Wealthy grab disputed land in Thailand (moved from ATSNN)

On December 26, 2004, a tsunami devastated Southeast Asia, causing thousands to lose their lives and their homes. Now, land developers are trying to claim the land that the survivors previously lived on, even though "under Thai law those settled for more than a year" on a particular plot of land are considered the legal owners.



Thai land developers are, for the most part, trying to steal land from the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami. In the majority of the claims, under Thai law, the land belongs to those who live on it. The people who were displaced from their lands have no title deeds, however, and will have an extremely difficult time proving that the land is theirs.

It is terrible enough that so many thousands of people died, lost loved ones, their homes, and their possessions. Now, corporations want to take away the little that remains; their land. Given the impoverished state of most of the tsunami victims, it seems unlikely that they will be able to mount much of a protest against this unlawful attempt to seize their land.

Related News Links:
www.achr.net
www.voanews.com
www.expressindia.com

You might also add that the land developers are not the only ones doing this. According to many reports, The Thai goverment is also tossing people off "thier" land.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is the first time I've tried to submit a story to ATSNN. I'm not sure how to edit it, though, since it's been several hours since I put it up for review. I was just so shocked when I read this in the newspaper that I felt it was something people here needed to know about.

Its disgusting and no suprise to me. There is no empathy in the corporate world, the almighty dollar reigns supreme and this is a prime example of the lows they will resort to to make money.

Great article by Naomi Klein on this very subject

Three months after the tsunami hit Aceh, the New York Times ran a distressing story reporting that "almost nothing seems to have been done to begin repairs and rebuilding." The dispatch could easily have come from Iraq, where, as the Los Angeles Times just reported, all of Bechtel's allegedly rebuilt water plants have started to break down, one more in an endless litany of reconstruction screw-ups. It could also have come from Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai recently blasted "corrupt, wasteful and unaccountable" foreign contractors for "squandering the precious resources that Afghanistan received in aid." Or from Sri Lanka, where 600,000 people who lost their homes in the tsunami are still languishing in temporary camps. One hundred days after the giant waves hit, Herman Kumara, head of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Negombo, Sri Lanka, sent out a desperate e-mail to colleagues around the world. "The funds received for the benefit of the victims are directed to the benefit of the privileged few, not to the real victims," he wrote. "Our voices are not heard and not allowed to be voiced."
But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding, that may be because rebuilding is not its primary purpose. According to Guttal, "It's not reconstruction at all--it's about reshaping everything." If anything, the stories of corruption and incompetence serve to mask this deeper scandal: the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in before the local population knows what hit them. Kumara, in another e-mail, warns that Sri Lanka is now facing "a second tsunami of corporate globalization and militarization," potentially even more devastating than the first. "We see this as a plan of action amidst the tsunami crisis to hand over the sea and the coast to foreign corporations and tourism, with military assistance from the US Marines."


Full article: www.commondreams.org...

[edit on 13-5-2005 by blablablaxyz]

[edit on 13-5-2005 by blablablaxyz]