The entire text of this report can be seen at:
Eradicated Children
This report details how western agencies pushed a development agenda on Laos that allowed for massive relocations of people off of mountains to roads to eradicate opium and so that they could “do their share for the national economy in a global world”. The relocations happened, combined with the US Drug War and a ban on shifting agriculture, more commonly refered to as crop rotation agriculture. Some morons in the book room think you can farm rice every year on the same ground.
Or they blame it on the Gov. of Lao.
UNODC’s Antonio Maria Costa, leaps with glee when he sees the word ERADICATION, doesn’t matter if its the children stupid.
The children can’t talk, cause they are friggin dead.
Is Resettlement a Solution for Human Development?
Report 2005
Note:
This is the most recent and complete report on the situation in Laos created by the US Govt. and the US Drug War, and the development agenda funded by International Agencies. Basically we are talking ethnic cleansing by disease and starvation. It is estimate that thousands have died, with an emphasis on infants, children and the elderly.
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Executive Summary:
The Lao PDR has developed a comprehensive development package under the National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy1. This document establishes the need for specific approach on tackling development issues in upland areas, inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic minorities.
Development strategies backed by international institutions2 in the upland involve eradicating opium, terminating shifting cultivation(rotational farming), ensuring access to infrastructures. In order to reach these objectives as well as bring people closer to public services have led government to move highlanders toward lowland and alongside roads.
Despite its justification on the ground of improved livelihood, the situation of resettled communities has actually greatly deteriorated3.
Comparatively higher mortality rates in recently resettled villages: In Long district, resettled villages face an average 4% mortality rate (against 2.3 in upland villages) and 48% face alarming mortality rate (no villages affected in upland areas)4. Some villages are reaching up to 20% mortality in their first year of installation.
Increased food insecurity and poverty due to the loss of assets during resettlement and lack of access to land for resettled population. The cost of moving is estimated to 1.42 million kip ($142 USD) in Luang Namtha province and 5.9 million ($590 USD) in Sekong5.
Community cohesion undermined by the resettlement process. Villagers may be divided over the response and decide to split up, traditional leaders are ignored. The village faces a new socio economic environement (landlessness, emergence of proletariat). Women’s roles are transformed.
Conflict with new neighbouring villages or between old and new settlers in particular over the use of land for cultivation or habitat.
Absence of development infrastructures in new locations.
The seriousness of this issue is aggravated by the facts that resettlement is implemented on a large scale at the national level, and is implemented in contradiction with the principles of participatory approach and planning as stated in the NGPES.
All these elements form what can be called the “Resettlement Trap”, a situation in which two fundamental rights are violated: the right to the freedom of movement, and the right to food.
Firstly, the resettlement process transgresses the article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that guarantees the Freedom of movement and residence: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State”. The same right is guarantied by the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), article 12: Everyone lawfullywithin the territory of a State shal, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence.” Laos has signed but not yet ratified the Covenant.
Secondly, the resettlement process violates the right to food, as it is guarantied by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 25). The UN committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights defined it as: “The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all tiems to adequate food or means for its procurement (para. 6).”
Because of the violation of these two fundamental rights, the community will suffer durable negative consequences and will not manage to restore its livelihood mechanisms.
Notes from page 1:
1. Decided following the 1996 6th Party Congress, and confirmed in 2001 at the 7th Party Congress.
2. Including the World Bank, European Union, ADB as members of the Donors Roundtable Meetings.
3. Results of Goudineau (1997), ACF (2003). UNDP (2004)
4. ACF (2003), mortality rates in Long District, Luang Namtha and Sekong (2004).
5. UNDP (2004). 10,000 kip = 1 Euro.
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Approach and methodology of the survey
It is of particular concern that despite its consequences, the resettlement process has been maintained, with the continuation of the 2001-2005 plan and the preparation of a new 5 year plan due to start in 2006.
This survey aims at providing an overview of the population at risk to fall in the resettlement trap at the national level. Secondly, it intends to draw atention to the way villagers perceive resettlement and the conditions in which it takes place. These two perspectives pave the way for renewed and reinforced recommendations meant for the international donors involved in Laos.
In 2004 in-depths data were collected for 16 districts in order to identify the trend and scale of resettlement since 2001. Information obtained at government level for the rest of the 47 poorest districts in the Lao PDR provides a tentative image of the geography and scale of resettlement in the coming years. The methodology was based on Participatory Rural Appraisal tools, complemented by specific interviews of key informants examining the conditions and perceptions of resttlement at local level.
Main findings: a national issue and potential alternatives
(1)
22.6% of the total population in the 16 districts surveyed by the study, i.e. 98,669 persons are included in the resettlement plans for the 2001-2005 period, and are thus directly threatened by the negative consequences of the resettlement process, as it is currently implemented.
Among them, 28.4% i.e. 28,010 person have already been resettled.
(2) Making the hypothesis that resettlement is carried out in the same proportion and at teh same speed throughout the country for the 47 districts identified as the poorest by the Lao PDR, it is possible to infer that 211,125 persons are included in the resettlement plan, and among them 59,947 have already been resettled while 151,178 will be affected in the coming months and years.
