This section explores relations between the Lao state and the upland communities by looking through the ‘lens’ of two major policies implemented by the Lao government: the resettlement programme and the Land Use Planning and Land Allocation Programme (LUP/LA).
5.3.2.1 Resettlement programme
In the Lao PDR, resettlement of the population from mountainous and/or remote areas is not a new phenomenon; resettlement was common-place during the war (in the 1960s and 1970s). After the victory of the LPRP in 1975, some upland and highland populations who lived in sensitive areas were relocated into ‘safe’ areas to prevent them providing any support to the Royalist movement. The new internal resettlement programme was
150 implemented again between the mid-1990s and early 2000s. While security was regarded as one of the objectives of the policies, bringing people to development was claimed to be the most significant aim of this ‘new’ resettlement programme (see page 137-138). The resettlement programme was introduced throughout the country although the implementation has been varied in each area. In Luang Namtha province, where the mountains have been home to many ethnic groups, the programme was introduced in the late 1990s and continued until the early 2000s. The programme not only resulted in a decline in the number of villages in the uplands but also led to an unplanned and unexpectedly large migration of those people who used to live in the mountainous areas (Evrard and Goudineau 2004). All of the villages presented in this research are resettlement villages (see Table 5.5 for different waves of resettlement in the study villages).
Table 5.5 Year of settlement in the study villages
Kaem Khong Pha Lad Don Tha Houay Luang
The four study villages are best considered as the production of the state’s intervention in the uplands rather than the creation of ‘natural’ processes resulting in a ‘traditional’ village.
The village as the outcome of the state’s intervention in the mountainous areas is most apparent in the case of the settlement of Baan Don Tha (in Nalae district), Baan Kaem Khong and Baan Pha Lad (in Long district), where the villagers were ‘convinced’ to relocate to their current location. The settlement of Baan Houay Luang Mai (in Sing district) was slightly different from the other three study villages. The village was settled in 1985 by 24 households who had cleared paddy fields in the area surrounding the current village (interview, Ar-Sha, a 55-year-old man, 23 December 2009). This group of villagers decided
151 to move from their previous village in the highlands in order to live close to their paddy fields and to the road. Ar-Ju, a 46-year-old Akha man who moved to Houay Luang Mai in 1985 noted that his family had cleared paddy in the late 1970s in this area and the family had relied more on rice produced in the paddy fields than rice produced through shifting cultivation for a few years before the relocation. Before moving, the family had to spend more than a month carrying rice from their paddy fields to their home in the hills. Thus the family decided to move down to the site of Houay Luang Mai (interview, 25 December 2009). However, by the time they moved, nine households had paddy fields, of which only two could produce sufficient rice from the paddies to meet their needs. For those who had not yet cleared land, they hoped that settlement in this area would give them access to both the road and to flat land, which they could then use for wet-rice cultivation. Ar-Sha was one of the villagers who did not have a paddy when he first settled in the village in 1985, and at this time the family began clearing flat land for paddy as well as continuing to practice shifting cultivation. The combination of the two systems continued until 1992, which was the first year Ar-Sha produced sufficient rice from his paddy field to meet his family’s needs (interview, Ar-Sha, a 55-year-old man, 23 December 2009).
The situation for villagers who migrated because of the government’s policies is quite complex. Coercive resettlement in all the study villages from the late 1990s to the early 2000s was embedded in the discourse of developmentalism. While bringing development into the areas where ethnic populations lived has been a stated significant task of the GoL since the 1970s, the government has had very limited capacity to bring development to people living in the remote mountains. It became clear that people needed to be moved down from the hills in order to gain access to ‘development’ (Evrard and Goudineau 2004:
944). While directly forced (or coerced) resettlement did not explicitly occur, the state-induced resettlement in all the four study villages could be considered as indirectly forced (coerced) resettlement. This occurred through several sets of government policies. Some of these policies caused difficulties for villagers as they sought to make their living in the high mountains, especially policies directed at stabilising shifting cultivation and the massive campaigns on opium eradication (see Cohen 2000). Some policies aimed at convincing villagers to move down from the hills by highlighting the improvements that would result in their quality of life. The promises were considered as a guarantee by the government to the mountain peoples, who were afraid that their lives would get tougher if they did not move down from the hills. Ja Kae, a 39-year-old Lahu man from Kaem Khong village, said that his
152 family and other Lahu households, who originally lived in a village located on the left side of the Mekong (around eight kilometres upstream from the current setting) were encouraged by officials to relocate with claims that in this way they would access ‘development’.
