Thai farmers brave bullets, prison for community land titles
Somruedee Bunthonglek has not repaired the bullet holes in the pickup truck her husband was driving when he survived an assassination attempt barely a year after her father was shot dead on the same communal farm in southern Thailand.
The grey truck, with about half a dozen bullet holes on the driver’s side, is a reminder of the risks to the community that occupied about 237 acres of land in Klong Sai Pattana as an act of defiance after a palm oil plantation’s licence expired.
Four members of the Southern Peasants’ Federation of Thailand (SPFT) in Surat Thani province were killed between 2010 and 2015, and many more sued and jailed since, in a more than decade-long fight for land and community titles.
Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran; Editing by Zoe Tabary.
