded me of a latter day Socrates. He spoke of the Karen and said they were watching us closely from the hills around, as were the elephants. Some Karen villagers showed their colours when in a day’s work they erected a bamboo house in traditional Karen style in the middle of jungle so that Sulak would be comfortable. He told us that on 12 March when the moon was full his friend showed him a hot spring where the elephants would go to bathe, and that we could go to watch them, they would not harm us, they would know whose side we were on. Besides, our camp was in the middle of their traditional marching grounds, it had been there many months and they had not chased us out.

Unyielding Sulak

Optimism abounded, as is usually the case in people of goodwill, but the old adage of losing battles to win a war held true. After many dramatic moments, including a two-kilometre march through the jungle daily, and after observing the falling of elderly majestic trees by chain-saws in an extremely reckless manner (i.e. the falling of one tree caused it to crash into another, which in turn split a third into half and took the entire side of protective bark off the fourth), things came to a head on the sixth day when the Kanchanaburi governor, accompanied by police officers and with the media in attendance, proceeded to arrest Sulak, the students and myself. We were frog-marched into waiting vehicles with Sulak separately, which caused no small consternation on our part, given his track record. The drive to the police station was long and took us for a part through the swathe that had been cut into a pristine forest. We also passed through a small Karen settlement that had literally been cut in half by the pipe route, one can scarcely imagine conducting a normal life which is essentially self-subsistence farming with all that upheaval going on. The looks on the Karen faces said it all, but they had seen worse.

Upon arriving at the police station, it was a relief to see so many supporters waiting there. After being fingerprinted and giving personal details we were able to mingle with each another. We walked to the main building where Sulak was held and were allowed to see him. We were happy to see him being his irrepressible self, though he was facing with this turn of events. There followed over the next few hours what I can only describe as political bargaining, which was conducted in colourful Thai language that was lost on me. Fortunately Sulak translated the major developments to me. The dialogue between Sulak (later joined by his lawyers), the Kanchanaburi governor, head of police and a man constantly on the end of a telephone to someone rather important seemed to consist of getting charges against the students and me dropped, and of Sulak’s going it alone, so to speak. After starting to charge us, a quick turn-around was made, and it seemed expedient to press no charges against the students and me, but all of us were happy to go to prison over this. The ramifications of such action, i.e., trying young students and a farang on dubious legal ground, would be of much interest to middle-class Thailand and the international community.

Sulak refused bail. He persuaded us that it was not in our interest to insist on being charged as the point had been made and the case will have its day in court, where it will hopefully be seen as what it is, a political and not a legal issue. The court released Sulak the next day. He was not ill-treated. He still stands like a man alone against this big machine. He is not alone, and those many friends of his who read this will give strong support for his position.

Afterthought on Elephants

An afterthought on the nature of elephants. The camp in the jungle had been occupied for a very long time by protesters, some very prominent local and national people who command immense respect among the people who know their work and lives, and many more obscure nevertheless vitally important people who choose to act as their conscience dictates. They fought violently to protect the environment and the people who depend on it, the Karen and indirectly all of us. The elephants stood by and watched. And after the protesters had been forcibly removed, staff of the PTT moved in and had a party which lasted two days before the elephants came down from the hills and chased them out. The elephants know whose side they are on.

(Source: This article originally appeared in Seeds of Peace, Vol. 14. No.2.)