burning issue: Fresh ideas needed in ties with Laos

BURNING ISSUE:

Fresh ideas needed in ties with Laos

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Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation May 22, 2013 1:00 am

Relations between Thailand and Laos in the 21st century have already moved toward a new era, which requires not only trust and cooperation, but also a new vision to make the links mutually beneficial to people of both countries.

The joint cabinet meeting between the two governments jointly chaired by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong over the weekend in Chiang Mai reflected no clear vision for their ties in a new era. It simply followed up work which previous governments had initiated.

Many visionary and capable Thai leaders in the past were able to open new chapters in relations with Laos. Former Prime Minister Kriangsak Chamanant, together with Laotian leader Kraisone Pomvihan, managed to end mistrust in 1979 and brought the two brotherly countries into close relations, despite their different political ideologies.

Conservative forces in Bangkok halted the good ties with two military clashes in 1984 and 1987 due to boundary conflicts during Prem Tinsulanonda’s years – but such sour relations lasted for only a short time.

Visionary leader Chatichai Choonhavan dramatically led relations between Thailand and Laos into a genuine new era as he declared the policy to transform Indochina’s battle zone into a market zone at the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. Such a policy has been fundamental for the relationship until now.

Anand Panyarachun and Chuan Leekpai during their time guided relations with Laos to regionalism and regional integration when they introduced economic liberalisation, connection and integration with Asean to the two countries.

Thaksin Shinawatra might have his problems domestically but he was famous in many neighbouring countries for his brainchild projects linking them in the Mekong basin. His initiative, the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), is still active in developing infrastructure as well as providing assistance to Laos. The latest summit of ACMECS took place with participation by Yingluck in Vientiane in March this year.

However, there has been no new policy initiative in relation to Laos since the 2006 military coup, as many governments over the years since then have been busy with domestic conflicts.

This government under Yingluck is no exception. Although the current government is relatively free from domestic political tension, it offers no policy initiative for ties with Laos. The joint statement signed by foreign ministers of the two countries reflected no new vision for future relations.

One part of the statement is even locked into relations of the 1980s. It stated that Thailand would not allow any dissidents to use Thailand as their shelter or as a launching PAD against the government in Vientiane. The anti-communist movement in Thailand has not been active since the beginning of this century, but Laos continued to worry over dissidents and mistrusted Thailand.

This government was supposed to have a policy initiative on economic relations with Laos, but it was not to be. Projects on economic and transportation links were mostly created after Chatichai, Chuan and Thaksin’s administrations.

The two countries have learned already that many road links and bridges were under-utilised due to fewer economic activities in the area. Border-crossing transportation was obstructed by bureaucracy, but ideas to liberate it have never been translated into tangible projects. The schedule to implement single-stop inspection services has been repeatedly delayed.

Battle for the Mekong Heats Up

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By Tom Fawthrop

Laos’s Xayaburi dam project faces opposition throughout the region over its ecological impact.

The Mekong, a precious jewel of Southeast Asia, has become a critical battleground between hydropower dam projects and the survival of the world’s greatest freshwater fisheries.

The future of this 4,880 km (3032 miles) long river may well be decided by what happens to the Xayaburi mega-dam project in Laos, the first of a cascade of 11 dam projects on the lower Mekong.

Ame Trandem from the NGO International Rivers explained that, “The Mekong River is the lifeblood of Southeast Asia, feeding and employing millions of people. To move forward with the Xayaburi Dam would be reckless and irresponsible, as the dam would fatally impact the river’s ecosystem and fisheries.”

In spite of repeated reports that the Xayaburi dam project had been suspended pending further scientific studies, a recent visit to the dam-site has suggested that the Lao government has not bowed to international pressure. As a World Wildlife Fund analysis recently warned, “Construction work is marching ahead at the Xayaburi dam site in northern Laos and risks making a mockery of the decision last December by Mekong countries to delay building the dam on the Mekong mainstream.”

In December 2011 the four-member nations of the Mekong River Commission – Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam –agreed that no dams should be built until further scientific studies of the negative impacts on all the riparian countries had been completed.

Scientists have warned that if the 11 dams are built it could bring on an ecological disaster that harms many of the 877 Mekong fish species. Furthermore, it is the uninhibited flow of the Mekong through the heart of Southeast Asia and the river’s bountiful natural resources that guarantees 65 million people’s food security.

