<< Continued from Mapping: A Political Weapon

Search and Destroy:
The Fate of Bon Kai Squatters

1:32 AM: December 2001

Red flames light up the mucky Bangkok sky as piercing screams and stenches of burning kerosene consumed the entire community of 159 households. A small infant is crawling out from a smoke-filled shack; severely burned. She keeps crawling; dragging her oozing limbs towards her mother who has just collapsed near the front porch of the house. Where a rational adult might have decided to resign and leave it all to the comfortable realm of fate, the infant – lacking proper adult logic - continues to crawl and crawl. Others are running around in chaos. “Arson! Arson!” cries an old man as he slowly drags his cane through a blanket of smoke. Alleyways suddenly appear inaccessible. You can now hear the loud crackling sound of burning wood from a nearby pile of lumbers that used to be part of a living room where Sutee’s grandma could be seen drinking tea. A small dog is barking aimlessly; rushing back and forth between two smoking houses. Several sheets of corrugated tin roof, along with its burning rafters, collapse down on the dog; it remains silent thereafter. The night continues its rage until the last white smoke ascends to the sky.

The next morning we see a whole mountain of dust set against a December fog. The wind is strong now that there is no more obstruction. A man appears in a faded blue shirt. He wears that studious look of a general who has just lost a battle. His name is Sungwan.

Sungwan is a middle-aged man. He is a son of a family of farmers from Si Saket. They lived in the rural area until Sunwan turned 26. With the equivalent of $ 1 in his pockets, he decided to move to Bangkok and find work. Like many other migrant workers, he lived in various squatter communities; hopping from one eviction to another. He finally settled here at Bon Kai and was elected chairman of the newly formed financial cooperative.

At Bon Kai, the land is owned by the Crown Property Bureau. It is a 4.5 acre site. The squatters start moving into the site around the year 1973. There were about 12,000 people living at Bon Kai then. In 1976, the Housing Authority leased the land from the Bureau to build the typical 6-stories flats for the squatters. Large green open spaces were placed between the flats for community recreation activities. After several years, however, more people started to move in; they planted their houses right on the green open spaces between the flats. The entire area was packed with new squatters once again.

Much of the land owned by the Bureau is populated with squatter communities. There are now 147 squatters communties - nationwide - that are calling the Bureau's land their home. Within the Bureau itself, an entire department was setup to do research and provide welfare services to squatter communities. One of the most famous department head was Akin Rabibhadana who did his research on the social organization of slums (Cornell University) and had written many books on the subject. However, the Bureau does not always manage its land directly. It often leased out the land to developers – like the housing Authority - who has their own way of doing management. Some private developers, who wanted to lease the land from the Bureau, took matter into their own hands to clear out the squatters. Sporadic threats from mafia business groups loom large in the eyes of the squatters.

Sungwan said that in 1983, a group of men dressed in business suits showed up at the site; claiming that they were the rightful owners of the land. They had announced that the squatters must “move out of the site within the next day” so that they could start building a shopping mall. If the squatters failed to move out, the developers would sue them all. The squatters did not move. So 2 months later, the same group of lawyers and businessmen showed up at the site; this time they had a whole battalion of police with them. There were at least 50 armed police who were ready to attack the squatters. But the community had been warned by the locals ahead of time; they had managed to hide from the police in safe houses.

A week later, in a surprise move, over 100 armed police officers appeared with the same group of businessmen. They came with a bulldozer; it quickly flattened the community’s makeshift theater and crushed 4 houses in a matter of minutes. Many residents came out to plea for mercy, but it was to no avail. The police, in collaboration with the mafia, arrested a number of community members and put them in jail.

The squatters held a public meeting and declared that they would fight “to their death” to protect their families. They went to ask the Housing Authority for help, but it did not work out. The squatters also alerted the Bureau on the seriousness of their situation. Having no other option available, hundreds of people (including Sungwan) went to talk to the head of the Thai armed force – General Artit Kumlungaek. He was seen by many as a man who could act as an impartial arbitrator between the business group and the squatters. General Artit wrote a short letter to the business group asking them not to evict the squatters. The business group promptly obeyed.

In Thailand, things always operate on the basis of ‘real politics’. The armed force and the police do not always get along; the squatters knew this well; so they went to the head of the armed force for help.

Having ‘informally’ secured their rights to continue living at Bon Kai, the community – in a new spirit of unity – started many social programs for its members. Among these programs was the child care center. It was being set up in collaboration with Mahidol University which provided both financial and training support. The child care was later transformed into a small school. Volunteers from Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University, Ramkhamhaeng University, and many others showed up; they taught and lived with the community for many months. Shortly after, the child center hired 2 permanent full-time teachers on staff in addition to the student volunteers.

The community also started negotiating with the Water Authority so that they could get clean water supply. The Water Authority agreed to provide one water meter for the entire community. They set up the “water committee” where members would be responsible for paying water services. All plumbing works within the community were done by its own members.

During this period, things were going quite well for Bon Kai community, says Sungwan. Electricity, water, and even legal street addresses were provided for the community members. In 1992, the community’s informal saving group was registered as a cooperative. The financial cooperative was later transformed into a community credit union. Sungwan then used his experiences to expand his community organization into an NGO called The 4 Provinces with the aim of helping people in slums throughout the nation.

Late in the night of December 1st 2001, as Sungwan was preparing to give a lecture on financial cooperative, he heard some noises coming from a neighboring house. Then there was smoke everywhere. All the things he wrote down in his lecture notes – the cooperative, the school, the water works - were escaping him as quickly as those scribbles of ink on a burning pile of papers.

So here we are with Sungwan – in the morning of December 2nd 2001 – looking at the ashes and piles of charred lumbers that used to be a school. Across from the school yard, we can see a shiny object from a distant. It is a metallic knob – a remnant of Sungwan’s wooden desk. It is a rather cold morning, especially for Bangkok. The time is 8:00 am; we can hear a faint sound of the national anthem whispering from a nearby park. This is the last time we would see Sungwan.

After the December 2001 fire, the Bureau of the Crown Property – working along with CODI - had finally decided to allow the squatters to officially live on their land. In 2002, the Bureau leased out the land to Bon Kai community (through CODI). The community now pays 4.75 baht per square meter for up to 15 years (with 5% increase every 3 years). As of October 2008, the community has finished 101 housing units. They are now building the last phase of 109 housing units.

Unfortunately, Sungwan does not get to see these new developments. On September 9th 2007, a large cement truck - coming out of nowhere - mysteriously hit Sungwan’s car from behind. The impact compressed his car into a flat vertical piece of metal; it crushed his arm and leg bones into 5 separate pieces. His legs were later amputated. Sungwan, now disabled, retires to live on his farm in the countryside.

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