The Pak Mun dam, completed in 1994, had been the most high profile object of protest throughout the 1990s. Protesters claimed the dam had wrecked fishing in an important stretch of the northeast’s major river in order to generate enough electricity for a small department store. The project had been almost universally condemned. Fishing communities and environmental groups demanded the dam gates be opened permanently to allow the river to revive. The electricity authority had undertaken to abandon all similar projects in future, but was reluctant to write off its Pak Mun investment or be seen to bow to protest. Thaksin undertook personally to negotiate a solution. Despite the high profile of the dam over the previous decade. He clearly believed that poor fishermen could be persuaded to abandon the protest if enough money were offered for them to change occupation.