Although Cambodia and Vietnam are determined to stop the dam, everything indicates that the Thai developer Ch. Karnchang and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) are equally determined to build it. In this context, a failure to resolve the dam issue could also trigger a major diplomatic row among the Mekong nations, undermining the credibility of the MRC and disrupting international cooperation along the region’s most important waterway.

“The Xayaburi Dam will trigger an ecological crisis of tremendous proportions. We urge the Prime Ministers of Laos and Thailand to show leadership by cancelling this project,” Shalmali Guttal of Focus on the Global South, a member of the 263 coalition of NGOs from 51 nations said in a statement condemning the damn.

In response to this opposition, Lao Foreign Minister, Thongloun Sisoulithmade announced during last month’s ASEAN FM summit that his country was suspending work on the Xayaburi dam until further studies on its impact could be done. Although opponents of the dam welcomed Vientiane’s announcement, they soon were disappointed.

Soon after the Lao government’s announcements, a number of diplomats, MRC officials, experts, and donors visited Laos to see the site. After the visit some MRC observers then asserted that, “the project is in an advanced preparation stage with exploratory excavation in and around the river completed.”

Similarly, International Rivers concluded in their own unofficial investigation of the dam-site in June, that, “the dredging and widening of river has already taken place.”

Meanwhile back in Bangkok, Ch.Karnchang, the Thai developer of the US$3.8 billion project, said the dam was going ahead with no delays in the original timetable.

Initial construction has evidently started, however. Has the Laotian government then reneged on its international commitments?

Deputy Minister for Energy and Mines Viraphonh Viravonghas denied any violation of the MRC agreements. Instead he contended that all the construction done so far falls under the rubric of “preparatory work,” noting that the construction “does not involve permanent structures” and instead is mostly about building makeshift housing for construction workers.

But fisheries experts say that long before the river is fully blocked, existing construction will disturb the riverbed enough to significantly affect fish populations and the flow of sediments downstream.

Dr. Jian-hua Meng, a sustainable hydropower specialist working at the WWF, argues that, “This will be the first direct intervention in the riverbed, and will mark a milestone in the ongoing dam construction.”

According to a WWF report, which was strongly critical of the Dam project, Viraphonh Viravong, Laos’s Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, contradicted the foreign minister when he allegedly told the MRC-led delegation that the project would proceed without further reviews.

Since September 2010 ongoing consultations based on the MRC regulatory framework has resulted in the Lao government trying to answer the strong objections from Cambodia and Vietnam. Unsatisfied, Vietnam has called for a 10-year moratorium on dam construction.

To answer these objections Laos appointed two foreign consultants: the Swiss –based Poyry Energy and French company CNR (Compagnie Nationale du Rhone).

Still, Cambodia and Vietnam remain convinced that any dam will block fish migration and reduce the flow of sediment.

Both foreign consultants argue that fish ladders or fish passes can enable 85% of all fish to get past the turbines and successfully swim up or down river but this claim has not been fully tested.

Indeed, many dismissed Poyry’s previous report- a compliance review of the Xayaburi Dam in 2011 regarding the consultation process with its neighbors- as lacking the necessarily scientific data.

It’s also worth noting that the Finnish-based Poyry has been blacklisted by the World Bank for unrelated corruption charges that have led the CEO to resign. This calls into question its credibility.

Very different advice to the Lao government came from the visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said last month that, “I’ll be very honest with you; We made a lot of mistakes…. We’ve learned some hard lessons about what happens when you make certain infrastructure decisions, and I think that we all can contribute to helping the nations of the Mekong region avoid the mistakes that we and others made.”

Washington is also concerned that if the Xayaburi dam goes ahead, China is lined up to build at least three more dams further down the Mekong thus penetrating ever deeper into the Mekong sub-region.

NGOs representing people from the eight provinces in northeast Thailand are about to file legal action in the courts to force the Thai government to review the contract with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), the state’s electricity body. Thailand has agreed to buy 95% of all the power generated from the Xayaburi dam.

