Although grateful for the Baan Mankhong ("housing security") project, members of Lock 7-12 Community in the Klong Toei slum area do not feel a complex of 114 two-storey concrete houses built on about five rai of Port Authority of Thailand (PAT) land is a guarantee they will not be evicted.

To put an end to 10 years of conflict with the squatter community, the PAT agreed to rent the land to them. However, the contract signed last year said the rental period was only three years, not 20 or 30 years as the residents had expected.

Though the contract said it could be extended, the final decision lies with the port.

After years of fighting with the PAT, the owner of the land where the slum community is located, Chalor Sananthai, and 114 families of Lock 7-12 Community now have rights to settle there.

The story that Rosana Tositrakul, a leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy, recently told the anti-Thaksin rally at Suan Misakawan - that the government would give a concession to develop all 2,300 rai of land at Bangkok Port to Temasek Holdings of Singapore - has haunted the community.

"What does housing security mean? To have a home located on land we can only occupy for a very short time?" she said yesterday, sitting in her house constructed with a Bt170,000 loan provided by the Community Organisations Development Institute (Codi), which she has to repay over 15 years.

"If the port authority wants to evict us, the Codi has to protect us otherwise they'll lose," Rosana said.

Based on an idea to secure the rights of slum dwellers, Codi was appointed to oversee the project, which was one of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's populist policies. To make it work, Codi had to help people rent or buy the land their slums were built on, and offer low-interest loans to help finance the construction of their "permanent" houses and infrastructure.

Lock 7-12 Community was one of 531 urban poor communities nationwide whose housing rights were secured under the Baan Mankhong project. Of those, 203 have settled on state-owned land, said Suwat Kongpaen, public relations manager of Codi. The rest were on land belonging to private companies, the public or temples.

Suwat said the case of Lock 7-12 Community demonstrated a difficulty in achieving Baan Mankhong's goal. Among several state agencies that own land where squatter communities are located, the PAT and the State Railway of Thailand are the most difficult to negotiate with.

"We don't have the legal authority to order them to let their land be rented by the poor. We know they have plans to develop their land for business purposes," said Suwat.

Although he supports the Baan Mankhong scheme, Appayuth Chantrapha, an adviser to the Four Regions Network of Slum People, said three years was long enough for him to get a sense that the Thaksin administration was not sincere in implementing the policy. 

Pennapa Hongthong

The Nation