Recently there have been many articles concerning Thailand's decision to move its heavy industries to Burma's Dawei.
The Bangkok Post a few days ago had an editorial article about the affects of the move, and one of those, which correlated to an article I wrote previously, was that it would be seen as "dumping pollution" into the country where environmental regulations are poor. Thus we might be seeing another "Map Ta Phut" incident happening in our neighbouring country.
And policy makers aren't doing a lot to provide assurance towards environmental activists.
Yesterday Industry Minister Chaiwuti Bannawat announced that he would make a visit to Dawei on the 18th this month to inspect all the ports as well as industrial areas.
And so I asked him whether or not the ministry is concerned about environmental problems that might occur.
"That is under the responsibility of Burma," said Mr Chaiwuti, adding that if the upstream steel industry cannot be set up in Thailand, there are only a few places that are suitable (implying Burma as one of the places).
That wasn't an answer that I had prepared to recieve. I actually had a strange feeling as soon as he finished saying that sentence.
So we're pushing all the burden to our neighbouring country without thinking what we could do on our part? Would the answer be the same if it was some investment in Thailand?
What about the protection strips that we're aiming to set up here as a barrier between industries and communities? Couldn't we work on something like that together with the Burmese government, or sort of bring up the idea?
What I hoped for was this : "All environmental laws are under the provision of Burma; however the Industry Ministry is currently working with various agencies in order to ensure that .... (blah blah blah)."
At least something along those lines. Well, at least that would imply that the government actually cares.
What I wonder is whether Mr Chaiwuti is being too honest or is our government really doing nothing to ensure that Thai companies will do the best we can on our part to protect the lives and human rights of people living in communities.
Isn't it something that we should cooperate on rather than push all the responsibility to one side?
I wonder if environmental concerns are even included in the discussions he is planning to have with Burma's Industry Minister on this trip.