The Thai government has quietly endorsed the MRC consensus that further scientific study is needed. Now NGOs are demanding that  the Thai government do more and use its power to freeze the Xayaburi/EGAT contract, which in turn would pressure the Thai dam-builder Karnchang to halt the project.

According to scientists the stakes are high in this ongoing battle over sustainable development. WWF’s Dr. Jian-hua Meng has warned, for instance, that “Resting the future of the Mekong on flawed analysis and gaps in critical data could have dire consequences for the livelihoods of millions of people living in the Mekong river basin.

Tom Fawthrop is a Thailand-based journalist and producer. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Al-Jazeera and the New Statesman, among other publications.

Photo Credit: CPWF Basin Focal Project

• Mekong Battle Delayed
• The Battle Over the Mekong
• Murder on the Mekong
• Laos’s Chinese Gamble
• America’s Pacific Air-Sea Battle Vision

Thailand Stifles the Internet

Holding websites responsible for user posts will stunt growth and endanger free speech.

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By JERMYN BROOKS

The Thai government bought one million tablet computers last month to distribute to students across the country. This ambitious “one tablet per child” policy, one of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s campaign promises, is the largest such program in the world and shows that Bangkok wants to meet the challenge of an Internet-based economy. But the newly tabled youth will soon discover that Thailand’s Internet is hampered by another challenge: restrictive laws on websites, social networks and search engines.

The 2007 Computer Crimes Act holds online intermediaries (web portals and the like) liable for illegal content posted by others. The only condition is that these middlemen sites or servers must be shown to have the “intent to spread” the content, but in practice the definition of “intent” in this context is so vague the law can apply to just about anyone. This law is particularly significant in Thailand because other laws, especially the lese-majeste laws prohibiting certain comments about the monarchy, can apply to many kinds of Internet communications.

Thailand has in recent years scared Internet businesses and investors away with several high-profile criminal cases that rely on the Computer Crimes Act. Last week, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, known by her nickname “Jiew,” was convicted for comments that others posted on her popular online newspaper Prachatai which were deemed disrespectful to the monarchy. Not taking down a user’s comment in a “reasonable” amount of time can be deemed tantamount to promoting it. Because Jiew didn’t take one comment down quickly enough, she had broken the Computer Crimes Act.

Jiew escaped a severe sentence, but the incident demonstrates the power of the Computer Crimes Act and raises serious questions for web operators. The law specifies neither how such an intermediary should receive official notice that they’re hosting something illegal nor how long they have to take it down after that notice. The Jiew trial didn’t clarify these questions either. Now, news reports indicate the law may even be revised to punish intermediaries further. The proposed revision would fine the intermediary, or jail him to a term that would be one-and-a-half times the one handed to the actual criminal.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn was convicted last week under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act.

Beyond the serious consequences for individuals, this law also exacts an economic cost. Bangkok once dreamed of becoming Southeast Asia’s Internet leader, and has invested in information technologies. Besides the one tablet per child program, it plans for free wireless connectivity and the deployment of third-generation telecom networks. McKinsey recently looked at 30 countries that, like Thailand, have a fast-growing economy and rapidly expanding Internet and found that the Internet on average accounted for 1.9% of those countries’ economic output.

The opportunities in Thai e-commerce are impressive, and the right laws can help. Today on Tarad.com, Thailand’s largest e-commerce site, 45% of all transactions are being made with credit cards. The number two player in the e-commerce space, Shopping.co.th, has seen similar growth, with the value of their online credit card transactions increasing 1000% last year. That’s due to laws that effectively punish online fraud and support secure e-banking practices.

A poorly conceived law that targets the middleman website or portal jeopardizes all these advantages. Online bulletin boards, especially, are a huge source of information and hence build value. Pantip is Thailand’s largest, with an average of 4,600 new discussion topics per day. The information on those boards can help consumers to find the right prices, businesses to find the right customers, startups to get discovered and friends to connect. But how is an e-commerce site supposed to judge the risk of an illegal comment being posted in its product review section?

All this seems obvious and yet the Thai government is unlikely to repeal the law. A loosely defined law allows the authorities to prosecute intermediaries, rather than provide a clear framework that clarifies the risks and allows businesses and users to make informed decisions and reap the benefits of a thriving Internet economy.

