Residents seek leniency

Officials of the provincial Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc) have been enforcing the 64th and 66th orders issued by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). The farmers said the officials had too stringently adhered to a 1998 Cabinet decision that required residency on land with steep slopes to be regarded unlawful and subject to reclamation.

 

NHRC member Nirand Pithak-watchara said he had received 14 petitions from residents either in the North or elsewhere, which asked him to mediate talks with the NCPO to seek leniency or extension of time.

 

A leader of residents in the North said if the crackdown was based too stringently on the principle of slopes, more than 80 per cent of residents living on such land would be affected, as most areas in the North are mountainous. He proposed that if the action could not be called off at least it should be made more lenient, or replaced by a scheme in which residents could stay on such properties in exchange for work.

 

Residents living outside the North are in the southern provinces of Trang, Phatthalung and Phuket, and Buri Ram and Ubon Ratchathani provinces in the Northeast.

 

A senior Isoc official, Maj-General Khomsorn Katethip, said the NCPO-initiated crackdown, was important to stop extensive encroachment, as fertile forest or national parks had been encroached on at the rate of a million rai each year. The action was aimed at protecting forests and reclaiming 40 per cent of forest areas.

 

He said the NCPO orders had seen 300 suspects held in 370 cases following raids, along with 20,000 rai of illegally acquired land seized.

 

The crackdown has a year’s time frame to stop encroachment in 12 provinces and elsewhere, the reclaiming of all such lands in one year, and their conservation and management in the next two years. A 10-year reforestation scheme would follow to increase reclamation by 40 per cent, he said.