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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-thailand28feb28,1,7834465.story
GLOBAL REPORT / FINANCIAL TIMES
Villagers, Speculators Clash Over Thai Coast
After the tsunami, developers emerge to assert stakes in beaches that were once home to families whose ownership has been called into question.
By Amy Kazmin
Financial Times

February 28, 2005

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.

Land speculators, with the collaboration of some officials, can easily abuse the complex system of property rights. Bitter land battles have accompanied much of Thailand's recent economic development, especially in tourist areas.

Even before the tsunami killed 454 people in the coastal community of Baan Nam Khen, 52 households there had been locked in a court battle against property developers linked to a powerful member of the ruling party.

After the tsunami, while survivors were still at an emergency camp, the company erected signs around the disputed area, warning villagers against trespassing on the land where their destroyed homes once stood.

The Thai government, which has discouraged international charities from assisting its relief effort, officially takes no sides in the Andaman property disputes. But it has forbidden any reconstruction on coastal land for villagers who lack full title deeds to their property.

"The government will not allow anyone to build on public land now," said Chalosak Wanitchalern, district chief of Takua Ba, one of the worst-hit areas.

Instead, Bangkok and the big Thai businesses aligned with the government are supporting the construction of hundreds of rows of houses on state land several miles inland — property with far less value.

"People are being threatened, forced and persuaded to leave, without pay, and to settle down in areas designated by the central government," Kraisak said.

Even villagers with strong legal claims may be unaware of or unable to assert their rights, legal experts say.

"The mentality of the civil servants is that, to attract tourists, we have to chase local people away," said Chirmsak Pinthong, a senator. "They think people want sand, sea and sun but no small huts and no small boats."

In the Muslim village of Baan Nai Rai, where 107 houses were washed away, Haroon Sukorn, a 26-year-old fisherman, lived in one of 35 households without property titles that are thus ineligible for official help.

The site of Haroon's former home is designated as a tourist site, he was told, and a would-be builder claims to have bought a vast tract of sea-facing land from a financial institution that seized it as collateral against a bad debt.

"We asked the official: 'Where can we go? This is our place,' " Haroon said. "He replied, 'I have no idea.' "

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