Still, there are some ways for the law to be changed to reduce the harm. Thailand needs laws like the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 or the European Union’s E-Commerce Directive that clarify the risks intermediaries take on. When websites are provided safe harbor by governments, they know exactly what it will take to operate within the law and can comply accordingly. But establishing a safe harbor takes work, requiring all parties—governments, intermediaries and users—to engage in the process. Although not the path of least resistance, a clear legal framework for safe harbor can enable the removal of illegal content while not undermining innovation and economic opportunities.

The Internet is bound to feature in Thailand’s high-growth future. Bangkok now has an opportunity to lay the legal foundation for that future, if it understands that free expression plays a big role in economic development.

Mr. Brooks is the independent chair of the Global Network Initiative.

Ratchaburi’s hydropower venture in Laos wins ADB financing

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The Nation November 3, 2011 10:04 am

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide approximately US$465 million to support the construction of a 440-megawatt hydropower plant that will supply power to energy-hungry Thailand and provide much-needed revenue tofund poverty reduction programmes in Laos.

“Earnings from clean energy exports are vital to poverty reduction efforts in landlocked Lao PDR, where one in every three people survive on less than $1.25 a day,” said Christopher Thieme, Director in ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department.

The plant, estimated to cost around $1 billion, will be built and operated for 27 years by the Nam Ngum 3 Power Company (NN3PC), which is owned by three private sector companies: Thailand’s GMS Lao Company Ltd. and Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Plc, together with Axia Power Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Marubeni Corporation. The Government of Lao PDR will also hold a stake through the Lao Holding State Enterprises (LHSE).

ADB will lend up to $350 million to NN3PC. Thai banks and other international financial institutions will also provide loans to the project. ADB is also lending approximately $115 million to the Lao PDR government to finance LHSE’s equity stake in NN3PC.

The new plant is expected to generate upwards of $770 million for Laos, of which more than $200 million is specifically earmarked for poverty reduction and environmental protection programmes.

The public-private Nam Ngum 3 power plant, on the Nam Ngum River in northern Laos, will provide 2,072 gigawatt hours of clean energy annually for export to neighbouring Thailand. Approximately half of Thailand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from power generation, and most of its electricity is generated by power plants using fossil fuels, primarily natural gas.

“By using hydropower instead of fossil fuels, Thailand will avoid an average one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year – the equivalent of taking 175,000 vehicles off the road,” said Anthony Jude, Director in ADB’s Southeast Asia Department. The Nam Ngum 3 project will comprise a 220-metre-high dam that will create a 27.5 square kilometre reservoir.

A number of 144 households are relocated while around 45 more households located along the upgraded national road and the transmission line may also lose housing and parcels of land, and will be fully compensated for their losses. To Jude, in return, villagers will receive higher quality healthcare, improved education opportunities, access to electricity and allweather road access. The ADB ensured that its stringent environmental and social safeguards will ensure that any environmental and social impacts will be minimised and mitigated, and the livelihoods and standards of living of all those directly affected by the project will be better than they are now.

The Nam Ngum 3 plant, expected to be operational in 2017, will be located upstream of two existing hydropower plants, and downstream from another plant that is currently under construction. The Nam Ngum 4 A and B plants are also planned upstream of Nam Ngum 3.

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Asian Development Bank approves loan for Nam Ngum 3 hydro project

HydroWorld

VIENTIANE, Laos, 11/3/11 (Pennwell) – The Asian Development Bank has announced a US $465 million loan to the Nam Ngum 3 hydropower project in the Lao …

Bangkok’s Old-Timers Recall Even Worse Deluges

 

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By PATRICK BARTA

LL/Roger Viollet / Bangkok, circa 1900.

BANGKOK—Floodwaters inundate the city. Businesses shut down and water-borne diseases spread. Families turn to boats rather than cars to get around.

This isn’t the latest update from Bangkok’s current flood scare—it’s from 1983, one of the many times that floodwaters have ravaged the Thai capital. Floods were so bad that year that 400 schools closed from October to early December and some areas didn’t dry out until after the New Year.

It isn’t yet known how long the latest deluges will last, or what the total cost will be, as Thailand grapples with its worst flooding in years. A series of dykes and makeshift barricades designed to protect Bangkok from the full brunt of the floods appeared to be holding over the weekend, but experts warned the city isn’t out of danger yet.

Nearly 400 people have died across Thailand, hundreds of thousands of people are out of work, and damage to industrial estates north of Bangkok are reckoned to be in the billions of dollars. Cars were seen floating in a car park at the city’s shuttered Don Muang airport north of town on Sunday.

However bad the latest foods get, though, many Bangkok old-timers say they’ve seen even worse. The latest hysteria over the floods, they contend, is more a reflection of the changing nature of Thai society than a measure of the size or force of the floods themselves.

In decades past, Bangkok was known as the “Venice of the East” because it was built on a marshy delta that flooded regularly, with canals as the main byways and an estimated three quarters or more of its inhabitants living in floating houses or houses on stilts. As recently as 1950, Bangkok had nearly 100 major, navigable khlongs, as canals here are known, which also served to divert floodwaters out to the sea.

That changed during Bangkok’s boom of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. More than half the canals were filled in to construct roads or buildings and to help curb insect-borne illnesses.

That coincided with the rise of a much larger urban and suburban middle class, including residents who had no connection with Bangkok’s watery past. They moved into modern housing subdivisions or high-rise condominium towers and grew accustomed to air conditioning and imported cars.

Many of these residents were among the first to evacuate Bangkok in recent days to out-of-town locations like the eastern seaboard beach resort of Pattaya. Those who stayed cleared the shelves of grocery stores as they stockpiled water, instant noodles and other dwindling food supplies in the affluent central city.

“I can’t blame them” for panicking, said Adul Phanthong, a 46-year-old day laborer who was found over the weekend fishing along a nearly submerged pier on the swollen Chao Phraya River that runs through old parts of the city.

Dressed in a camouflage hat, swim trunks and flip-flops, with a plate of meatballs on sticks nearby, he said he remembered seeing far worse when he was a young man growing up along the Chao Phraya.

One year, he said, floodwaters were waist-high all the way to Bangkok’s 1930s-era Democracy Monument, more than a kilometer inland. This year, he said, his residence by a river pier wasn’t badly flooded, thanks to higher embankments built by the city over the years.

Chris Baker, a Bangkok-based analyst and historian who has co-written several books about the country, said he recalls navigating Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road—a thoroughfare for shopping and expatriate communities here—in a Thai “longtail” boat during the 1983 floods. He said his co-writer, Pasuk Phongpaichit, recalls playing every year in area floods as a child. “It was absolutely normal,” he said.

This time, Sukhumvit Road has stayed mostly dry so far. But around-the-clock media attention—and higher expectations among wealthier residents— has intensified the anxiety and led to more criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis.

The addition of vast housing estates and industrial areas north of the capital has put far more property in harm’s way, and created more barriers that trap water, Mr. Baker said, greatly exacerbating the problem for people outside of Bangkok.

“It’s the gains of the economic progress of the last generation which is now being sunk underwater,” he said.

In the oldest parts of town by the Chao Phraya, though, residents were going about their business over the weekend more or less as usual as floodwaters rose and fell.

A giant street market along the river was stocked with vegetables and goods impossible to find in the city’s modern supermarkets. Enterprising hawkers were selling inflatable rafts, life vests and animal-shaped floating pool toys, but there seemed to be few takers.

Water churned into streets nearby, in some places approaching knee-level. But residents like 58-year-old Chat Luenyang, a security guard for a cooking-oil distributor, were unfazed.

Mr. Chat was kicking back in a red chair in the front of his shophouse as a fast-moving stream of water flowed across the concrete floor at his feet. He had a bowl of duck livers, a bottle of Thai whiskey, a glass of ice and a radio on a table next to him.

He pointed to the back of his house, where water was squirting in through cracks before running through the house and out into the street. His possessions were hanging by hooks on the walls, or stuffed into a loft over his bed, which was raised slightly above the ankle-deep water below. At bedtime, he said, he left the door open to make sure water could flow out and didn’t drown him. He had a few dozen sandbags but said there was no point in using them—it would just trap more water.

“I don’t have anything to worry about,” he said. “This is nature. The water goes up, and it goes down—you don’t have to worry about it. Later, it’ll be gone.”

—Wilawan Watcharasakwet contributed to this article.