SALWEEN WATCH HOTMAIL OUT

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE SALWEEN MEGADAM

Salween Watch

Date: 17th May 1999. Vol. 2

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Northern Thai Hill People's Demonstrate for Citizenship Rights and Land and Resource Use Rights

By: cmgreent@hotmail.com

Northern Thailand is comprised mostly of hills and mountains and has been
populated by diverse ethnic groups who have been making living from forests and have had systems for preserving forests for a long time. Their forest management systems classify forests into reserved forests, watershed forestry, forests for conducting rituals, and forests from which villagers can gather forest products, including herbal medicines. When villagers make use of forests, they have to have proper reasons and ask for permission from the village committee. Villagers go on patrol in the forests for violation of outsiders, conduct rituals, and cooperated to make firebreaks.

When the Thai government announced National Parks, many of them fell onto the forest lands which villagers have traditionally made living from. The 6th National Economic and Social Development Plan defined 15% of the total land for Reserved Forests and 25% for Economic Forests, but the 7th and 8th Plans defined 25% of total national territory for Reserved Forests and increased the National Park areas which fell onto the lands on which villagers have lived for a long time. These state policies have caused problem of many villagers now unable to gather forest products, make herbal medicines, or conduct farming for subsistence. There also have been pressures from the economic sector to relocate villagers out of forest areas on which they had been living for a long time to Degraded Forest areas on which they can barely make living. The Northern Farmers Network (NFN) was organized to support villagers facing these
problems.

Since April 26, 1999 villagers has gathered at Chiang Mai provincial office and been appealing the government to take quick measures to solve the problems. The government sent Mr. Newin Chidchob, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, as its representative to have meeting with villagers and NFN. However, some important agreements of the meeting
had changes later when they were brought to the Cabinet meeting

1. Citizenship problem

There are now about 800,000 highland population who have resided in the present Thai territory for many generations and are Thai citizen according to the principle of the citizenship law. However, the government has so far granted citizenship to only 200,000 persons, and the rest still are denied of basic rights that the Thai citizen can enjoy, for example public services. The meeting among representatives of the government, villagers, and NFN on May 9, 1999 reached an agreement that a committee comprised of representatives of the governmental organizations in charge, NFN and the Assembly of Ethnic Minorities, scholars, and NGOs be organized to solve the citizenship problem within 60 days from its establishment. However, the Cabinet meeting later decided to authorize only the Ministry of Interior to organize the committee and denied participation from the non-governmental section who know the problem well. The Cabinet Decision further deleted the time limit clause and make it able to put off to solve the problem.

2. Forest problem
The meeting among the representatives of the government, villagers, and NGOs reached agreements that a committee comprised of representatives of the government, scholars, and people facing the problem be organized in order to revise the laws and the former Cabinet Decision concerning the forest management within 90 days from its establishment and that villagers can retain rights to make living from forests tentatively before the committee make new decisions. (That means, people will not be arrested for gathering forest products for subsistence, before the examination of their rights is completed.) However, in the agenda and
the decision of the Cabinet meeting, there were alteration

(1) "committee" was changed to
"supporting committee",

(2) deletion of time limitation clause,

(3) retention of the rights onlyfor those who have already been granted Thai citizenship.

The alteration means that

(1) absence of people's participation in the committee to examine people's rights,

(2) make room for the government to put off the resolution of the problem, and

(3) denial of security in making living without being arrested for those who have not been granted proper citizenship yet.

[Note: As of 17th May the demonstrations at the Chiang Mai Provincial Government office continue, with thousands of Karen, Lisu, Hmong, Akha and other ethnic peoples participating]