Ex-PM planning to cede vacation home 'so it can be turned into a museum or a foundation'
Privy Councillor General Surayud Chulanont has offered to give up his vacation home located within the Khao Yai Thiang forest reserve in the next day or two after the Royal Forest Department ordered that the premises be vacated within 30 days, a source said yesterday.
Surayud, who served as prime minister after the September 2006 coup, and his wife Colonel Khunying Jitravadi said they were ready to comply with the order issued by the department's director general, Somchai Piensathaporn, right away.
Somchai's order said Surayud was not qualified to own the land.
The source said that the ex-premier was planning to give his vacation home over to the Forest Department so it can be turned into a museum or a foundation.
The Royal Forest Department yesterday also said that the 237 households in the area had 15 days to prove their land ownership. The villagers can either produce their land deed or documents to confirm that they had legally been given the plot by the government. If the villagers refuse to present their ownership papers to relevant authorities, the government agency will confiscate the land and punish the wrongdoers.
The move came after the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry's fact-finding panel visited Khao Yang Thiang and looked into owner transfers of land that was allocated to the poor under a Cabinet resolution dated April 29, 1975.
As a preliminary result, the panel - led by Royal Forest Department's deputy director Chonlatid Surassawadee - found that 1,100 rai had been allocated to 237 households. Of this, 1,020 rai and 2 ngarn 81 square yards were given to 76 households for farming, while the remainder were given to 161 households in the three villages for residential purposes. However, the investigation revealed that only two of the 76 plots were still occupied by the original owners.
Surayud's vacation home was located on one of the plots given to the 76 households for farming.
Chonlatid said the panel would spend 15 days investigating who currently holds the ownership of the plots, adding the panel would also compare an aerial photograph taken in 2002 with the plan approved by the Cabinet in 1975 to see how the area had changed.
The panel has also confirmed that the controversial area, which was the 49th plot allocated, was originally owned by Pak Chong district resident Bao Sinnok. The land allocated to him was 13 rai 50 square yards in size.
"We will investigate whether or not the area has been extended over the past few years," he said, adding that if the panel found any new information or found the land damaged then it would file a criminal and civil suit against Surayud.
However, he said, Surayud had 15 days to appeal the Forest Department's order.
Forest officer Sakkrachai Tongnak, who was one of the village project leaders in 1975, said land in Khao Yai Thiang had been allocated to poor farmers because it had already been taken over by the locals. He also insisted that the plots were properly allocated to poor people in 1975.
