Bangkok Crimes

Bangkok Post

Vendors at the Klong Toey fresh market have threatened to block Rama IV Road again if the city police chief fails to mediate their talks with the market’s new operator.

Bangkok police chief Pol Lt Gen Worapong Chiewpreecha had promised to help settle the conflict by acting as a go-between, the vendors say.

While they were waiting to negotiate with the operator Legal Professional Co yesterday, vendors threatened to block Rama IV Road once again if the police did not act as mediator.

More than 100 vendors faced off police and Legal Professional staff when the latter entered the market to start making renovations on Thursday.

The protest spilled out into Rama IV Road causing traffic chaos.

Thammanat Prompao, the company’s chairman, alleged that the market’s previous operator Sriratana Sitthichoke, also known as Jeh Toi, was backing the protest.

The vendors were told to oppose his company otherwise they would lose their stalls, Mr Thammanat said.

He claimed that after his company had won the contract from the Port Authority of Thailand to manage Klong Toey market, a former deputy Bangkok police chief who was close to Jeh Toi told Legal Professional that it would be beneficial for the company to withdraw from the market.

He said he turned down the offer because his company was committed to improving the market.

Legal Professional would withdraw all of the legal action it had taken against the vendors if they only stopped their protests, he said.

KC: This report, and similar coverage in Thailand’s English language press on the emergence of a new period of conflict at Khlong Toey market, betrays the long history and complexity of the relationship between the market, the adjacent slum and the powerful forces attempting to assert control over the land. It is essentially a story of David and Goliath, and Khlong Toey slum has survived against all the odds through generations of spirited and organised eviction resistance. The land which the slum and market occupy is owned by Goliath, the Port Authority of Thailand (PAT) and it has consistently and persistently been trying to develop the area for more lucrative purposes, threatening residents and traders with eviction. This conflict has waxed and waned for over thirty years. In 1993, the PAT planned to develop the Khlong Toey market site as a commercial complex and the neighbouring slum area as a container and parking zone. These plans would have involved the eviction and relocation of over 5,000 families from the core of the slum area. The plan also threatened the future of the market, but was repeatedly thwarted due to various factors such as the frequent change in governments and the mobilization of NGOs, social activists and lobby groups to the residents’ cause. It was, however, the onset of the Asian financial crisis which ultimately ended the PAT’s grand schemes for Khlong Toey.

So these current conflicts are nothing new, they are part of the ongoing struggle for control of Bangkok’s urban space and have their roots in history and the politics of locality. So far, David has been successful but not triumphant and the question remains: How long can David withstrain Goliath? Will the 70-100,000 residents (est.) of the slum, now part of an assertive ‘slum movement’ and the largest wet market in Bangkok, a Bangkok institution, prevail against the designs of the land owners, the fat cats, whose opulent lifestyles require the cheap labour of the communities they are attempting to subjugate and expel?

Further Reading:

Klong Toey

Absolutely Bangkok: Klong Toey Walk

HDF Mercy Centre

JSTOR article

Duang Prateep Foundation

What do readers think is the long-term future of Khlong Toey market and slum area?

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