Human Rights.
ENGAGE has always had a focus on human rights advocacy. We work in collaboration with Thailand's NGO CORD and organizations in the Northeast region, and in solidarity with various organizations throughout the U.S. facing large-scale human rights violations. Multiple campaigns, as well as human rights reports that explore specific violations and profiles of community members, have been designed and written by ENGAGE.
2014 - The Master Plan: a Solution to Deforestation or a Strategy to Evict the Poor?
The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has set out to end a long-standing history of land rights conflicts between the Thai state and communities living in national forest reserve areas. Despite junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha’s request for citizens’ “participation and honesty” in the matter, the NCPO’s strategy has been less about collaboration and more about amputation when confronting forest communities. The NCPO began its campaign in June with the release of Order 64/2557. The order enables government agencies to put an end to deforestation by removing any encroachers on national reserve lands. In August the NCPO followed up with a Master Plan describing how to implement Order 64/2557. The end goal is to increase forest cover in Thailand to 40% within ten years.
A discourse surrounding the Master Plan is that commercial investors’ exploitation of Thailand’s natural resources is responsible for deforestation and must be stopped. The NCPO appeared sincere in its intentions to target only wealthy investors after releasing Order 66/2557, a supplemental directive which states that government operations must not impact the poor and landless who had lived on the land before the enforcement of Order 64.
Yet, as the NCPO has implemented its master plan, it has repeatedly identified many impoverished villagers who have lived in the forest for decades as “investors.” As a result they have lost the protection of Order 66. In some cases the NCPO has made allegations with scanty evidence that villagers are part of production ring funded by wealthy investors.
Village communities in the Isaan region have been impacted directly. At present, the NCPO is charging 17 villagers for trespassing and has seized the farmlands of 70 families in Samchai District, Kalasin. Similarly, they are charging 37 villagers for trespassing Phuphan District, Sakhon Nakon, and have already destroyed upwards of 383 rais of villagers’ rubber tree farms. If the villagers are found guilty of these charges, they could be imprisoned for up two years. In Khon San District, Chaiyaphum the villages of Baw Keaw and Khok Yao are facing forced eviction from their homes and farmlands, and have receive notices demanding they evacuate. The NCPO evicted at least 1,000 villagers from their homes and land in Kao Bart village, Non Dindaeng District, Buriram Province.
In November the NCPO reported successful prosecution of over 500 forest encroachers and the seizure of over 300,000 rai of land throughout Thailand. Currently, the National Human Rights Commission has received 32 complaints regarding land rights violations but expects more exist.
The NCPO’s crusade has been terribly efficient. Instead of democratically resolving a conflict between the two sides, it has physically and politically removed the villagers from the conversation on land tenure altogether. Martial law has silenced protests from people’s movements on all levels of society, and villagers are left waiting for the day when they can demand their rights and return to their homes.
A discourse surrounding the Master Plan is that commercial investors’ exploitation of Thailand’s natural resources is responsible for deforestation and must be stopped. The NCPO appeared sincere in its intentions to target only wealthy investors after releasing Order 66/2557, a supplemental directive which states that government operations must not impact the poor and landless who had lived on the land before the enforcement of Order 64.
Yet, as the NCPO has implemented its master plan, it has repeatedly identified many impoverished villagers who have lived in the forest for decades as “investors.” As a result they have lost the protection of Order 66. In some cases the NCPO has made allegations with scanty evidence that villagers are part of production ring funded by wealthy investors.
Village communities in the Isaan region have been impacted directly. At present, the NCPO is charging 17 villagers for trespassing and has seized the farmlands of 70 families in Samchai District, Kalasin. Similarly, they are charging 37 villagers for trespassing Phuphan District, Sakhon Nakon, and have already destroyed upwards of 383 rais of villagers’ rubber tree farms. If the villagers are found guilty of these charges, they could be imprisoned for up two years. In Khon San District, Chaiyaphum the villages of Baw Keaw and Khok Yao are facing forced eviction from their homes and farmlands, and have receive notices demanding they evacuate. The NCPO evicted at least 1,000 villagers from their homes and land in Kao Bart village, Non Dindaeng District, Buriram Province.
In November the NCPO reported successful prosecution of over 500 forest encroachers and the seizure of over 300,000 rai of land throughout Thailand. Currently, the National Human Rights Commission has received 32 complaints regarding land rights violations but expects more exist.
The NCPO’s crusade has been terribly efficient. Instead of democratically resolving a conflict between the two sides, it has physically and politically removed the villagers from the conversation on land tenure altogether. Martial law has silenced protests from people’s movements on all levels of society, and villagers are left waiting for the day when they can demand their rights and return to their homes.
2013 - Community Forest and Land Rights: The Story of Huay Rahong, Thailand
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2010 - Pollution in San Bernardino: The BNSF Intermodal Rail Yard
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In the spring of 2010, ENGAGE member Alvin Sangsuwangul was an intern with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) in Riverside, California. Alvin had played an active role in human rights reporting in Thailand and Kentucky, and used his skills and knowledge to direct the research and writing for this new report. Pollution in San Bernardino was written by CCAEJ in collaboration with ENGAGE and was researched and written throughout the course of 2010.
This report is the second installment of the ESCR Mobilization Project. The first report, Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective, was written in collaboration with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth focusing on the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining on residents in Floyd County, KY. The reports use the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Right to affirm the duties the United States government has to protect the rights of its communities. The reports bring out the human voice behind the issues, focusing and putting value on the lived-experiences of residents.
Voices from Appalachia has served as an effective educational tool for Floyd County residents and organizers to spread awareness among community members and key decision makers. It is our hope that Pollution in San Bernardino can be used by San Bernardino residents to educate, empower, and incite their neighbors to speak up for their rights and join together as a community to demand change.
This report is the second installment of the ESCR Mobilization Project. The first report, Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective, was written in collaboration with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth focusing on the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining on residents in Floyd County, KY. The reports use the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Right to affirm the duties the United States government has to protect the rights of its communities. The reports bring out the human voice behind the issues, focusing and putting value on the lived-experiences of residents.
Voices from Appalachia has served as an effective educational tool for Floyd County residents and organizers to spread awareness among community members and key decision makers. It is our hope that Pollution in San Bernardino can be used by San Bernardino residents to educate, empower, and incite their neighbors to speak up for their rights and join together as a community to demand change.
2010 - Voices from Appalachia: Eastern Kentucky in Transition
| ky-transition-report-10-5-2010.pdf |
Hoping to build on relationships that were established in 2009 with the creation of Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective, ENGAGE returned to Eastern Kentucky in the summer of 2010. With momentum building around the emerging Appalachian Transition Initiative, KFTC and ENGAGE decided to use the summer’s resources to profile and tie together projects contributing to an alternative vision of economic development in Eastern Kentucky. Voices from Appalachia: Eastern Kentucky in Transition was researched late June to early August and written between August and September 2010 by ENGAGE members who lived in eastern Kentucky for the summer. It documents individuals and projects in the region working for an economic transition away from extractive industry and toward small scale, local economies.
2009 - Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective
| kentucky-report-3-17-10-small-file.pdf |
In Fall 2008, students at CIEE Thailand worked with communities to document human rights violations – specifically economic, social, and cultural rights violations as outlined in the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Inspired by this process, these students hoped to expand this project – names the ESCR mobilization project – to communities in the United States. With support from ENGAGE members, they completed a pilot report, Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective, about coal mining communities in eastern Kentucky:
Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective is a collaboration between ENGAGE and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) and was researched and written throughout the course of 2009. ENGAGE was interested in using the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to frame issues in the United States, and sought out KFTC as a partner for its long and successful history of grassroots organizing.
After KFTC approved ENGAGE’s project proposal in the spring, ENGAGE writers and photographers spent the summer meeting and interviewing KFTC’s Floyd County chapter members and other Floyd County residents, often staying in their homes and accompanying them to meetings and events. It is our hope that Voices from Appalachia be used to create conversations about human rights in the region and in the United States as a whole.
Voices from Appalachia: A Human Rights Perspective is a collaboration between ENGAGE and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) and was researched and written throughout the course of 2009. ENGAGE was interested in using the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to frame issues in the United States, and sought out KFTC as a partner for its long and successful history of grassroots organizing.
After KFTC approved ENGAGE’s project proposal in the spring, ENGAGE writers and photographers spent the summer meeting and interviewing KFTC’s Floyd County chapter members and other Floyd County residents, often staying in their homes and accompanying them to meetings and events. It is our hope that Voices from Appalachia be used to create conversations about human rights in the region and in the United States as a whole.