(3) Although, there is no record of villages coerced into displacement (forced resettlement)in the visited districts, it is clearly stated that means of propaganda and intimidation are used to compel villagers to move, and villagers are not associated in any form of planning.
(4) Visited villages systematically try to develop means to influence the resettlement mechanism. This includes trying to meet criterions for an upland village not to be resettled or negotiating the area and timing of the relocation but the level of success is very uncertain as it is highly dependent on the quality of the village traditional leadership.
(5) Non Governmental Organisations have contributed to successfully influence the decision making process related to resettlement. this may be achieved by helping upland villages to reach the criteria for avoiding resettlement, or by means of an enhanced dialogue between affected villages and the local authorities.
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Recommendations
To NGOs/IOs/Donors:
(1) All NGOs/IOs/Donors involved in the resettlement areas shall adopt a code of conduct. Suggestions of guidelines could be:
– The NGOs/IOs/Donors involved will proactively seek to empower communities who choose to remain in their current location and will represent their interests to government at local level.
– In the case where government has encouraged communities to move, the NGOs/IOs/Donors will work with these communities if the following circumstances are fulfilled:
– – they have moved without force or threat
– – the displaced communities have access to the basic requirement needed to maintain or improve their food security
– – the local government authorities make every effort to ensure that their standard of living is maintained and/or improved,
– – they are not being resettled from outside the target area the organization is working
– The NGOs/IOs/Donors will also consider working with communities in exceptional circumstances when resettlement results in an emergency and lives are threatened.
(2) The international donor community shall acknowledge that resettlement as a step taken to reach development objectives is currently a threat to population’s livelihood.
(3) The international donors and NGOs/IOs shall recognize that alternatives to resettlement as a development tool in upland areas exist, (based on developing existing potentialities in situ) and wish that implementing these alternatives becomes a priority.
(4) NGOs/IOs and donors shall be aware of the scale and the seriousness of the resettlement issue at a national level and take into consideration thte recommendations above when formulating their intervention strategy in the Lao PDR.
(5) NGOs/IOs and donors shall note the correlation between the resettlement issue and the strategies defined in NGPES (eradication of opium cultivation, phasing out shifting cultivation, access to public services, administrative law – minimum household – land & forest allocation etc….) International donors can address this issue in the context the NGPES and in the design of the next Socio-Economic Plan starting in 2006.
All Other Actors:
(6) All actors involved in upland development shall admit that compulsory relocation is not acceptable and must be stopped as it constitutes a violation of the right of freedom of movements.
To the Lao PDR Governemnt:
(7) In case when resettlement remains the best option, the Lao government shall make sure that the resettlement process is monitored and that corrections are brought in the resettlement implementation so as to ensure that the right to food and freedom of movements are respected.
(8) The Lao government shall recognise the importance of implementing a participatory approach involving the community prior to resettlement. In particular, consultation and transparency are essentials in the fields of habitat, cultivation land and infrastructures.
(9) Teh access to information in each agency’s target area is a prerequisite for adopting a positioning and elaborating a strategy. By creating a negotiation space with the district authorities, agencies can help the population to respond to resettlement plans. The strategy is to confront them with communities’ position and highlight the risks for the population in order to come up with a viable alternative.
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Acronyms:
ADB Asiatic Development Bank
ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICERD International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
ICESCR Interantional Covenant On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
IDPs Internal Displaced Peoples
IMF International Monetary Fund
IO International Organisation
IRD Institute of Research on Development
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
GOL Government of Laos
Lao PDR Lao People’s Democratic Republic
LDC’s Least Developed Countries
LFNC Lao Front For National Construction
LFA Land and Forest Allocation
MAF Ministry of Agriculture
MDG’s Millenium Development Goals
NAFRI National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute
NBCA National Biodiversity Conservation Area
NEM New Economic Research Institute
NERI National Economic Research Institute
NGO’s Non Governmental Organization
NGPES National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy
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Background
1. Introduction
In the Lao PDR, relocation of villages from the highlands to the lowlands or within the highlands is linked to strategies of reducing slash and burn cultivation, eradicating opium production, improving access to government services and consolidating villages into larger and more easily administrated units. It is ostensibly aimed at contributing to the development of the target population. (was called Kulakization in the Stalin era)
[Note: Moving the peasants was also done in the Stalin era, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn pointed out the policy of forced relocations. Only in Laos it was pushed by the US, not by Stalin.]
However experiences indicate that the displacement of population towards the lowlands leads to loss of assets (especially animals due to diseases) restricted access to land and forest, higher mortality rates. Resettlement causes increased food and livelihood insecurity and thereby contributes to increasing poverty rather than alleviating poverty. As a result the issue has raised concern among government agencies, donors and international organizations.
Based on extensive field research conducted in 2003-2004, this report continues to analysis of resettlement of ethnic minorities in Laos based on exhaustive information and meetings with most of the actors concerned by the issue.
The study focus on the resettlement for the 2001-2005 Five Year Plan only. This means that we will not discuss about resettlement that took place under the previous Rural Development Program where hundreds of thousands of upland shifting cultivators were moved.
