Villagers in Thailand who claim illness, crop damage from gas drilling see complaints ignored
More than 100 students and villagers crowded into a northeast Thailand college forum to hear about American gas companies conducting drilling operations in their region. A lieutenant colonel and dozens of soldiers and police officers followed them in.
The armed police began photographing members of the crowd, a menacing move in a country now run by a military junta that bars protests and routinely cracks down on dissenters. Some in the audience had already viewed the military as part of the problem, since months earlier they had forced demonstrators to make way for drilling equipment.
“With soldiers in the meeting room we were scared because we could not criticize the state officers who protect the company,” said Chainarong Sretthachau, a professor who organized the May event at Mahasarakham University. “If I did not agree, they would not allow us to organize the conference.”
