Page 2 of 2 Capitalizing the Thai-Myanmar
border By Clifford McCoy
country's
southeastern region linking Myawaddy to Moulmein
on the coast and then runs northwest to central
Myanmar where it joins the rest of the highway
system.
The highway is also part of the
ADB-backed East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC)
linking Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. The
development initiative envisions a road link from
the Vietnamese port of Danang on the South China
Sea, through
Laos
and Thailand and across Myanmar to a planned deep
sea port at Moulmein as part of an Economic
Cooperation Program. The new route will cut 3,000
kilometers off the 4,000 kilometer route that
cargo ships currently take around Singapore to
reach the Indian Ocean.
The Thai
government has agreed to provide the financing to
Myanmar to construct or rehabilitate the 200
kilometer section of road from Myawaddy through
Moulmein and on to the northern Thai town of
Thaton through a combination of US$100 million
worth of soft loans and grant assistance. Parts of
the road are to be upgraded from one lane to two
or four lanes, while at least one section will
follow a completely new route. Under the
agreement, Myanmar will supply the machinery and
construction materials as well as provide security
against the threat of possible ethnic insurgent
group attacks.
The initial 18 kilometers
over the Dawna mountain range from Myawaddy to the
town of Thinganyinyaung were completed last year
by the Thai Sor Chiangrai Construction Company for
an estimated $30 million, which was financed by
the Thai government. A survey team from the PSV
Consultant Group is currently conducting a survey
of the next 40km section from Thinganyinyaung to
Kawkareik.
This new section does not
follow the previous route and must be built anew
and the Thai government has provided a $14 million
grant for the construction of this section. Recent
outbreaks of fighting in the area have forced the
company to ask the SPDC to provide security for
the surveyors. According to the ADB's plan, a
second route is planned that will branch off at
Myawaddy and head south to the town of Kya and
then northwest to Mudon and Moulmein. This 100km
route will also be paid for through a soft loan
provided by the Thai government.
Tacit
assistance All of these projects are very
much a part, either expressly or implicitly, of
the ADB's EWEC project. Although there is very
little, if any, direct ADB involvement in the
Myanmar portion of the project, the bank
encourages the project and provides cash in the
form of so-called "technical assistance" grants to
allow SPDC officials to attend meetings and
seminars around the region in relation to the
project.
The ADB also supports other
regional projects that feed into the Myanmar
portion of the EWEC, although the bank has not
dispensed any direct loans to Myanmar since 1986
due to concerns of state-sponsored human rights
abuses in the country. The ADB may now claim that
it has no direct involvement in the Myanmar
portion of the EWEC project, but a look through
the ADB's development matrix on their website
shows that the multilateral lender is interested
in ensuring that the Myanmar end of the project is
properly and speedily developed.
Two of
the larger projects scheduled as joint ventures
between the Industrial Estate Authority of
Thailand and Myanmar's private sector include the
development of so-called "special border zones" in
Mae Sot and Myawaddy. Although the ADB is not
funding the projects directly, it has taken the
role through ADB-funded conferences and seminars
to encourage the project among its member counties
and includes it in its Greater Mekong Sub-region
development plans.
The projects aim to
create facilities for the export and import of
goods, temporary storage, processing and
value-adding facilities and the re-export to
Thailand of agricultural products and raw
materials, especially wood and precious stones.
The Mae Sot project is estimated to cost
$30 million, while another $400,000 has been
proposed for an initial feasibility study. The
Myawaddy zone, meanwhile, is expected to cost as
much as $10 million. Other projects that are
envisioned and feed into the larger designs are a
$100,000 regularization of agricultural products
between Myanmar and Thailand and a $500,000 fish
processing project in Moulmein. The agricultural
project which is aimed at Karen and Mon States
aims to increase the volume and efficiency of
Myanmar agriculture.
Other projects
envisioned for the corridor, most of which involve
all four countries, include an extension of
telecommunications services at the western end of
the EWEC into Myanmar, the financing of small and
medium-sized enterprises, cross-border electronic
data exchange, the development of sub-regional
marketing facilities, the institutionalizing of
traditionally informal trade, the standardization
of trade documents and an EWEC trade and
investment information system. Other than the $2
million telecommunications project, most of the
other projects are smaller scale, entailing
hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
Human-rights and environmental group Earth
Rights International (ERI) says that while the ADB
may not be directly involved in the project, the
technical assistance provided by the ADB allows
the SPDC to be added to forums where the project
is discussed and funding sought. By supporting
other projects within the EWEC framework, they
argue the ADB is implicitly encouraging other
countries in the region, chiefly Thailand, to
invest in the Myanmar end of the project. ERI is
one of several international organizations that
have called for the Asia Highway project to be
reviewed or even halted.
For the villagers
who are living in the area of the EWEC project,
the issue of who is actually funding and
supporting the project is not as important as how
they are going to cope with losing their land and
being forced to work on the projects.
A
recent report by KHRG entitled "Development by
Decree" has heated up the debate about how
beneficial the development plans will really be to
local villagers. The KHRG claims, and backs up
with interviews with villagers throughout Karen
state, that the SPDC regularly forces villagers to
give up their land to make way for development
projects, to work without payment on the
construction of the projects, and to work without
pay to maintain the projects.
The
increased security presence in the targeted areas,
the rights group alleges, also brings on its own
abuses as villagers are forced to work at military
camps, act as porters for the soldiers and are
extorted for food and money. The fear of groups
like ERI and KHRG is that development projects
done under the banner of the EWEC and the ECS will
not benefit the villagers the projects allegedly
aim to, but rather will only line the pockets of
Thai and Myanmar bureaucrats and businessmen and
through suspect means bids to maintain the ADB's
flagging regional relevance.
Clifford McCoy is a Chiang
Mai-based freelance journalist.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
