PM wants swift end to land use disputes

PM wants swift end to land use disputes

Doi Suthep protesters renew housing fight

An opponent of a housing complex at the foot of Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai shows a banner reading 'No man's land', at a protest Monday calling for the project to be abandoned. (Photo Courtesy Network for Reclaiming Doi Suthep)
An opponent of a housing complex at the foot of Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai shows a banner reading 'No man's land', at a protest Monday calling for the project to be abandoned. (Photo Courtesy Network for Reclaiming Doi Suthep)

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed agencies to speed up the distribution of more than one million rai of land to landless people and solve conflicts with those evicted from forest land.

State agencies must work faster in handing land plots in 70 provinces to people in need, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Surasak Karnjanarat said yesterday after a meeting of the National Land Policy Committee chaired by Gen Prayut.

However, the prime minister did not set a deadline for giving the landless access to the land for farming.

A total of 635 communities nationwide are eligible for such access, according to Gen Surasak.

Last month, P-Move, a grassroots network of forest communities, staged a protest in Bangkok to urge the government to help residents evicted from land they occupied and which had been declared protected forest areas by the government.

The evictions came despite claims by the residents that their families had lived on the land for generations.

Related agencies have taken up P-Move's request to solve land encroachment problems affecting 32 farming communities which have sought urgent help from the government, Gen Surasak said.

There remained another 26 communities where the problem remains unresolved, he said.

The officials said the issues were complicated, especially with amending regulations and past cabinet resolutions involving land and forest management.

Also, about 50 members of the network opposing development at Doi Suthep yesterday rallied outside the construction site of a controversial housing complex project for judges and staff of the Administrative Office of Appeal Region 5 at the foot of the mountain in Chiang Mai's Mae Rim district.

Network coordinator Teerasak Rupsuwan said the demonstration marked the day when builders were supposed handover the 45 houses and nine flats to the government.

"Your time is up," read one banner raised by the network, apparently aimed at telling the workers to leave.

The complex was in the process of being built when fierce opposition to the project erupted earlier this year. It prompted the government to announce last month that the 113 rai of the Treasury Department-owned area where the project is located, would no longer be used for residential purposes.

Mr Teerasak said his group wanted to warn authorities against allowing builders to continue working on the site.

"We want you [officials] to understand the feelings of the Chiang Mai people. You must avoid deepening the conflict," he said.

Mr Teerasak said on Sunday his group is planning to petition the president of the Appeal Court today to revoke the housing complex construction contract.

The group also demanded that people living in other zones of the judicial housing project to move out, following news reports that dozens of families have already moved into finished houses.

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