Various methodologies were used and meetings and discussions were held with hundreds of key informants from international agencies, provincial and district authorities, as well as at village level. Almost 150 villages in 16 districts and 8 provinces are covered by this study. (Attapeu, Sekong, Savannakhet, Sayaboury, Oudomxay, Bokeo, Luang Namtha and Xieng Kouang.)
A great amount of documents have been made available during the study including grey literature from interantion agencies, national policies, decrees, guindelines, international treaties, national development plans, provincial and district socio-economic development plans, resettlement plans, orders, letters addressed to villagers, etc. The outputs of the study encompasses narrative reports, database, maps, testimonials, all summarized in this report.
Figures
According to our findings, more than 28,000 people living in 135 villages have been resettled since 2001 and more than 98,000 people are included in the resettlement plans for the 16 districts covered by the study.
This study not only presents the current resettlement plans and th4e degree of implementation, it also analyzes the mechanisms of persuasion and coercive measures, the validity of the plan according to the reality in the field, etc. The consequences of resettlement are analyzed in details, including reactions short, middle and long term consequences and the violation of fundamental rights. The report also evaluates the potential for future resettlement in poor districts. It finally aims at answering international agencies interrogations and raising awareness among the Lao authorities about the consequences of the resettlement policy. It concludes with recommendations based on the fact that resettlement violates two fundamental rights: the right to food and the right to residence.
Although being at the center of the resettlement process, villagers are not taking part in any decisions that are shaping their future. This report gives a voice to ethnic minorities usually excluded from the decisions making process.
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2. Brief perspective over upland Laos and resettlement
The Lao People Democratic Republic (Sathalanalath Pasatipatai Pasason Lao) is located in the hearth of the Indochinese Peninsula, bordered by Burma and China on the north-east, Vietnam on the east, Cambodia on the south and Thailand on the west. I is a small landlocked mountainous country with one fo the lowest populations densities in Asia. (24 person/sq.km).
Around 85% of its 5.5 million inhabitants rely on agriculture, although this sector contributes to only 50% of the GDP. With a Human Development Index ranking of 135th out of 177 countries, the Lao PDR receives the highest official development assistance per capita in Asia. (UNDP, Human Development Report 2004, Ibid)
Laos is a mosaic of ethnicities among which 49 ethnic groups belongin to 4 ethno linguistic super stock have officially been recognized by the authorities: Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Lao, Tiebtan-Burmese and Hmong-Iu-Hmien. Ethnic Lao, who represents around half of the total population, dominate both culturally and politically.
Being at the crossroads of migrations in South East Asia, population movements are an intrinsic part of all ethnic groups’ history. Austro-Asiatic (or Mon-Khmer) can be seen as the indigenous people of Laos and have been there for 5 to 7 thousands of years according to scholars. They dominated the region until the arrival of Lao-Thai (second wave of migration) from Southern China during the 9th century. The third large wave of migration brought to Laos Tibetan-Burmese and Hmong-Hmien who were escaping the Chinese civil war (1845-1850). Coming from Guangxi, Yunnan, and the Tibetan plateau, they settled in Northern Laos.
This history of migrations produced a great diversity of integration levels between upland swidden cultivators and lowland paddy cultivators.
The feudal states (Siam and Annam) administrated the area before the colonial era. It was based upon a tribute system with the upland groups that di not interfere with the socio-economic modes of those communities. The coming of the French at eh end of the 19th century and the willingness to extend the role of the colonial administrations to the entire territory markes the beginning of attempts to integrate ethnic minorities in the new Lao nation State. Opposition and various episodes of uprising highlight the communities’ disagreements with this process, which was associated to forced labor and missionaries influence.
The independence (1953) and Vietnam War caused massive displacement of villagers located in the frontline toward the plains. From the 1980’s onward the ethnic minorities bask to their traditional setting faced resettlement campaign to foster their socio-economic integration to the Lao nation. From that date, the organization of the country relies on mass organizations and the control of the army in charge of maintaining the political line under the leadership of the Party.
As in other Asian countries, the displacement of ethnic minorities takes place in the context of development, in order to regroup population that are geographically and culturally marginal. Internal resettlements are implemented in line with national objective of rural development aiming at reducing shifting cultivation, the eradication of opium cultivation, and facilitatethe access to infrastructure, education, health services and other development facilities.
(At the beginning of the 1990’s, Lao government planned the sedentarization and the rehabilitation of 1.5 million of people representing 180,000 households, of which 60% should be resettled before the year 2000. Although not officially a policy, resettlementwas introduced as a means to reach the development goals during a symposium held at the MAF in early 1990 (Ireson: 1991) with the idea to reorganize the production and the social conditions of upland minorities and set them in permanent occupation and settlements.)
Every five years, the Party holds a Party Congress to approve policies (Party Congress Resolutions) drafted by the Politburo. The 7th Congress held in Vientiane in 2001 clearly re-stated the orientations in favor of poverty reduction through establishing Focal Site for development, stabilizing swidden cultivation and eradicating opium before 2005. New guidelines have been issued in order to reorganize the territory. The authorities have to follow them and arrange the communities so as to meet the criteria set for demographic requirements and access. This induced the consolidation and resettlement of many upland hamlets and villages.
