Orange orchards in Fang (from http://travel.sanook.com/) 

Fang district... heaven for investors 

In today's conflicts over access to natural resources in Chiang Mai's Fang district, big investors reap all the benefits at the expense of local villagers.

Class and environmental problems: the worldwide phenomenon of capitalist development and the competition for limited resources  

The problem of increasing competition over common resources, like land, forest, water and sea, faces many developing countries. Before the advent of capitalism, conflict was avoided through common management systems to ensure resources were evenly distributed to different sectors of the community.

Contested access to the commons thus reflects the problem of commercially-driven development in the capitalism system that promotes agro-industrial investment. The state monopoly over natural resource management favours investors over the people. By leaving access to resources under the control of the "invisible hand," it is always the investors who reap all the benefits. Thus conflict over natural resources is one of the most important class struggle of our time.

Those who refuse to yield and rise to oppose oppression and the theft of natural resources by investors are those who realise the structural problem of class struggle. They refuse to give up even though this costs them their lives.

It is thus, within this context of class-struggled competition over resources that we should view the brutal murder of Phra Supoj Suwajo.

The background: Fang district...heaven for investors

"...In Argentina, investors always ignore the constitutional rights of indigenous people to own the lands which they have cultivated for more than 20 years. Despite living on the land for over a century, even before the birth of Santiago province, villagers have no land title deeds. Legally, these lands belong to the state. Corrupt investors collude with state officials in violating this legal provision and issue land deeds to take land from villagers. These investors use armed gangs to seize land from villagers, a phenomenon which became endemic in the 1990s.

After they have seized the land, investors turned it into vast fields of soy bean which they grow for many years until the land becomes degraded. This has become known among villagers as "soy bean fever." Investors also use planes to spray chemicals over the fields. There is not much that villagers can do to protect themselves from this apart from hiding in their houses, while their water sources and other agricultural products lay directly exposed to the chemicals. Children who come out of hiding to watch the planes spraying have suffered chronic illnesses..." (Source: La Lucha Campesina by Ubol Yoowa, August 17, 2006 http://www.thaingo.org).

A phenomenon similar to what has happened in Argentina is occurring here in the northern part of Thailand in Chiang Mai's Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan districts, in the fertile 2,130,446-rai Fang plain that covers these three districts.

Historically, the communities were established in the Fang plain over a thousand years ago. The movement of people in the plain was closely linked to warfare, trade, and the search for agricultural land. Modern history records the first settlement around 150 years ago. The land in this area was found to be good for agriculture.

With proper management and development, problems such as poverty, conflict over resources, environmental problems and the oppression of migrant workers, which now plague Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan districts, could perhaps be prevented.

Social and economic development that depends on free-market mechanisms has turned the commons into simple modes of production, managed and used by state authority that usually transfers the right to use these resources to investors through concessions or leases. This has effectively excluded the majority of people who can't compete with big investors in accessing these resources.

Furthermore, while state conservation policy has excluded most people from access to natural resources, the same policy allows some investors to exploit these resources through concessions or leases. The National Forest Reserve Act is a perfect example of this double standard. This is a structural problem which has distorted development across the country; where the real beneficiaries are investors, state agencies and their intermediaries, but not local villagers.

The problems in Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan districts cannot be fully understood without thoroughly considering one major factor - the orange orchard business.

This business was said to have made inroads in Fang district in 1957 through experimental planting. Around 1981 two outside investors purchased some 500 rai of land from villagers to grow oranges. It is thought this was to replace cultivation in Bang Mod, the original site of the famous Bang Mod orange. This move inspired other investors to follow suit.

Banthoon Jirawattanakool of Thanathorn orchard is the most famous and recognised for his contribution to the orange orchard industry in Fang district. His orchard developed the popularity of the Sai Nam Pueng orange, contributing to the growth of this industry since 1994. As a consequence, large tracts of land have been purchased from local people, even by illegal methods such as arbitrary seizure or cheating by influential investors.

Ironically, the National Forest Reserve Act has become the major tool facilitating the use of natural resources by investors while excluding the majority of people; a collusion between the state and investors.

There are three forest reserve areas in Fang district. Their status as forest reserves was declared by ministerial regulations in 1974, 1974 and 1986 respectively. First, the Mae Fang River forest reserve covering about one million rai in Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan districts; second, the Mae Lak Muen forest reserve with total area of 8,512 rai in Fang and Mae Ai districts. Third, the Mae Sun forest reserve which covers 3,906 rai in Fang district.

These vast forest reserves are open for lease by investors for tangerine plantations. Thanathorn orchard for example, first leased about 701 rai of the Mae Fang River forest reserve in Tambon Mon Pin in 1984 to grow oranges. Presently, over 100,000 rai of a total orange plantation area of 300,000 rai in the Fang plain are in forest reserves. Some of these are legally leased while others are illegal encroachments.

Against this backdrop, the well-being of the majority of people in Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan districts has not improved. They in fact face increasing problems with regard to conflicts over natural resources, poverty, quality of life and environmental problems, oppression of migrant workers and other problems. Despite the growth of the orange orchard industry during 1994-1997, an evaluation by the Agriculture Promotion Department found that most small-scale farmers had suffered losses by 2001.

Like other industries in the capitalist world, the orange orchard industry testifies to the fact that only big investors are in the advantageous position to invest and to survive. Only they can invest in marketing, transportation, production processes, research and development, effective use of fertilisers and chemicals, modern harvesting, and the hiring of labour, mostly migrant workers at low wages. All this has successfully excluded small-scale farmers from having a share in the industry. Worse still, many who cannot compete in price with investors have been under pressure to sell their land to big investors.

Meanwhile, conflicts over natural resources between villagers and big investors have occurred in many places in Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan districts. These conflicts involved threats by investors and influential people to take land from villagers or were over water resources. In most cases, villagers lost.

The concentration of land and wealth in the hands of a few investors has created poverty among the majority of the people. They have to make a living either in petty trade or small-scale farming, or work as a wage labourers in the orange orchards of big investors.

Environmentally, the orange orchards have caused air pollution in nearby communities and contamination of natural water resources, which affects the health of both workers and local villagers. Other problems include deforestation to make way for orange plantations, and degeneration of the soil which is likely to emerge in the near future.

All these are reasons to make the local people rise and to fight. Indeed, a class war has already been fought in areas of Fang district. It is a war between the investors and authorities on the one hand, and the local villagers and their supporters who fight for justice. Phra Supoj Suwajo is one among many members of the latter group. 

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Translated by Mukdawan Sakboon