One year after forced eviction against Non Din Daeng community in Burirum, the eviction continues unabated

One year after forced eviction against Non Din Daeng community in Burirum, the eviction continues unabated

Forced eviction must end; community must be compensated, remedied and assisted to a relocation site

(Cross Cultural Foundation 28 June 2015)

46 families have been forced-evicted from their homes and farmland inside the Dong Yai National Forest Reserve, Burirum, in June 2014. In the past one year, no solutions have been implemented to address their landlessness and impoverishment. Worse, on 18 June this year, pressure has been put against the owners of rubber plantations who on humanitarian basis have offered temporary shelter to the affected and evicted villagers. The pressure has been mounting to push the villagers of 28 families who set up temporary shelter in a rubber plantation in Ban Sub Kaning, Tambon Sompoy, Non Din Daeng District, six families in temporary shelter in Wat Hua Khuan Lamnangrong, Non Din DaengDistrict, and 12 families in Wat Lamnangrong, out of the land. They are told to desert the area within seven days, even though no relocation site has been offered to them. It has been over seven days, and the villagers have no idea where they can turn to to seek refuge. They continue to live in fear of another forced eviction.

​On 22 June 2015, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has distributed a recommendation to the Thai government after a hearing in a panel review relating to the situation of human rights situation in Thailand attended by a delegation from Thai authorities, over 20 of them. During the discussion on 4-5 June, one of the 18 members of the Committee has inquired about forced eviction against the villagers in Non Din Daeng, Burirumand commented that;

​Right now, the Committee has written and distributed an official concluding observation on 22 June 2015 and tendered it to the Thai government via the Permanent Mission of Thailand to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland as well as the UN website. In the Concluding Observations no. United Nations​E/C.12/THA/CO/1-2, it states that;

​“The Committee is concerned at:

​(a) The denial of the traditional rights of ethnic minorities to their ancestral lands and natural resources and the concentration of land ownership in the hands of a very small proportion of the population;

​(b) Information received that the implementation of its forest conservation policy, in particular NCPO Orders No. 64/2557 and 66/2557 of2014, has resulted in the destruction of crops and forced evictions;

​The Committee recommends that the State party take all necessary steps, including revising its legal and policy framework…to ensure that forced evictions are only used as a measure of last resort and persons forcibly evicted are provided with adequate compensation and/or relocation, bearing in mind the Committee’s general comments no. 4 (1991) on the right to adequate housing and no. 7 (1997) on forced evictions;

​The Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF) deems it important that a solution based on humanitarian principle should be forged to address impoverishment and landlessness of the villagers and the long term solutions should ensure protection of fundamental human rights to housing and farmland. No solutions can be found by swiftly and forcibly evicting the villagers without any remedies provided for them. It is proposed that the eviction order be suspended and more negotiation is made. The villagers should be allowed to stay in their temporary shelter while awaiting other measures from relevant agencies.

(Photo : Prachatai.org)