However, the resettlement process is far from reaching its official objective of improved livelihood for remote population by granting access to basic services such as health, education, water or electricity. On the contrary, resettlement causes increased poverty and food insecurity leading to high mortality rates. As a result the issue has raised concerns among government agencies, donors and international organizations.
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3. History and reference documents
A major study on resettlement in Laos was conducted in 1996 by the French anthropologist Goudineau: Resettlement and Social Characteristics of New Villages”. Basic Needs for Resettled Communities in the Lao PDR
(IRD/UNESCO/UNDP, 1997). It reviews the situation in 60 villages, covering 22 districts in 6 provinces (Luang Namtha, Xieng Kouang, Oudomxay, Sekong, Attapeu and Saravane). The Conclusions marked a turning point in the definition of government policy since the release of the results during the public consultation held in 1997 led to a temporary halt on the resettlement plan.
Since the pubication of “Resettlment and Social Characteristics of New Villages”, which was followed by the Informal donor consultation on Resettlement and Rural Development held by UNDP to share observations and views on resettlement practices, there has not been any follow up on resettlement issues at national level. Meanwhile, there is an increasing demand for a deeper and updated knowledge of ongoing practices, experiences, impacts, and possible future directions of relocation at teh donors and at the developmetn organizations worknig in the field. In 2000, the government-sponsored Paricipatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) underlined that poverty is an exogenous phenomenon stemming from development and resettlement, land allocation and village consolidation.
A study conducted in 2001 by the French NGO ACF clearly advocated that land and Forest Allocation (LFA) and resettlement cause tremendous problems in the communities in Long district, Luang Namtha province. But the results – resettlement was almost stopped at the benefit of area-based and alternative development in the uplands – were discarded when 65 villages were integrated in the provincial resettlement plan. In 2003, ACF carried out a survey assessing the mortality linked to resettlement, to analyze the mechanism of displacement, and study the development alternatives in some mountain villages. This study found evidence of the negative impact of village resettlement, which was shared among others with the United Nation Country Team and presented to the authorities and teh international community during the conference from the NAFRI initiative in Luang Prabang.
One major problem is the lack of information available to donors and members of the development community since this type of surveys are geographically limited and may not be representative of the national situation.
2004 UNDP Service Delivery and Resettlement: Options for Development Planning report acknowledges that resettled villages were significantly poorer and significantly sicker than the national average, particularly immediately after being resettled. (It studied a sample of 16 villages in two provinces.) Despite access to health services, mortality rate remain high in the first year. Only one of the 16 villages surveyed was self-sufficient in rice and most of the resettled villages face food insecurity due to shortage of farming land. Furthermore, the lack of paddy land had increased villages reliance on shifting cultivation contributing to increased environmental pressure. However, the final remarks of Finn Reske-Nielsen, the UNDP representative illustrate the limitations of the study: “Although the study only occurred in two provinces and cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the whole country, there might be trends here that need more investigation.” (Relocation Policy in Laos may be causing poverty: UN Press Release, Vientiane Laos 5/4/2004. [is this the UN’s way of saying that the thousands who died “may have only died” that they didn’t “really die”? – Editor’s note]
Despite growing evidences that resettlement causes poverty, environmental degradation, social conflicts, etc., resettlement of ethnic minorities is ongoing and is still considered as the only way to bring development to ethnic minorities. [except for all those who up and friggin died – Editor’s note]
4. Context of the present study
4.1 Scope of the study
The tasks undertaken during the study include several phases:
– Exhaustive research and analysis of documents on resettlement issue.
– Meetings with some international agencies interested in the question of resettlement, information sharing about cases of resettlement identified in the field and agencies’ response to this issue.
– Field study in 16 Districts, covering more than 150 villages in 8 provinces (5) throughout the country.
Hundreds of interviews have been conducted with provincial and district authorities as well as with representatives from mass organizations at village level, traditional authorities and households affected by resettlement. Maps, database and narrative reports were presented to the relevant partners for each area covered by the study.
Foot Notes:
3. It studied a sample of 16 villages in two provinces.
4. Relocation Policy in Laos may be causing poverty: UN Press Release, Vientiane, Laos 5/4/2004
5. Luang Namtha, Bokeo, Sayaboury, Xieng Koung, Savannakhet, Sekong and Attapeu
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“The Degree of Implementation of the National Directives varies between provinces due to the level of integration of the minorities, the motivation and means of the local authorities, development opportunities (private investors, state sponsored project, international agencies, etc.) or external pressure as in the case of opium.”
4.2 Authorities’ participation and access to information
Provincial and district authorities have drawn up local 5 years socio-economic development plans that are accessible to development partners. The study shows that in 15 out of 16 districts visited, the socio-economic development plans included a resettlement plan. The orientations and precise information concerning the implementation are available at the district planning office.
