Dear Friends:

1. Is Thailand Forestry Department using Forestry Law in the broad sense of the word for ethnic cleansing of mountain areas?

Joh Hoh Akha is another Akha village that is being broken up.

We were not informed about this untill after the village was already emptied of 15 families.

The villagers were told they would be given land if they agreed to move, they were not.

At any rate, Joh Hoh Akha in Chiang Mai Province near Phyao has already been shattered. Of more than 22 families, 15 have already left the village for other places and only seven families remain. On my visit there of last week workmen were picking through the rubble of broken homes.

The village farms very small land, within a great forest, it is obvious that trees ARE NOT BEING cut, and the access road to the village is very small. The village knew that it didn't have an ideal situation for farming rice so they invested in bits of coffee and fruit trees. But this year the forestry department has forbid them to take care of the fruit trees, some three thousand, which provided them substantial income.

As well they have been told that they can and can not work their fields so they really do not know what to do.

The villagers who have left have already split off in at least three or four directions. Not good for a village, not good for precedent.

This is once again a glaring case of Forestry department being unwilling to work with hill tribe people as an alliance with the forest rather than enemy.

Joh Hoh village was at this location for 18 years. Previously they were pushed out of Burma but not given refugee status, then pushed out of the Doi Maesalong area and now they are pushed out of the Joh Hoh area.

It was very odd to find foreign tourists sleeping in the village. The village being milked for its last drop of blood by a guide, the tourists paying 2000 baht each, the villagers getting 20 baht each and the tourists not having a clue that the village was being torn down around them.

So much for eco tourism with a heart in Thailand.

This year numerous Villages have complained about arrests or threats of arrest from Forestry personell over farming their own land, land they paid for, which is in the mountain village areas.

Akha.org is being moved to a new server, and soon as that is done I will post the link to see the video about Joh Hoh Akha.

These video movies are several meg and of fairly good quality as I want people to be able to gain a clear idea of what is occuring, rather than for entertainment. However, since they can be permanently downloaded the benefit is that they can be collected and viewed again.

2. The bakery is up and going, running as often as we can get donations of flour. One batch of bread is 100 kilo of flour, making about 400 loaves of bread, enough for the children in 5 Akha villages. 100 kilo's of flour cost about $40.

3. The Fish Tank project is proceeding. Dredge pump and water pump are purchased and waiting as we continue to dig on a very big well hole, some five meters across and going deeper.

Will let you know when the water system is fully in place for the Catfish project.

4. The credit card donation site is down in the US, so contact me if you wish to make a donation.

Your donation is what keeps this work going and the assistance moving into the villages.

Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand