The government last night failed to convince rubber protesters to open the main road to and from the South which they blockaded earlier the same afternoon with trailer trucks.
Rubber and palm oil farmers listen to protest leadersasthey resumea blockade of Phetkasem Road in PrachuapKhiriKhan’s Bang Saphan Noi district on Sunday.The farmers lashed out at the government for ignoring their calls for the rubber price to be guaranteed at 100 baht/kg and palm oil at 6 baht/kg. THITI WANNAMONTHA
More than 3,000 rubber and palm oil farmers blocked the main Phetkasem Road in Prachuap Khiri Khan in their campaign for higher rubber prices.
The farmers gathered on Saturday, and yesterday afternoon closed off the inbound and outbound lanes of the road at kilometre marker 415 in Ban Si Nakhon in tambon Chang Rak of Bang Saphan Noi district.
They said the government had ignored their demands for the price of unsmoked rubber sheet to be guaranteed at 100 baht/kg and palm oil at 6 baht/kg.
Most protesters used trailer trucks to block the road, while others also descended on a section of the nearby Bang Saphan-Bang Saphan Noi road.
Around 6.30pm, Deputy Prime Minister Pracha Promnok, together with Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan and deputy national police chief Worapong Chiewpreecha arrived in Bang Saphan Noi district to negotiate with the protesters' representatives.
Pol Gen Pracha even performed a wai to the protesters, asking them to open the highway for the sake of the public, but they refused.
After three hours of negotiations, both sides had failed to reach an agreement. The protesters say the government's offer of a production cost subsidy of 2,520 baht per rai, up to 25 rai for each rubber planter, would not really fall into the hands of the farmers. As well, the subsidy would only cover growers with land rights documents for their plantations, not the tappers.
Meanwhile, police set up checkpoints on outbound Phetkasem Road in Khao Yoi and Ban Lat districts in Phetchaburi after they learned that anti-government protesters in Bangkok have been mobilised to join the rubber farmers' protest.
Thossapol Kwanrod, the head of a rubber and palm oil growers' network in the 14 southern provinces plus Prachuap Khiri Khan and Phetchaburi, said the protesters resumed their blockade after the government failed to send representatives to talk to them by midday yesterday.
Prachuap Khiri Khan governor Veera Srirattanatrakul said the public disaster prevention and mitigation law has been invoked to control the protest.
Police banned unauthorised individuals from shutting down traffic or going within 1km of the protest site.
The offence carries a jail term of up to three months and/or a maximum fine of 6,000 baht.
In light of the Phetkasem Road blockade, motorists were told to use the seafront Bang Saphan-Nong Had Thai detour. However, the protesters later blockaded that route as well.
Sunthorn Raknarong, adviser to the rubber and palm oil growers' network, said the protesters would also cut off railways to the South if their demands continued to fall on deaf ears.
He warned the government against breaking up the protests, as it did in previous rubber rallies at the Kuan Nong Hong intersection in Nakhon Si Thammarat and Ban Thammarat in Prachuap Khiri Khan.
He added that a forceful dispersal would only arouse more people to join the protests. "It's preferential treatment. The rubber farmers are fighting injustice," he said.
Mr Sunthorn said the government chose to help rice farmers with the rice-pledging scheme but could not do the same with rubber farmers. He denied the protests were politically motivated. The protesters had turned down requests by a Democrat Party politician and a former People's Alliance for Democracy co-leader to speak at the rally yesterday.