Usually handled in a relatively discrete way by the authorities, resettlement plans are sometimes openly displayed like in Attapeu and Houaphan provinces. The current study focuses essentially on resettlements that have occurred in the actual 5 years plan (2001-2005). Resettlement in the case of infrastructure building falls out of the scope of the study.
Generally, resettlement are internal to districts and take place from the mountain to the lowlands. In some cases resettlement takes place within mountainous areas, such as in Sanxay district (Nam Ngone sub-district) in Attapeu province, and there are also plans involving the resettlement between disctricts of a province, from Nale to Vieng Poukha in Luang Namtha province for instance. Finally resettlement from Northern provinces to three Southern provinces (Khammouane, Savannalhet and Attapeu) is also implemented as a means to redistribute the population more evenly from overpopulated area toward areas where land for paddy cultivation is available.
During the study, making the distinction between the plan and the reality in the field turned out to be difficult. Authorities often presented the situation as if the objectives had already been met but field visits would infirm this information. In Attapeu province for instance, the provincial Cabinet informed us that there was only 7 and 5 upland villages left in Sanxay and Phouvong district. In reality, there are respectively 21 villages still located in the uplands in Sanxay and 6 in Phouvong.
The Degree of Implementation of the National Directives varies between provinces due to the level of integration of the minorities, the motivation and means of the local authorities, development opportunities (private investors, state sponsored project, international agencies, etc.) or external pressure as in the case of opium.
Some districts have almost completed their resettlement plan (Viengpoukha) while others are in the dusk (Vilaboury). In the case of Sepone district, traumatic experiences of past attempts to resettle upland population explain the low commitment by local authorities to implement national resettlement strategy. In Kalum district, the resettlement plan is put on a hold and will be implemented according to the completion of the road to Vietnam since resettlements will be targeted along the road. Everywhere, the presence of international agencies strongly cautions local development plan among which resettlement is a sine qua non condition.
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Results
1. Population and areas affected by resettlement
The 16 districts targeted by the study share the following characteristics:
– They are included in the list of 47 poorest districts prioritized by the Lao government in the NGPES
– They are mountainous and characterized by a high rate of non-accessible villages
– They are all populated by ethnic minorities.
A district sharing these characteristics is likely to elaborate a resettlement plan for isolated mountain villages in order to meet the national guidelines.
In the area covered by the study, the district involving most of the resettlement plan include: Nga district in Oudomxay province (16,000 people), Long district in Luang Namtha (12,000 people), Sanxay in Attapeu (11,926 people), Sayaboury (9,500 people), Dakcheung in Sekong (6,500 people), Nonghet in Xieng Kouang (6,000 people) and Nale in Luang Namtha (5,968 people).
Figures:
For the entire area covered by the study,
– 32% of the villages of the district visited during the study totalizing 457 villages out of 1,415 villages are included in resettlement plan for 2001-2005. This means 98,660 or 23% of the entire population of the 16 districts.
– 135 villages totalizing 28,010 people or 28.4% of the population targeted have already been resettled since 2001.
– 70,659 people are still included in the resettlement plan for 2005 and 2006-2010.
Districts with the highest number of resettled population include:
Long (5,361 people)
Sanxay (5,154 people)
Phouvong (4,081 people)
Nga (2,500 people)
Vieng Poukha in Luang Namtha (2,256 people)
2. How is resettlement implemented
“One major aspect highlighted during interviews is the opacity with which the resettlement decision making process and its implementation are taking place. When negotiations occur between the village and the authorities, the community often take decisions based on wrong or vague information. As a result, the “voluntariness” of the decision is highly questionable.”
Accessing villagers’ opinion has been an essential aspect in allowing to enlighten the reasons why communities, households or individuals move, what kind of alternatives are offered to them, what type of decision making processs they are going through. Hundreds of testimonies collected at village level in 8 provinces confirmed that a vast number of means and measures are used against villagers who have very often no other choice than accepting the government’s diktats regarding relocation.
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A Villager:
“Our village was located on a road. The district came with 12 big green trucks and forced us to climb in. Nobody wanted to leave. Villagers were crying. Then, some officials threatened to handcuff villagers who refuse to climb on the trucks. Finally we all left with only a few belongings and animals we had time to take.”
The Government of Laos uses a wide spectrum of propaganda tools from threats and pressures, to incentives and promises to reach its goal: the resettlement of minorities living in the country’s mountainous margins. The resettlement does not stem from a choice made by villagers according to their own priorities such as the access to the land, to the water or to the food accompanied with cultural considerations.
In order to avoid resettlement, upland villages have to meet several compulsory criteria which can vary from one district to another one. These criterions include a minimum of households, a road or river-link to the village, access to school, health service, water and land suitable for paddy cultivation.
2.1 Persuasion
2.1.1
Threats
When propaganda does not convince villagers to move, threats become a useful tool in the hands of local authorities. Violence against reluctant villagers is hardly ever used but the threat of it serves to scare them. Some villagers were also threatened with prison. Some villagers were told if they ran away from the relocation site they would be shot.
In Vieng Pukha district, at the beginning of 2004 a Kui village was forced to move to the neighboring district of Sing.
