It is estimated that at least 6.5 million people across Thailand will be out of work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. For landless farmers like Suwalee Phongam from Sab Wai village in Chaiyaphum, the crisis only adds hardship to a life already hanging in the balance.
Communities in Chaiyaphum’s Sai Thong National Park have been locked in a decades-long land dispute with the government. A new review of land conflicts across the country might finally grant the communities their right to land.
After more than 40 years of suffering, grief and protest, Khok Yao’s land dispute might finally be resolved as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment launched a new review of land conflicts across the country.
“Isaan people have become more rights-conscious, which means they won’t submit to anyone easily. No one can mess with them anymore because they won’t allow it,” says former human rights commissioner Sunee Chaiyarot in this interview on human rights in Isaan.
Over 300 people gathered at Ubon Ratchathani University on Monday to discuss the state of human rights in the Northeast and the country. The 10th Annual Isaan Human Rights Festival gathered communities from across the region, activists, scholars, students, and foreign diplomats.
Ubon Ratchathani locals are wondering why they are being prosecuted for farming on land passed on to them by their parents.
The government’s push to reclaim forest land from encroachers in Ubon Ratchathani’s Khong Chiam district has threatened members of two communities who now face arrest and eviction from their land. To make things worse, construction of Chinese dams in the upper Mekong River in the past decade has severely impacted fish stocks and local livelihoods that depend on fishing.
After the eviction deadline for Baw Kaew was extended in a surprise decision on Monday, villagers and their supporters celebrated their tentative victory. But the community’s decade-long battle for their right to land is set to escalate again when the extension expires in late September.
As the deadline for the eviction of Baw Kaew village draws closer, community members are calling on political parties for help. Last Saturday, Future Future Party politicians to discuss solutions to resolve the decade-long land dispute.
