Attn: James D. Wolfensohn
President, World Bank
c/o World Bank, Bangkok, Thailand
We, Thai villagers affected by World Bank-financed dam projects, and local people’s organizations from across Thailand, are writing to express our concerns about the World Bank’s ceaseless promotion of socially and environmentally destructive developments schemes in Thailand and now in Lao PDR with the Nam Theun 2 project. Bank-financed
projects including the Pak Mun dam (1994) and Lam Takhong (2004) have seriously and negatively affected Thai people who depend upon natural resources, including land, forest, rivers and fisheries, for their livelihoods.

Based on this experience, we are very concerned that the World Bank is now giving active support to another large dam project, Nam Theun 2, which, if built, will have countless negative impacts on both Lao PDR and Thailand. We know from experience with the Pak Mun dam and Lam Takhong pumped irrigation scheme that the World Bank will
finance projects and then avoid responsibility for the environmental problems they create. Both projects benefited a few companies and government parties but caused harm to many more people. The World Bank has never shown a serious interest in studying project impacts either before making its funding decisions or after the people suffer the
impacts.

In the Pak Mun case, we submitted many complaints to the World Bank in relation to the dam’s impacts on our river and fishing communities, both before and after the dam was completed in 2004. Same with the Lam Takhong pumped irrigation project. We submitted complaints to the World Bank in 2002 when the mountain was dynamited to make way
for the pumping station, which resulted in terrible pollution, killing livestock and causing respiratory ailments in our communities. In both cases, local people urged the World Bank to be responsible for the impacts, especially on the poor.

But the World Bank denied responsibility and said project victims should work with the Thai government instead.

The World Bank has never shown us any real commitment to take project impacts seriously and get involved in problem solving afterwards, at the very least, to provide all parties with important lessons to avoid the same mistakes elsewhere. Meanwhile,
the negative impacts on our lives continue and any hope for recovery is getting more difficult.

Also, the World Bank has never seriously evaluated its failure in terms of its promises of economic benefits and poverty reduction. For example, now Pak Mun dam only produces 40 MW out of the total generating capacity of 135 MW. And Lam Takhong project was
originally supposed to generate 500 MW but we understand its output is nowhere close to that. The people affected by these economic failures did not get appropriate compensation. In this case, the World Bank should realize that it has no right to collect repayment of its loans from the people of Thailand.

We think the World Bank owes Thai people reparation funds for recovery instead.

Now with Nam Theun 2, the World Bank is doing the same thing as it did with Pak Mun and Lam Takhong by promoting economic benefits and poverty reduction. The World Bank has said very clearly that it is very confident in the project’s viability.

But we Pak Mun people have raised some concerns and questions during the World Bank’s Nam Theun 2 seminar held in Bangkok last August. We understand that in preparation for building the Nam Theun 2 dam, the proponents have not provided local communities with accurate information about the dam’s long-term impacts. We are very worried that the people on the Nakai Plateau and along the Xe Bang Fai river will be severely affected by the dam, not so different from what we have faced at Pak Mun: more poverty and lost livelihoods once the river was dammed and our fisheries destroyed.

At the workshop we requested the World Bank to invite the people from the Nam Theun 2 area to the Pak Mun area.

But we never got an answer. That suggests to us that the World Bank is not interested in learning from its mistakes. According to Ian Porter, the World Bank’s Country Director for Thailand, the Nam Theun 2 dam will happen only if three conditions are satisfied:

1) The project will reduce poverty;

2) The project will be technically, economically sound; and

3) The project will have support from the international donor community and civil society organizations.

Mr. Porter also said that NT2 benefits will outweigh the costs. But we insist, based on our  experience, that the World Bank will not be able to meet these three conditions for financing NT2. We don’t believe the problems caused by large-scale dams like Nam Theun 2 can be solved.

So we, the affected people and Thai civil society, oppose World Bank support for the Nam
Theun 2 project because we don’t want Laotians to suffer the same fate as us. We pledge to continue opposing and at the same time monitoring the Bank’s involvement in the Nam Theun 2 project in Lao PDR.

Signed by representatives from the following people’s organizations:

The Village People Committee on Mun River Livelihood and Community Recovery, Ubonratchathani province, Thailand Affected Peoples,

Lam Takhong project Affected Peoples, Mae Moh power project Affected Peoples,

Sirindhorn dam Development and Ecological of the Phong River, Khon Kaen
province, Thailand

The Network of Mun and Chee River Community
Organisations, Khon Kaen province, Thailand

Songkram Conservation
Group, Sakornnakorn province, Thailand

Chiang Khong Conservation Group,
Chiang Rai province, Thailand

Kanchanaburi Conservation Group,
Kanchanaburi province, Thailand

Assembly of the Poor.