From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Thai monk jailed for opposing logging
Date: 28 Dec 1992 21:31:39 -0800
Organization: ----
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandman.caltech.edu

The following article was obtained from Inter Press Service via the
worldwide Association for Progressive Communications.  I thought it
might be of interest to readers of soc.religion.eastern.  If anyone
knows more about this story, or has addresses of who to contact to
protest this imprisonment and/or the underlying issue of logging in
the rainforests of Thailand, please post a followup article.

Gary


/* Written 12:15 am  Dec 21, 1992 by cdp:newsdesk in chasque:ips.englibrary */
/* ---------- "THAILAND: Green monk ready to go to" ---------- */

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: THAILAND: Green monk ready to go to jail to protest injustice


bangkok, dec 19 (ips/kunda dixit) -- a thai buddhist monk who is
fighting to save the shrinking rainforests of his country and was
sentenced to one year in jail this week says he is does not mind
ending up behind bars if it will draw attention to injustices.

''i'm prepared,'' conservationist monk phra prajak kutajitto
said defiantly. ''my legs have been chained.'' he says he is
trying to stop influential businessmen with military connections
from exploiting thailand's disappearing jungles.

this week, a provincial court found phra prajak guilty of
leading an attack on a government agricultural station in 1991
and sentenced him to one year in jail.

the monk had stepped in front of club-wielding policemen to
prevent violence against villagers protesting a government
resettlement plan in north-eastern thailand.

the international human rights group, amnesty international,
says it is following the monk's case and is ready to launch an
international appeal if it finds his rights have been violated.

in 1988, the 54-year-old monk launched a grassroots movement
against a military-backed eucalyptus plantation in thailand's
impoverished northeastern provinces. the campaign has spread and
a growing number of green monks throughout thailand have taken up
the practice of ordaining trees to protect them.

the protests started in a lush forest area in hua nam pood,
some 300 km north-east of bangkok. under a government project,
villagers living in the forest would have been evicted, trees cut
and sold and eucalyptus grown on the land.

thailand's forestry department with private companies seek to
to turn vast areas of the north-east into eucalyptus plantations
to green the barren area and raise incomes.

but environmentalists say one-species forests like the
eucalyptus plantations are ecologically harmful, erase bio-
diversity and benefit only large businesses.

half of thailand's area used to rainforest in 1961. since
then, commerical exploitation and encroachment has reduced it to
20 percent. environmentalists agree with the need to replant
trees, but are opposed to commercial plantations.

a big forestry scheme for thailand backed by the world bank,
the united nations development programme and the food and
agriculture organisation (fao) was reviewed last year after green
groups criticised it for not being sustainable.

pra prajak's tactic has been to ordain trees, which makes
forests technically out-of-bounds for loggers in this devoutly
buddhist nation. saffron scarves tied around tree-trunks show
illegal loggers that the forest is holy. (more/ips)

thailand: green (2)

the respected priest has mobilised the local people to oppose
the government's plans, but forestry officials and local police
have accused him of inciting the villagers to violence.

the monk got death threats, pro-conservation villagers were
harassed and pra prajak soon found that being a buddhist priest
was not going to protect him from big business interests.

''the forest where the villagers live has become the centre of
conflict because it is wanted by people with money and power, by
an alliance of corrupted officials and greedy businessmen,'' pra
prajak said in a newspaper interview last week.

pra prajak says he gets his strength from the people. but he
admits that the one year prison sentence was a shock.

''i was disillusioned. i felt as if i was fighting a losing
battle. i felt extremely tired and wanted to give up,'' he said.

although the green priests have managed to raise the
consciousness of villagers about the need to protect forests, the
government's eucalyptus policy has not been changed.

says the soft-spoken and affable pra prajak: ''the villagers
are still facing the tiger.''

thai green groups estimate that some 300,000 people could be
affected all over the north-east from the forestry department's
plans to establish plantations.

pra prajak says that unlike other religions, buddhism has a
special relationship with forests: ''taking a monk out of forest
is like taking fish out of water. the forest is the monk's
teacher, revealing to us the 'dhamma' or laws of nature.''

grassroots activists question thailand's model of development
and its goal of being a newly-industrialised country like other
east asian dragons like hong kong, taiwan and singapore.

but even pra prajak acknowledges that he can only slow the
process of change, and cushion its impact so that villagers who
depend on the forest for their livelihood have time to adapt.

''the cause of (forest destruction) is that we see the price
but not the value of forests,'' he says. ''the problem is greed.
the forest is doomed if we cannot grow it in people' hearts and
make people human.'' (end/ips/en/kd/92)

-- 
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst