This is the first time that officials from the Land Office – which has come under suspicion for corruptly issuing land titles to chunks of the Sirinart Park – had met formally with the investigators unearthing bad land titles.
Chairing the meeting was Narit Kamnurak, Chief of the Land Commission, while the DNP was represented by Sunthorn Watcharakuldilok, the adviser to the DNP’s Crime Suppression Section and the Thalang land officials were led by Watchara Buathong.
Mr Watchara said made an attempt to explain how the suspect land titles – now numbering 10 – had been issued legally.
He gave as an example the case of the Pullman Arcadia Resort, currently under construction at the north end of Naithon Beach. Long before the park was demarcated, he said, this land had been the site of two villages – Moo 3 and Moo 4 – comprising about 100 local people.
He also insisted that “Baan Farang”, Frenchman Bernard Gaulthier’s large villa, was on land that was, according to recent surveys, neither forest nor in a forest reserve.
“Holders of Sor Kor 1 land papers are within their rights to upgrade those papers to full [Chanote] freehold deeds,” he said.
Mr Sunthorn countered that the dodgy papers named by the DNP teams had been issued illegally and that they encroached on the park.
“It is not important whether you have a Sor Kor 1 or not,” he added. “The point is whether your Sor Kor 1 identifies the right piece of land or not.
“Even if you have a legitimate Sor Kor 1, the land must be used for agriculture,” he said.
Manopat Huamuangkaew, the Assistant Director General of the DNP, poured scorn on the idea that there had been villages on the steep slope now occupied by the Pullman construction site. “It is quite impossible that local people would have preferred to live next to the cliff or somewhere like that,” he said, adding, “We have evidence from both aerial photograph and ground surveys from 30 to 40 years ago.”
Mr Narit urged the working team to finish the investigations into the Malaiwana and Istana property devlopments, along with Mr Gaulthier’s house within a month.
“The investigations into the other 10 sites were completed in a month so these three plot should not take any longer. Furthermore, the three sites are close to sites that have already been investigated, so we must make it fair to others,” he said.
He also spoke about the 366 new investigation teams that are to be formed on the orders of outgoing DNP Director Damrong Pidech, to carry on his work of identifying land cheats.
“These 366 teams will work on the remaining 3,600 rai [of suspect land] in Phuket and then they will work on the rest of Thailand, taking Phuket as their model.
“I recommend they start in Chiang Rai, at the Royal Forest. A survey team visited there recently and found that only 30 per cent of the forest is left [unencroached],” he said.