Villagers, Speculators Clash Over Thai Coast
BANGKOK — Ever since the Asian tsunami swept away the homes in his Thai fishing community, Heed Harnthalay, a weathered elder of Taptawan village, has stayed in the hills, too frightened to return to the seafront where he says the group has lived for many decades.
Most of the other villagers, members of the Morgan sea gypsy community, are back in the coastal area they have long called home, living in temporary barracks erected by the Thai army and trying to rebuild their lives. But their efforts have run into a big obstacle: A powerful business family, backed by local Land Department officials, is claiming the valuable beachfront property as its own.
In Taptawan this month government surveyors announced that the land on which 42 local families had lived had been purchased in 1972 by the wealthy Kulavanit family, and that an official survey of the property would be the last step toward recognizing the family's full ownership.
Angry villagers forced the surveyors to leave. But with the land valued at $77,841 per rai (about 1,600 square meters), villagers believe the officials and would-be landlords will soon return.
"We love this land and we will not move," said Yuenyong Harnthalay, 42. "Our parents are buried in this land."
Across Thailand's tsunami-battered yet still stunning Andaman coast, similar ugly battles are taking shape between coastal villagers, who lost homes and loved ones in the disaster, and wealthy, well-connected land developers, who see this as the ideal moment to assert control over gorgeous beaches that could lure millions of tourists once memories of the disaster fade.
"This is a booming area with skyrocketing prices, the new frontier of boutique resorts," said Kraisak Choonavan, one of a group of senators who traveled to Khao Lak to investigate claims of local government collusion with widespread land-grabbing. "Those who want to make a windfall profit see the opportunity to get rid of local communities."
Thailand's complicated land law seems made to fuel disputes. The law recognizes various degrees of property rights, including so-called inhabitant rights and possession rights, which can both be established and forfeited over time, based on land use or disuse.
Millions of rural Thai families live and work without title deeds on what is technically public land.
