• OPINION

  Free-flowing Salween River needs protection

  Oped, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 14/03/2023

  » This morning at Sob Moei -- the confluence of the Moei and the Salween rivers on the Thailand-Myanmar border -- indigenous peoples and their supporters are attending a spiritual ceremony to express their collective stance to protect the Salween River from destructive dam projects.

• OPINION

  Today is a 'Day of Action for Rivers'

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 14/03/2022

  » On a sandy beach by the Salween River on the Thai-Myanmar border in March 2006, boats carrying Karen villagers and other ethnic groups such as Karenni, Yintalai and Shan from various areas in the Salween Basin are arriving to join an important yet simple ceremony.

• OPINION

  Humanitarian catastrophe on the Salween River

  Oped, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 19/06/2021

  » 'I can't figure it out. Thai officials told us to leave and [we'll] probably have to end up living in the forest. We need to squeeze ourselves among the cracks of the ravines to keep ourselves safe from airstrikes by the Myanmar army," Naw Lay Bue, a Karen housewife with her three-month-old baby in her arms, told me in an interview in March, a few days after she and other villagers fled to Thailand following air raids launched by the Myanmar army in Karen State.

• OPINION

  Women bear highest cost of injustice

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 08/03/2021

  » Soithip, an ethnic Karen-Thai woman from Bang Kloi in the Kaeng Krachan Forest, was among 22 villagers who were rounded up last Friday by state authorities and put behind bars at the Phetchaburi Provincial Prison. Returning to their ancestral land in the forest is a crime in the eye of the state.

• OPINION

  Karen fear ravages from river diversion schemes

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 14/03/2020

  » Muesaw Chokedilok, an ethnic Karen woman from Thailand's Kaburdin Village in Chiang Mai's Omkoi district, hops aboard an old pickup truck for a rugged ride up the mountain. With her are a group of housewives from the same village, all clad in cotton handwoven clothes with beaded lace and colourful headscarves. They are on the way to meet a group of journalists from Bangkok. Their village is at least four hours by car to Muang Chiang Mai.

• THAILAND

  Scrapping of Mekong 'rapids-blasting' long overdue

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 08/02/2020

  » In a momentous win for the Mekong River, this week the Thai cabinet formally called for the cancellation of the Lancang-Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project, popularly known as the Mekong "rapids-blasting" project.

• OPINION

  Dam projects require serious debate

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 21/09/2017

  » A review of Thailand's energy plans reveals an abundant electricity supply that vastly exceeds demand. So in the midst of this energy glut, why are we pushing hard to build more problematic hydroelectric dams in our neighbours' territories?

• OPINION

  Investments should recognise local rights

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 22/05/2017

  » A year ago, the cabinet issued a resolution recognising an obligation to protect human rights in Thai outbound investments. With Thai companies increasing their operations in neighbouring countries in sectors that carry significant risks for human rights and the environment, further action to put this important commitment into practice is now overdue.

• OPINION

  Salween dams threaten river communities

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 29/09/2016

  » The Thai government's recent push to speed up its energy investment in Myanmar's Salween River contradicts its own efforts to warn Thai investors from operating overseas projects that violate human rights.

• THAILAND

  Visit is chance to rethink investments

  News, Pianporn Deetes, Published on 23/06/2016

  » This week's visit by Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's state counsellor, to Thailand appears to hold out hope for Thai state and private investors to revitalise their plans for key investments in Myanmar. Among these projects, the most prominent are the Dawei Special Economic Zone and a cascade of hydroelectric dams on the Salween River.

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