Official written documents from the district governor could be used as an order to the head of village and have a value of law. The community have to implement the resettlement content according to the time frame suggested or to act illegally. (1)
The three official letters in the annexes highlight three cases of resettlement to a designed site for which negotiation is not an option.
2.1.2 Promises to move
Combined with threats and pressures, promises are a crucial factor to persuade upland villagers to resettle in the valleys. District officials almost systematically tell villagers that they will get a paddy field, have access to water, education and health. They promise aid such as rice and utensils for settling in their new location. Once they have moved, villagers soon find out that promises are not kept. In many cases, assitance, land access and services delivery constitute more a rhetorical speech to reach resettlement goals rather than a means of reaching rural development plans. The immediate consequence for the villagers is increased precariousness.
Testimony:
The case of a tarieng village in Sanxay District, Attapeu Province.
X village in Sanxay distrct, Attapeu province was resettled on January 17, 2002; right in the period of clearing their swidden land. 28 households (140 persons) moved to the actual site while 4 households left for another upland village. Upon arrival, they had to squat for 2 months in abandoned district administration facilities while building new houses. Their houses left behind have been dismantled and stolen by Dak Pok Mai villages that had remained in the upland.
They have been promised paddy field, eagle wood (mai ketsana) nursery, rice, etc. they only got 20 kg of salt per household. Presently, X village’s territory is limited to the village space set on a former military post. The promised paddy field have been claimed by another village. For the first year, X villagers farmed on the land traditionally belonging to Dak Kiet village resettled in Tad Seng Focal Site but the yields were low due to wrong seedlings, and also to the ravages of a part of their fields done by buffalo herds. They have asked district authorities for assistance but received nothing.
1. See in annex three official letters highlighting cases of resettlement for which negotiation is NOT an option.
2.1.3 Permanent Presence
The local authorities can post some of their men in resettled villages, as another means of pressure. They are often military or police personnel. In most cases, the reason given by the government has to do with security, especially in border areas. In reality, their presence deters any villagers of new settlements from moving back to their former village since any movement, departure as much as arrival, is carefully checked.
As villagers are inclined to move back to the mountain because of the precarious situation in their new location, posting officials in resettlement areas forbig or at least reduce these kinds of risks. And they can also help to put pressure on the villagers yet to be resettle.
2.1.4 Official Visits
Although often located in remote areas, villages to be resettled receive regular visits from the district government in order to convince them to move.
Testimony:
Head of a Khmu Village:
“In the valley we will have water for drinking and washing. It is better than here. But it is mainly the repeated visits made by the district that push us to leave. The district took us twice to visit the new location and its fields. Since then it puts regular pressure on us, saying things like ‘Now that you have seen over there why aren’t you moving?’ Each time district officials visit the village they ask us why we are still here?”
2.1.5 State Propaganda
Media play a significant role in the production and dissemination of state propaganda and its vision of modernity and development. Speakers located in each district capital nationwide broadcast twice a day outstanding facts on the local scene including socio-economic development plans, government decrees, amount of cash received or invested for develoment projects, etc. The total monopoly of information and absence of alternative information sources suggest the supremacy of the development model and contribute to mobilizing the population.
2.2 Coercive Measures
Apart from persuasion tools, other measures are implemented in a coercive manner, bringing such heavy constraints into peoples’ lives tha they will consider moving as a coping mechanism.
Poppy eradication and limits on swidden cultivation are useful tools to push villagers from the uplands down into the valleys. For years poppy cultivation was forbidden but tolerated in Northern Laos where villagers were producing opium as their MAIN cash crop. In 2000, with the approval of the Opium Elimination Program, the ban on poppy cultivation became effective and the following year eradication started. In areas known for their involvement in opium production, the government decided to move the villagers. In others, dwellers have to resettle by themselves because the loss of opium’s benefits added to the limitation of swidden cultivation made it too difficult for them to cope.
The head of an Akha village located in the mountains of Northern Laos regrets that “26 families left us because of the new regulation regarding swidden cultivation and poppy eradication.” Swidden cultivation restrictions and poppy eradication cause a serious loss of income, which constitute a clear push factor for villagers in mountainous area to move to the lowlands.
In fact by leaving their territory, its resources and the know-how they have, most of the villagers entered a vicious circle leading to impoverishment, in the name of development. (NGO’s TAKE NOTE!)
2.3 Relevance of the plans and conditions of implementation
Discussions on resettlement plans with the authorities highlight the absence of feasibility studies. Usually, such plans are elaborated by the district authorities according to the Prime Minister Decree 01, 2001. But information used to plan resettlement is scarce and hardly any assessment is carried out to evaluate the potentialities beforehand.
Demographic figures used by the authorities are often wrong. Land suitable for paddy cultivation are often estimated, using topographic maps for instance, and the carrying capacity of the land is generally not enough to welcome the resettled population. The availability of clean water is usually not sufficient to fulfil resettled population’s needs – and often there is no water at all. For Dak Sa village in Dakcheung, where the proposed resettlement site for 4 villages has no water at all. Finally, communities located in the lowlands, often do not accept the district’s plans and restrict the installation of new comers.
