The Mae Moh Trip –shuling

关于开发煤矿造成的一些污染在我国很多地方都存在。这一次，程淑玲与伙伴们一起来到Mae Moh这个小村庄，也是一个被煤矿困扰的地方，这里他们处理问题的方法可以带给我们更多的启发。

Last Friday, we went to Mae Moh village, which is polluted by a coal mine. The villagers are relocated to new place, and one of them told us it is 12km far from the coal factory now. Though the new village is still near the coal mine, they fight for 20 years. The community leader, Maliwan, told us the story with strong emotions.
 
Maliwan told us that the old village has more than 150 year of history. In the past, they had good lives and a good environment. But everything was changed because the EGAT built the power plant in 1954, and the EGAT built other plants that made the environment worse. It’s very bad for them, but in another side, it is also made them became very strong.
 
Maliwan said in the beginning, “we didn’t know anything about it, didn’t know the law and the rights.” The government could take their land easily. It was really very difficult for them to fight. But in the next few years, they found the air smell bad, and many people got sick or died. They stared to learn more about it. Though I am not very clear about every detail, I still admired their work.
 
I remembered Maliwan said they want to work together with four other villages, but they didn’t be trust them the first time. So they did their own protests and other things to get trust. Moliwan also said once time she talked with the ministry of energy. She was afraid to say something, but she thought.” If I didn’t say anything, how can I go back?” Then she told the ministry the situation about Mae Moh, and say “so many people are sick because of coal mine, it is the government’s project, so the government need to do something.” Though the situation was not changed very much, I can feel Maliwan became stronger than before, she wanted to protect other villagers and expressed her idea in public.
 
Maliwan had chance go to Japan to talk with the ADB, and push them to take responsibility for their project. I think she became a powerful community leader in this time. I saw the picture of her she speaking in the conference room. She was standing up and holding a paper, looked like an expert. I think the process is very interesting. The EGAT and the local government didn’t care about the villagers because they were ignorant, but the villagers became very strong because the local government ignored them.
 
I know that Mae Moh village and other affected villages are still fighting for their composition and rights, they need to deal with many problems. But I think it’s better than before. In China, we have many problems come from coal mine, like excessive mining and occupational health hazards. I am not very sure about this issue because I don’t work about on this, but I know that many workers have died because of mine collapses, and many people didn’t get enough composition. Now the villages face new problem. Because of the excessive mining, the land subsidence happened in many places; all the villagers had to relocate. I think if the villagers also can do campaign like Mae Moh, they make the situation better than it is now.