Aborted march in North shows flaws in forest evictions

On Sunday, Prapart together with some non-government organisations and farmers from the Northern Farmers Federation, launched a long march from the northern province of Chiang Mai to Bangkok to campaign for their demand for land reform that really benefits the poor.

They called for the end of a master plan mapped out by the Internal Security Operation Command (Isoc), which aimed to force a huge number of poor out of so-called “national forestry areas”.

The marchers raised the key issue of chronic land problems in Thailand, which badly need new ideas for reform and management. The classic problem of land arrangements in Thailand is that a large amount of land is in the hands of the minority rich – while many of the majority poor are landless and forced to farm on areas registered as national forest.

From the state’s point of view, the authorities want to kick poor farmers out and reserve the land for forest — which in fact no longer exists. Worse, sometimes the authorities clear the poor out and allow the rich in for tourism businesses and forestry plantations.

The issue is a key conflict, which has sat at the heart of land reform efforts and management for a long time. Nothing has been achieved in this area although the authorities have carried out “reforms” on forestland for decades.

On Sunday, military officers blocked Prapart and his group from marching to campaign on the issue – on the ground that this country is still under martial law and the junta wants to see order while it undertakes reforms.

Prapart and the farmers were determined about their plan and began a procession from Wat Suan Dok in Chiang Mai, heading to the capital, where the junta’s selected “reformers” were about to kick off their process of change, including the issue of land reform.

The academic and the farmers were forced to stop after being locked up in a jail-like truck. They were not released until they agreed to give up the march.

Prapart is a political scientist who has studied the movement of poor villagers and their land problems for decades. His participation in research into movements of the poor is remarkable and well known among academics interested in the issue.

Prapart said he was well aware of the consequences of his planned march, as the country is under martial law – but he wanted the public to know the root cause of the land problem in Thailand.

“Yes, I might suffer a bit from the arrest but my pain is so little compared to what the poor farmer gets from the state’s land management,” he said.

Prapart said the experience of poor people in military-sponsored land management in Dong Yai in Buri Ram in the 1990s was painful. The Army together with the Forestry Department tricked the poor into “land for farmer” projects. They lured them out of their old areas for new plots – then granted rental concessions over those fertile lands to the rich for forestry industries. The military said the villagers’ old areas were in national forests and parks, so they had to move out. Unfortunately, after making this move, some received land that was not suitable for farming at all, while others were even told no land was available.

“I think what is happening in the North is episode two of the Buri Ram project,” he said. “To prevent [a repeat of] that bad lesson, we should allow massive people to participate in land reform.”

Prapart’s arrest and his message were a big slap in the face for the junta’s hand-picked reformers who joined the National Reform Council based on their faith in military power for reform. They are about to draft a plan for reform in various sectors – including land, natural resources and agriculture – while the junta does everything it can to gag the people who really have problems. 

It must leave the reformers doubting what their efforts are all about.