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Despite State propaganda and promises, resettled population rarely obtain assitance for moving to their new area and cultivating suitable land. Out of all the districts visited during the study, only Sanxay and Phouvong in Attapeu province had momentarily received some help. All districts resettlement plans include a budget submitted to the provincial authorities but the funds are rarely granted. This does not prevent the authorities from activating the plans at the expense of the communities that then bear all the costs for it.
3. Consequences of resettlement
3.1 Short term consequences
The integration of upland households in the lowland area is possible in certain cases when the household owns capital (animals / cash), manpower and when it remains master of its own destiny. A 3-10 year period is needed for the household to emerge in the new society of integration, but this is not the case of the majority of the household, and this step is made further difficult when they are forced to move. Then emerge negative consequences and their daily lives become almost martyrdom.
3.1.1 Sanitary conditions of resettled communities
The first years following the resettlement are generally characterized by a brutal degredation of living condition of the population involved. Used to drink spring water in the hills, resettled people find it hard to get use to river water available in the new sites that must imperatively be boiled. In the upland, incidence of malaria is low but once in the lowlands, villagers don’t know how to deal with this disease which is everywhere and infects rapidly.
The access to health services remains difficult even when private health services or dispensaries are available because communities lack cash and also rarely speak Lao. Finally, increased mortality rates are one of the most acknowledged and reported negative consequences of resettlement. Resettled populations face mortality rates three times higher than lowland villages and twice higher than traditional upland communities.
Elders and under 5 years of age children are the main victims of those mortality episodes. Bearers of the tradition and of the knowledge amassed during their life and handed down from previous generations, the deaths stop the process of socio-economic and cultural reproduction of their communities.
3.1.2 Decapitalization
The most widespread effect of resettlement is the impoverishment of the resettled population. All migrants face decapitalization in the short term including the demolition and transportation of assets (housing material, production tools, seedlings, animals, etc), the clearing of the new site and also sometimes the payment for land for the construction of a new house and the acquisition of new production land.
To cover the expenses that average few hundred dollars, households who own animals will sell some or their entire herds but the one without capital falls in the infernal cycle of indebtedness or realize a precarious move without acquiring new lands.
In Bokeo province where many villagers from Nale’ district were resettled, the fee entrance for a household unit is a common practice but the amount varies a lot from village to village.
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Testimony
A Villager:
“Among youths some would like to settle in the plain but can’t afford it. I know villagers where you have to pay to the community more than a million kip as “entrance fee”. And you need more than two million to buy land. Only if you have money you can move down. Here we lack cash to move down. To settle in the plain, especially to build a house, costs a fortune. Here in the mountain in a year’s time you can build your house with the wood you cut yourself. Down in the plain you must buy everything.”
Capitalization traditionally takes the form of large and small animal ownership. Unfortunately, resettlement is also corollary of a high animal mortality, especially small animals that badly tolerate the integration into dry and hot areas.
For some individuals owning ritual functions or also key positions in the traditional institutions, resettlement is often synonymous of symbolical decapitalization linked to the loss of benefits in nature associated to their functions. In Akha societies for instance, the Nipa receive gifts or presentations for the services; notably at the village gates. Often resettlement involving consolidation of hamlets or the incorporation of hamlets into larger units annihilates symbolical tasks and the holder of those functions face a decapitalization both symbolical and in terms of benefits.
3.1.3 Food sovereignty
Used to agricultural system based on mixed farming, mountain animal husbandry completed by collection of forest products and other activities such as basketry, ironsmith, wood sawing, etc. Households resettled in the lowlands have fewer of these resources. Access to land is difficult, but even for the wealthiest, who can afford to buy a piece of land, 3 to 5 years are needed to produce enough to insure food security. Swidden cultivators usually lack previous experience, technical expertise, animals for ploughing, control of water, paddy rice seedlings etc. Such shortages constitute the main obstacle hampering the transition process from swidden to paddy cultivation. All the other traditional activities are also impracticable in the lowlands.
Land allocated by the state average generally ½ hectare per household. This requires an important labor input to become productive.
Most of the households face severe food security decrease: From 8-10 months in the uplands to 4-6 months in the lowlands, and the income generation activities (hunting, fishing, and basketry) that traditionally allow covering other expenses (clothing, medicine) and savings are then devoted to maintain food security.
The settlement of growing numbers of people in the valleys put increase pressure on available land. Given the situation of alnd scarcity, the newcomers get easily into conflict with established populations to whom the resettlement was imposed on and who ALREADY claim access to the land and natural resources.
Testimony
A Tai Leu villager living along the Namtha River:
“Two villages settled on our territory and causes problems for cultivation. In fact we can’t cultivate that land anymore. There wasn’t any prior agreement; we had to accept because it was the district’s plan.”
In many of the cases, resettlement does not mean the transition from shifting cultivation to paddy cultivation, at least in the short term, and the period is one of uncertainty and psychological insecurity, of disillusion and trauma. The resettlement obviously does not reach its development goal; neither, its main official environmental objective: the reduction of swidden surfaces.
