Office of the NHRCT and organizations that had MOU with it made a human rights visit to Songkhla and Satun Province. On June 18-19, 2012, Mr. Veeravit Veeravoravit, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Human Rights Commission acting on behalf of Secretary-General of the National Human Rights Commission and staff made a field visit together with personnel from Prince of Songkhla University and the mass media as a part of the Project for Promotion of Cooperation on Human Right Works with Organisations that have MOU with the Commission. Objective of this field visit is to coordinate with network of academics and local networks in the area in order to create cooperation for human rights promotion and protection and look for ways to promote and protect resources in the community and people affected by construction of Jana Power Station, Khao Kooha rock mine and construction of Pak Bara Deep Sea Port. The visit was also aimed to create an opportunity for the network of academics, mass media, local affected people and non-governmental organizations to meet and share their information which would be useful for the works to promote and protect human rights in the areas, making them more effective. On 18th June 2012, the group made a visit to study projects belonging to both the state and private investors of which local people in Jana District of Songkhla Province claimed to affect their way of life, livelihood and human rights. The first case involved Jana Power Station of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand constructed by the Government Cabinet’s resolution on 7th June 2005. Team Consulting, Engineering and Management Company Limited was hired to prepare a report of the project’s environment impact assessment of which the National Environment Board approved on 19th April 2005. This power station uses natural gas as fuel for electricity generation and water from Nathab Canal and Phoma Canal to supply its cooling system, resulting in water in Nathab Canal being polluted and could not be used by local people anymore and also ecosystem of the canal being destroyed. The second case visited involved construction of a deep sea port at Suan Kong by the Marine Department. The project’s environment impact assessment or EIA has already been completed, but local people came out to oppose it because they saw that the EIA was not consistent with facts of the area. For instance, the EIA states that there existed only two species of fish in the sea at Suan Kong while local people could show the fact about richness of marine life there, including dolphin. Local people also said that construction of the deep sea port would affect fishing which was a main occupation of people in the area. The third case was about impacts from Jana natural gas separation plant which was another project that created problems in forms of noise, dust and smell, affecting local people’s health. The group then visited Rattaphum District to study impacts from Khao Kooha rock mine where the government issued license to two private companies in 1999 to do rock mining. For more than ten years, the companies have used heavy machines to work on the rock hill and set out explosion twice a day, damaging local people’s houses, causing the people to panic with tremors and health problems with dust, and destroying villagers’ way of life as, for example, the explosion sent rocks around rendering their paddy fields unusable and destroying their rubber trees. Affected villagers therefore had organized themselves to protect their rights by establishing “Khao Kooha Community Right School” inviting academics to provide more knowledge to fellow villagers. These actions made this group of villagers strong and was able to fight against the companies that tried to ask for extension of license period. They brought the case to court, demanding compensation for the negative impacts they had received. Court accepted the case and judged that the villagers are to receive compensation money from the companies. At the same time, the villagers were sued by the companies for compensation as well, claiming that they opposed the companies’ attempt to seek new license. The affected villagers, however, were not afraid of this threat and continued to fight. Their goal is that the state permanently ends mining activities there and pays all affected villagers money to compensate for the damages that had occurred. It can be summarized from all these cases that the state and private investor groups had initiated projects in the areas without seeking opinions or facts from the villagers or allowing them to have a say whether or not they want to have the project in the areas of their community and if they wanted, how. Government officials involved were not transparent and actually distorted facts, and did not care about would-be impacts on local people’s way of life and community while being helpful to the private companies. Villagers did not want development that destroys their own way of life and thus asked academics to actively help them by giving them knowledge and information, providing them supports or being their representatives to negotiate with the companies. In case of Khao Kooha rock mine, for instance, the affected villagers wanted academics to be their representatives in the arbitration to negotiate with the companies. Mr. Veeravit Veeravoravit, the Acting Secretary-General of the National Human Rights Commission, told the villagers and the visiting group that it is difficult to deal with human right issues alone, there is a need to create alliance or networks as much as possible, so that their efforts would be powerful. Without such power, when the state brings economic development to any local area, there would be problems and impacts on both environment and community right. He proposed that academics, in fact the education sector as a whole, use their knowledge to help the people. The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand is pleased to be a part of their alliance, providing both moral support and concrete assistance. On 19th June 2012, Mr. Veeravit Veeravoravit, the Acting Secretary-General of the National Human Rights Commission, and the visiting group went to study impacts from the Marine Department’s Pak Bara Deep Sea Port Construction Project in Satun Province. Local people saw that construction of the deep sea port would create so many impacts and thus organized themselves to oppose the project because upon completion of the project, they would not be able to use the area again. This deep sea port construction would also destroy ecosystem, sea grass and coral reefs that they depended to make their living as fishermen. With the sea port, they have to look for fish elsewhere. In construction process, sand deposit at sea bottom would also be dredged, creating much smell to disturb the villagers. In addition, the villagers also claimed that the Marine Department never asked for their opinions before taking any action. So far they had never been informed details of the project. The state agency only told them that the project would bring them prosperity. They therefore sought for information themselves and upon obtaining it, decided to organize to oppose the project because it did not come from any wish of local people. Mr. Veeravit gave his opinion about this case that this action (of the Marine Department) is against the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand which states in Article 66 and 67 that supports must be given to participation of local community; to implement any projects that would affect any local people, the project needs to be accepted by the people and the people must receive information about the project which would affect them. He continued that it is glad that the people became aware of and rose to protect their rights by themselves. Finally, he emphasized that the NHRCT would work to make government agencies importantly take human rights of the community into consideration. 22/06/2012