It's time to end land rights double standards

This is a classic double standard and injustice in the world's third most unequal country under military rule."People and the forest can live together in harmony," declared the judiciary to legitimise their one-billion-baht housing scheme.That was actually the campaign slogan of the forest poor's land rights movement. Since the judiciary has grabbed the poor's slogan for their own use, can it say the same thing to support forest communities' struggles to live where they have called home for generations? Or at least stop sending forest dwellers to jail given their forest protection record?Forgive my wishful thinking.One of the top judges has asked the public to allow the judiciary's housing to remain on Doi Suthep for 10 years so it can prove that people and the forest can co-exist. If conservation records count, why then has the court routinely dismissed forest dwellers' right to stay when many forest communities go back centuries?Why can judges stay in forest land while small-scale farmers and indigenous forest dwellers cannot? What is the logic here?The questions are particularly painful when they come from families who have lost their loved ones who have fought for community land rights. Many died in jail because the court ruled they were illegal forest encroachers. Many were simply murdered. The pain runs deep when the locals know who the culprits are, yet they remain free because of their powerful bosses.Last month marks the fourth year since Porlajee "Billy" Rakchongcharoen mysteriously "disappeared" after being arrested by then park chief Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn. Billy represented the indigenous Karen forest dwellers in Kaeng Krachan National Park, including the centenarian Karen spiritual leader Ko-ee, in suing Mr Chaiwat for burning down their houses and forcibly evicting them from their homes deep in the jungle.Mr Chaiwat accused the Kaeng Krachan Karen of being members of the Karen rebels from Myanmar and of being involved in the drug trade. The court ruled the Karen are Thai nationals and indigenous to the land while dismissing the drug allegations. Yet, the court refused their plea to return to their ancestral home.Last month also marks the second year since another grassroots land rights activist, Den Khamlae, mysteriously disappeared. Mr Den fought against forest eviction because his Khok Yao community in Chaiyaphum existed long before the area was demarcated as a national forest. He also joined the community land ownership movement under P-Move, a grassroots network of forest communities, to fight for land rights.While the police failed to find Mr Den's presumed murderer, his wife was sent to jail for encroaching on national forest.Theirs is just a simple shack in the forest, a far cry from the judges' three-storey houses on cleared forest land.No wonder the public is increasingly sceptical of the justice system. It's also why hundreds of forest dwellers from various parts of the country joined P-Move to take to the streets in Bangkok yesterday to demand justice and land rights.After four years in power, the military regime's promise to bridge disparity has not only proven to be empty, it has worsened the suffering of the landless.For starters, forest authorities have used the military's "Reclaiming the Forest" policy to step up violent forest evictions.During elected governments, forest authorities had to give in to many forest communities, allowing them to experiment with community land ownership in national forests. Although this solution to land rights conflicts only applies to long-existing communities with forest conservation records, forest authorities see them as enemies for challenging their power.With the regime's Reclaiming the Forest blessing, forest authorities are now gleefully recruiting armed troops to get rid of their enemies.Despite fearing for their lives under the military's iron grip, the P-Move street demonstration yesterday revealed ready-to-burst discontent on the ground.The past four years have seen many glaring injustices, double standards and deepening corruption. The mysterious disappearances of local heroes. The gunning down of young highlander activists and state attempts to conceal evidence. The regime's push for environmentally destructive megaprojects. The policy to evict locals to give the land to foreign investors, complete with tax-free incentives and 90-year land leases. The corruption scandal with a royal monument. A top general's luxury watch scandal. Mandarins' corruption involving funds for the destitute. The police boss's declaration that his job is only a sideline to his other "businesses". The construction tycoon and the black leopard killing.Have I missed out on anything?For sure, the Doi Suthep housing is the last straw. Thanks to the outrageously out-of-touch responses from judicial authorities, any hope left in the country has been dashed, triggering public fury against the justice system and the regime.The government yesterday agreed to meet P-Move leaders to listen to their grievances yet arrested three P-Move leaders in Lamphun on their way to Bangkok with a promise to release them as soon as the forest dwellers agreed to return home.This state power trickery that is close to hostage-taking promises little hope for the forest poor.Unless the government adopts communal land ownership and amends the forest laws to legally recognise long-existing forest communities -- long proposed by the land rights movement -- there will be no end to land rights conflicts and suffering in national forests.Many fear communal land ownership will lead to further forest destruction and land sell-offs. This is sheer nonsense. That their homes have been declared national forests in the first place says it all about their sustainable lives and farming system.Communal land ownership also means the land cannot be transferred to outsiders, the farming system must be ecological friendly, and forest uses must be under strict communal oversight.Eviction policy is just the forest authorities' scheme to hold on to their central power as sole owners of national forests. Forest conservation is also only empty rhetoric given their ready support for mining, commercial tree farms, mega dams, and plantations in national forests.Photos of degraded mountains have been used to demonise forest dwellers. The culprits, however, are not the forest poor. It's the government policy that has robbed them of land rights and life security that gives them little choice but giving in to the agro-industry's promise to gain quick riches through forest clearings for corn plantations.Can degraded mountains return to health? Several royal development projects have proved that the forest can return once the highlanders and the forest poor are given land security to pursue sustainable farming and when their organic goods get help to reach the markets at fair prices.Yet, these projects can't be replicated elsewhere because forest authorities will not allow the forest poor outside royally initiated projects to have land security.Can electoral democracy help? No, if it is only limited to the ballot-box game without political decentralisation and bureaucratic reform.But electoral democracy will at least give the forest poor the voter power to stop state violence from going too far. There is also a greater chance of amending the inhumane forest laws and for other proposals from the land rights movement to become reality.It means more hope for the centenarian Ko-ee and other indigenous forest dwellers of Kaeng Krachan to return to their ancestral home. It would also mean more chance of having a law against torture and enforced disappearances.At present, the victims remain only legally missing, not killed, if the bodies are still not found, thus allowing the murderers to escape scot free."Look at our healthy forest. How can the officials accuse us of destroying the forest?" asked Mueno, the widow of land rights activist Billy. "Look at our farming system, and understand how it helps the forests regenerate. Look at how hard it is for me to take care of five children after what they did to my husband."The anti-torture and enforced disappearance law will allow major suspects to be arrested and investigated."We need the right to live our way of life. And justice. We need to know that our beloved ones have not died in vain," she said.Will that be possible under electoral democracy? It may or may not. But it's certainly impossible under the military regime, not when land rights activists are routinely arrested and made to disappear with impunity and when officialdom holds on tight to central control as public trust in the justice system quickly crumbles.Editorial: Disgraceful detentions

It's time to end land rights double standards

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