“We were told that the government wanted to improve our living conditions but they could not bring a road, school, water supply, or a doctor into our old village. They said we needed to move down to the flat area to be able to access these services. We were promised that the government would provide paddy for us if we moved to the lowlands. We moved because we wanted paddy but when we arrived, no paddy was available.” (Interview, Ja Kae, 9 March 2010)
Limited availability of agricultural land in the resettlement areas was the main problem that most of the relocated villages faced. In Kaem Khong village, villagers could access forestland to practice shifting agriculture. In Pha Lad village, only villagers who moved to the village early were able to seize flat land, while those who moved later, especially from 2002 onwards, could not access flat land to clear paddies. Thanks to the forest land surrounding the settlement, villagers could make a living from collecting NTFPs and shifting cultivation.
In Nalae, one DAFO official admitted that the government could not provide agricultural land for relocated villagers (interview, forestry official, 5 December 2009). This resulted in the return of Don Tha’s villagers to use land in areas they had just moved from. This inability to provide agricultural land to relocated villagers was one of the justifications of the state authorities in Nalae district for being more flexible in implementing the resettlement programme. One DAFO intern noted that the resettlement policy was de facto ignored as the government could not provide land for resettled villagers. Thus some upland villages still exist in the hills (interview, 3 December 2009).
The situation at Houay Luang Mai was quite different. Some villagers had cleared paddies in Houay Luang Mai area while they were at Houay Luang Kao, the old village in the highlands.
When they relocated to Houay Luang Mai with the encouragement of the government, they were thus able to access paddy fields. The villagers who could not access paddy were those who relied on shifting agriculture when they were in the old hamlet.
The resettlement programme has inevitably affected the livelihoods of resettled villagers in all the study villages. A common theme is that the state and development agencies were rarely able to keep their promises. Romagny and Daviau (2003: 3) note that local
153 authorities in Long district conceded that the government did not have the capacity to manage the massive resettlement initiated by the state’s policy. For many relocated villagers, moving into the new setting became a nightmare. A 50-year-old Akha man from Houay Luang Mai noted that in the early years of relocation almost every household lost some of its members from disease. His family lost four members in the first year of resettlement (interview, 24 December 2009).
The resettlement experiences of villagers in the study villages contribute to understanding the resettlement programme in the Lao PDR and relations between the state and villagers in remote areas. Some scholars who work on resettlement state that the implementation of this policy involved coercive practices and was far from voluntary (Evrard and Goudineau 2004; Baird and Shoemaker 2005; Baird et al. 2009). The experiences of resettlement in the four study villages is no exception as only the early movement of Houay Luang Mai’s villagers can be considered as voluntary. However, it is important to note that the ‘coercive’
resettlement programme in the study villages was not driven by the direct exercise of the state’s power; it was propelled through the introduction of the state’s policies making villagers ‘choose’ to relocate to the lowlands with the hope that they could build a better life from the ‘development’ that the state and development agencies promised they would be provided with. These promises from the state – even though they eventually often proved to be false - stimulated mountain peoples to move into the state’s space where they came to be governed by the state at a higher and more intensive level than previously.
5.3.2.2 The Land Use Planning and Land Allocation Programme
The Land Use Planning and Land Allocation Programme (LUP/LA) was first introduced in the mid-1990s under the name of the Land and Forest Allocation Programme. The programme, which was initially called ‘baeng din baeng pa’, literally meaning to divide and distinguish land and forest, is now officially referred to as ‘mob din mob pa’ meaning to give land and forest. The programme, while it recognises the right of villagers to manage and access the forest and forestland, also makes it quite clear that the forest and land belong to the state.
The expression of one of Sing’s DAFO officials that villagers appreciated him because he
“mob din mob pa”, meaning gave land and forestland to the villagers, reflects how the state views the land and forest. Forest and forestland which were originally an ‘open’ access resource for villagers have become restricted by this policy, which involves zoning and mapping of the village’s boundaries and categorising of land and forestland within the
154 boundaries of the village (see Picture 5.6 for an example of a LUP/LA map). Table 5.6 provides a summary of the implementation of the programme in the study villages.
Table 5.6 Forestlands classified by the LUP/LA programme in each study village
Houay Luang Mai Don Tha Pha Lad Kaem Khong59 Protection forest 100 ha (33.4%) 214 ha (including
conservation Sources: Data of Houay Luang Mai village are based on the LUP/LA map and data provided by Sing DAFO; Data of Pha Lad and Kaem Khong village are extracted from the LUP/LA map of each village provided by the Long DAFO. Baan Don Tha’s data are based on Kallanbinsk and Lundgreen’s report (2005: 163)