Petronas and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) have agreed to incorporate two companies, one in Malaysia and the other in Thailand, on a 50:50 basis.

Thailand and Malaysia have committed to a US$2.42 billion contract to share the costs of constructing a 255 kilometer offshore pipeline to transport the gas to Thailand, where it will be purified into sales gas and other fractions at the new gas separation plant at Chana in Songkhla province.

Finally, a share of the gas would be piped a further 93 kilometers to the border to link into the Malaysian Peninsular Gas Utilization pipeline at Changlun in Kedah.

Plight and Flight of the People

The pipeline to the Malaysian border passes four districts of Songkhla; Chana, Namom, Hat Yai and Sadao. To many traditional Muslims here, the project represents the intrusion of a kind of globalization they have sought to keep at bay. It is the latest in a growing number of disputes that have inflamed conflicts between discontented local residents of villages scattered across Southeast Asia and government officials bent on modernizing their countries.

To block construction, the 5,500 Muslim villagers here have put up a makeshift stockade where they convene for lectures on energy, pollution and globalization. The teach-ins have worked so far: The US$500 million Trans Thai-Malaysia Pipeline has been delayed so long that Malaysian officials are considering a new route that would bypass Thailand.

Way of Life Threatened

Locals say the two projects will threaten their way of life and destroy their food sources, as well as jeopardise the country’s food security. Thus they have no choice but to fight against the two projects, both of which are in the control of a transnational corporation called the Trans Thai-Malaysia Company (TTM) in which the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) and Petronas of Malaysia hold equal shares. These projects are bringing about both physical and structural violence. The physical violence that the public perceives results from the locals’ opposition to the projects.

Sulaiman Madyusuf, a leader of the opposition, insisted that the violent actions used during the two public hearings last year were unplanned, and taken as a last resort when their pleas to the authorities fell on deaf ears. “We have submitted many letters listing our concerns over the projects to the relevant authorities. But nobody listens, much less takes any action to deter or revise the projects. They are indifferent to us,” said Sulaiman. The locals say that greater violence was perpetrated against them when they were excluded from the decision-making process. “Why must we accept a project that did not involve us in the planning process? Why must we accept a project that will destroy our well-being and our livelihood?” asked Roheam Sa-ud, another leader.

EIA Rejected for the Sixth Time

On August 27 2001, about 1,000 villagers demonstrated again in front of Prince of Songkhla University in Hat Yai. The demonstrators rallied against the possible approval of the gas separation plants’ Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study. The EIA was later rejected for the sixth time by the Office of Environmental Policy Planning (OEPP). To most locals in Chana, Na Mom, Thepha and Hat Yai districts of Songkhla, it seems the authorities are blind and ignore the rights which are guaranteed to them under the constitution. “Why don’t the authorities take this matter into consideration? It seems to me that we have to pay a high price just to ask the government to look at our pleas,” said Sulaiman.

The local Muslim communities have now built a new building and a mosque on land where the gas pipeline would connect to the separation plant. They would rather fight to the death than let their culture and way of life be exploited by a few parties who are greed infested.

The above write-up was compiled by Yeoh Jit Kooi from various articles in The Bangkok Post. Yeoh works with the Penang-based Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), one of the regional centres of the international Pesticide Action Network, a global coalition of citizens groups and individuals who oppose the misuse and overuse of pesticides and support the reliance on safe and sustainable alternatives.

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