Krabi official appeals to PM

 

AFTER FIREARMS and arson were allegedly used to drive out landless farmers from a palm-oil plantation in Krabi’s Muang district on Wednesday, a Krabi Land Reform official yesterday called on the Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to evoke absolute power under Article 44 and clear the plantation from both sides. 

Bunthoon Boonnarakorn said this would enable the setting up of a new committee to allocate land for landless and poor people in the province. 

Bunthoon said it is necessary to use absolute power, because since 2014 he has been fighting a land-encroachment case against the private firm whose concession to use the plantation has expired, but following normal procedure will take more than a decade. He also admitted that he and Forestry Department officials did not dare to go to the plantation due to the presence of unknown armed men. 

He urged people not to believe claims that anybody can get a plot inside the plantation for Bt20,000, adding that land will have to be allocated to needy persons in the province first. 

On Wednesday, Bunthoon said the revocation of the plantation’s illegitimate “So Por Kor 4-01” land-rights documents was ongoing, and once a verdict was issued, the Krabi Land Reform Committee could go ahead with allocating land for poor landless people in the province.

Meanwhile, police and members of the media inspected the burned shacks yesterday, and also came upon a checkpoint with armed villagers. The villagers claimed the checkpoint was set up by local village headmen to push out squatters, though they insisted they did not use any force or arson against the farmers. 

Police checked out the few burnt shacks for an hour but found nobody there. Hundreds of other shacks had been left untouched. Pol Lieutenant Manit Buathong, chief of patrol police from Krabi Noi Police Station, said there was a risk of gun ambush as there had been previous reports of shooting in the area. 

Meanwhile, Colonel Prasartpop Yakangchat from the Fourth Army Region’s 43 Military Circle (Thung Song) met with Muang Krabi Police Station chief Pol Colonel Sompong Thip-apakul and district officials yesterday to discuss the alleged forced evacuation through arson and shooting. The landless farmers have reportedly gathered at a hill in tambon Huai Yung of nearby Neu Klong district and are calling for police and Army intervention as they no longer feel safe. 

On Wednesday night, some 30 landless farmers, all of whom are members of the “No Land Thai People Association”, showed up in Krabi City Hall to seek refuge and officials had them stay temporarily at the Krabi Territorial Defence Volunteers Administration head office. The farmers claimed that a group of armed men had shown up at around 6pm and threatened to shoot them if they did not leave. 

The association’s leader Preedipramote Lertworapat said the gunmen fired up to 100 shots, forcing farmers to flee towards a hill nearby. No injuries were reported. 

The association’s lawyer Rachen Chan-on claimed that the armed men had set fire to nearly 100 shacks in the plantation since early this week to drive out the 300 or so farmers living there. He called on the authorities to investigate as the assailants were using war weapons.