To our friends in the media and the people

 

In the name of the 4 Laws for the Poor Working Group, we wish to thank all of you for attending today’s press conference on the “Follow-up on the Right to Propose 4 Laws – Reform that the People seek to do themselves.”  We wish to begin with the question “Do you all have homes on land of your own?”  If the answer is no, you and we are the majority in this country, and are landless, whether in housing or farmland.  If the answer is yes, we ask further, how many more decades do you have the burden of paying for it?

 

There is reliable data that of 65 million Thais, only 15.6 million own land titles, and of those who own land, 20% own 80% of the total land titles in the country.  More than that, if we look at the greatest amount of land owned by ordinary people, we find that only 1,340 landowners, or 0.01% of the total population, have full land titles to 831,500 rai, or 1330 square kilometres, equal to almost twice the size of Singapore.

 

This means that land ownership is concentrated in the hands of a minority, while we all, the majority, do not have the means to own the title to even one square wa of land, and for us to dream of owning just one home, we need to spend more than 30 years paying off a mortgage.

 

From the seminar, we learned about “Uncle Dam”, 61 years old, who has worked hard all his life but who has no home of his own.  His case emphasizes the problems of accessing land.  “I was a farmer working on someone else’s land and I was OK.  One day they ended the agreement.  I’ve worked hard all my life but today I don’t even own enough land to rest my head.”  This shows the lack of social security.  

 

Similarly, Nu-duan was sued for encroaching on her own land.  She told of the problems that she had to face:  “I and my neighbours made a living on the land of our ancestors for a long time, since the time when there were no documents guaranteeing our rights.  One day someone came to talk to us and invited us to sign for land titles to be made out or to sell our land to him.  More than 300 villagers thought that this was a good opportunity for us to get the documents that legally protected our rights, so we signed.  The upshot was that the land documents had the name of someone we don’t know as owner.  And more than that, the villagers were sued for encroaching on their own land that they had been farming.”  This case shows the problem of establishing the right to own land.

 

Meanwhile Mrs Kanya is proof that people can coexist with the forest in a way that the forest is preserved and the people can do well.  She related “Our village has existed on forest land for hundreds of years in a mutually reliant form of agroforestry.  At times, the state gave mining concessions that encroached on the forest and traces of the mines can still be seen today.  In 1982 the National Parks Department gazetted Khao Pu-Khao Ya National Park with a boundary that overlapped the land that the villagers used to make a living.”  This is a case that proves that the National Park came after the villagers had been living there without exploiting the forest.

 

“Uncle Rek”, or Direk Gong-ngern, a core leader of the Northern Peasant Federation, spoke about their success in mobilizing villagers to solve their own problems.  He said “I did not have any bit of land to farm while the capitalists came in to buy up vast amounts in our communities and left them overgrown with weeds for decades.  One day, they wanted to use the land in the watershed areas as garbage dumpsites.  The villagers and I have been fighting against this.  Until today, we have been able to negotiate with the landowners for a sale to the villagers.  Other members and I are ready to fight to the death (until our backs face the sky and our faces rest on the earth) to reform neglected land into farmland for our children and grandchildren.”

 

Malee Thongkam-plew, “Uncle Mali”, or the “old man who guards the forest” from Thung Salaeng Luang said “My house is in an area claimed by Thung Salaeng Luang National Park.  Since the beginning I have joined the villagers’ struggle to protect our land and homesteads which would be affected by a quarry concession and will continue to fight until I die.”

 

These voices come from just 5 representatives of the people who have long been struggling to overcome land-related problems.  However, they represent millions of Thai people who are derived of land ownership rights.  Certainly many of them can be found around here, just outside the meeting room if we only look for them.

 

While the conflict on the political stage has been aging in the past years, the problem of land tenure which affects the majority of the people has become even more deep-rooted in Thailand’s social structure.  No matter how many elected or non-elected governments have come and gone, nothing has ever been resolved.

 

Today we come here to tell society to face reality.  Inequality in Thai society, particularly in the area of land tenure, has reached a crisis point.  More importantly, we seek clarification whether the right to reform through people-driven beneficial laws still exists.  These 4 draft laws are of great importance for a just land reform process, for the alleviation of conflict in society and for sustainable economic development.

 

We have hope that the people’s right to create knowledge and participate in effecting change for the better, particularly the right to propose legislation through gathering signatures, will continue to be respected.  This will be another way to ensure that Thai society is capable of avoiding confrontation and tension and of pursuing peaceful and open means to solve problems.

 

Even though Thai society is now in a special situation, we have learned enough of history to understand that to change for the better cannot depend on others to do it for us.  Land reform will therefore continue without a pause and the people wish to carry it out by themselves. 

 

On behalf of the 4 Laws for the Poor Working Group, which comprises networks of affected people from various areas of the country, we wish to state our position to continue the campaign to gather signatures in support of the 4 laws.  These are the Draft Bill on Community Rights to Land and Resource Management in the form of community title deeds, the Draft Bill on Progressive Land Taxes, the Draft Bill on Land Banks, and the Draft Bill on a Justice Fund.  Collectively called the 4 Laws, they are based on the Act Governing the Signing of Petition for Proposal of Legislation BE 2556 (2013).  The 4 bills will be submitted together with the supporting signatures to the Acting Secretary-General of the House of Representatives in Parliament in order to reconfirm our intention to exercise our legal rights in accordance with the law.  This will represent the true happiness that the people have regained for themselves.

 

With respect

4 Laws for the Poor Working Group