Somporn Keoykaew has been waiting two years for authorities to remove a large fishing boat from his land. Washed in by the Boxing Day tsunami, the now fully repaired and repainted boat sits in his backyard with the bow resting on his roof.

"I want to restore my house and the backyard but cannot," he said.

Somporn and his fellow villagers at Baan Nam Khem were among the communities hit hardest by the tsunami on December 26, 2004. The giant waves took the lives of thousands of villagers, destroyed hundreds of homes and deposited two large fishing boats in the village.

The fishing community is recovering and there are few remaining visible signs of the tragedy. New houses have been constructed to replace damaged ones and three tsunami warning towers, which villagers say they have only heard sounded once last year, have been installed.

However the two boats - the other straddles the plots of two other villagers - are still exactly where the waves left them.

Somporn said the Ministry of Culture had bought the boats from their original owners for nearly Bt10 million. The ministry also spent money on restoring and repainting the boats, but has never said what it was going to do with them.

He said that the ministry had offered to rent his land, but he had been paid for only three months from July-September this year at a rate of Bt30,000 a month.

The ministry also paid him Bt3,000 a month for taking care the boat, he said.

"It can spend millions buying and restoring the boat, why doesn't it have the money to rent my land or move it out," Somporn asked.

Somporn claimed that he had missed the chance his neighbours had to have a new house built for him by relief organisations because of the 15-metre-long boat on his land.

Somporn on Wednesday wrote to the Office of the National Human Rights Commission to ask commissioners to negotiate with the Culture Ministry on his behalf and yesterday submitted a plea for help to the Phang Nga governor. The governor was not at the office yesterday and Somporn has yet to hear from the rights commissioners.

"Just do something - rent my land, buy the whole plot or remove the boat," he pleaded.

"Don't let it carry on like this longer. Two years is enough!"

Culture Ministry permanent secretary Veera Rojanapojanarat said yesterday that the plan for the two boats was still in progress.

He said the ministry had sent officers to consult the local administration officials on negotiations to buy the land because the price being quoted was too high.

"If the negotiation succeeds, we will ask for the budget to buy the land and construct a memorial," he said.

He said the budget to rent the land on which the boats stand had been approved and the rent had been paid to the land owners, albeit late.

Pennapa Hongthong
The Nation
Baan Nam Khem, Phang Nga