August 2013 Finally Meets the Shwe Gas Victims on Kyaukphyu Island and last democracy seminar

During the four (4) fact-finding trips to Maesot or Chiang Mai in Thailand 2010-2013, the Clinic could hear only indirectly about the human rights situation around the Shwe gas facilities made inaccessible by the distance and borders tightly controlled by Myanmar's military. On August 18-19, 2013, the Clinic on its 5th fact finding trip finally visits Kyaukphyu Island and meets the farmers whose lands were taken by DAEWOO International under the process arranged by the military dictatorship back in late 2009.

The Clinic had a large meeting at the town's temple with the 40 or so farmers who had lost the lands during the process and held individual interviews to register the farmers' names, identification, land size, location, economic loss, and also to have the powers of attorney signed so that the a lawsuit can be filed in a court of law in South Korea, the domicile of DAEWOO International.

Professor KS Park explaining the purpose of the visit

This town hall was part of the temple structure. The bright spots on the wall are natural light.

Students Guyeon CHUNG and Yongjoon SONG conducting individual interviews. There were only 2 Arakanese-English interpreters so students broke into 2 interviewer teams.

The entire town did not have electricity. When a squall hit during the meeting, the phone lights were used to carry on with the interviews.

Photo identifications and facial photos were taken for identification purposes.

Google Earth's map was used to locate the lands transferred. The farmers were not give title documents by the government so they could identify only by natural markers such as trees and creeks.

Translating the Korean power of attorney into English and then into Arakanese, the night before the meeting. KS and Youngmin are trying to fix the light at the accommodation and

From viewer's left: Younghye JOO, Injae HWANG, Youngmin PARK, Yongjun SONG, Htit Lin (local attorney who confirmed the unfair amount and process of compensation), Youngbum KWON, KS Park, Guyeon CHUNG, and local civil society members not identified for security reasons

The second meeting with U Kyaw Myint, the 66-years-old local politician/lawyer that the Clinic had met during the March 2013 visit to Yangon, who explained that seeking a remedy through a Myanmar court of law will be futile due to corruption of judges and also local attorneys' lack of training and experience in civil damages litigation. He is also a college physics major but was imprisoned 3 years for violating the Unlawful Assembly Law and then became a lawyer in 1985 to fight for democracy. To continue the fight, he did not get married and many of his colleagues have remained single for the same reason.

It was striking that the affected towns largely made up of the shacks made of palm leaves did not have a water/power grid while DAEWOO's onshore gas terminal was the only source of light after sunset and modern construction, all behind the guarded fences.

DAEWOO International kept mentioning "hospital and school" that they built for the community. The "school" is one undivided warehouse without running water or electricity where all 6 grade levels of students study, divided up not by walls but by open screens into 3 sections 2 grade levels each. The "hospital" was an unstaffed and locked facility that the villagers described as "hardly used" at the time of the visit.

At the morning of the large meeting, the local government called an emergency meeting at the conflicting time probably in order to prevent the farmers from coming to the Clinic's meeting. The proposed topic of the meeting was provision of electricity. The photo shows the villagers gathered outside the local government office. The village leaders helping set up the Clinic's meeting said "Let's just wait. Villagers will come to our meeting." One by one, they arrived in the Clinic's meeting.

The Clinic and village leaders are waiting for the villagers to arrive at the meeting site. One of them in the photo is a plain clothes officer with a recording device, as pointed out by one of the villagers.

Before going to Kyaukphyu Island, the students spoke at the joint seminar with Lawyers' Network in Yangon, comparing Korean law, Myanmar, and international trends on the following topics: Younghye on freedom of speech, Youngmin on due process, Guyeon on independent judiciary, Inje on development economics, Yongjoon and Youngbum on "resource curse" and international resource transparency movement. The person sitting at the end of the table is Hla Tun, the leader of Lawyers' Network.