3.1.4 Proletarization of landless farmers
For landless shifting cultivators resettled in the lowland, wage labour become a coping mechanism contributing to food security in the transition from subsistence livelihood to the market economy and this emergence of this new proletarian class meets directly government plan for minorities shifting from a perceived unsustainable livelihood to “permanent” occupation. (!!)
This switch from subsistence production to wage labour is inscribed in macro projects linked to foreign investments, such as cassava planting in Nong district, Savannakhet province, watermelon production in Long district, Luang Namtha province, etc. Private companies both Lao and foreign; mostly Vietnamese and Chinese in Northern Laos, commercialize non timber forest products.
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In all cases, ethnic minorities are hired as non-specialized laborers and obtain low salary. Higher positions necessitating technical expertise are fulfilled by companies’ permanent staff or by staff coming from Vientiane and the opportunity to gain knowledge and climb the layers remain also non-existent. This scheme meets directly government objective of transition from a livelihood labeled as non-productive, unsustainable, to one fashioned like a professional occupation.
This phenomenon is corollary to a new phenomenon of competition and the emergence of uneven power relations undermining community solidarity.
3.1.5 Drug Addiction and Prostitution
In the area of the Golden Triangle in Northern Laos where opium cultivation has been strongly curbed, cultural and psychological traumas from resettlement have contributed to increased drug addiction. But without access to opium, more dangerous type of drugs such as yabaa (ATS, type of amphetamines), become widespread, not only for former opium addicts but also among all the people relying on daily labor to insure food security.
In the same area, prostitution activities have been identified. Brothels are emerging along the road, especially close to sawmills and sites of exploitation of resources, and some villages become famous as night stops for traders, pointing out the risks of HIV transmissions.
3.1.6 Loss of social cohesion and increased dependence to state institutions
Traditional societies’ reproduction is based on regulations on kinship and cultural transmissions that allow the intergration of the individual and his social identification. Such changes induce a deep alteration in the traditional social cohesion of the communities that have to face fundamental internal dissensions and new problems for which elders are not prepared. The cohabitation with communities from diverse origins remains difficult and the increased precariousness leads to search for individual solutions and at short terms. The role and the weight of state in the community life is increased ten fold. Dispossessed from its land, the community usually rely increasingly on the state to regulate conflicts, propose alternatives and provide assistance at the occasion of sanitary or food crisis.
3.2 Long Term Consequences
3.2.1 The loss of ethnic identity
Resettled communities are progressively loosing their identities. Precariousness in which they are immerged with resettlement is not likely to maintain their specific cultures characterized by a great variety of languages, architecture, clothing, music and other know how elaborated and handed down through the generations.
3.2.2 Exodus
The absence of real opportunities in the resettlement sites risks to lead resettled population in a new exodus, that is likely to be directed towards urban poles lower in the valleys. The actual adult population, not comfortable with the Lao language and the lifestyle of lowlanders are likely to remain, but the younger generations will need only a few years to adapt to their new environment.
3.3 Abandonment of traditional territories and new positioning in the main stream society
The resettlement has also a negative impact on the socio-economic structures beyond the village level. With the relocation of a large majority of villagers, the remaining communities find it difficult to survive in an “empty” environement. The isolation produced by the resettlement of neighboring communities often stimulates the last upland communities to move closer to other populated area because they can’t count on the neighboring villages anymore. With the general dynamic of resettlement and regular propaganda, they see their moving as inescapable.
Testimony
An Akha villager from a recently resettled village along the Mekong river:
“Other villages had all moved down on the Mekong bank these past years. We were the only village left upland. We were isolated, staying there became unthinkable.”
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When resettled villagers compare the kind of livelihoods they had before in the upland with their new life in the lowlands, they clearly explain that they left a large territory for a restricted space, a temperate climate for a dry and hot climate, river well-stocked with fish for non permanent streams, highly diversified activities for specialized culture, community life for integration into the nation state, a self-managed territory for a space defined and managed by the state, and a food secure situation for a situation of food insecurity.
3.4 Communities’ reactions concerning resettlement
Villagers have been trying to resist the governement’s diktats in various ways. The most common route is to try to negotiate with the district and defend options perceived as better suited to their situation and bearing a less negative impact.
3.4.1 Decision making at the community level
For villages targeted by government resettlement plan, an internal process of decision making is initiated. The process of collective decision making is difficult to analyze. Representativesfrom mass organizations (Head of the village, Head of Elders, Lao Women’s Union’s representatives, etc.) will position themselves for or against the plan; diverse positioning will also emerge as we have observed during the study. A decision is rarely approved unanimously by the entire community and divergence often emerges between youth open to change and the elders.
Villages will often send scouts to assess the resettlement site proposed by the authorities. This phase usually determines the validity of the proposed site in terms of water and land availability, livelihood opportunities, neighborhood, etc. If the community agrees, resettlement is then organized to the new site. The village may refuse the proposed site and make a different proosition. Sometimes, disagreements within the community results in a scission of the village; some will join relatives in the hills, others will move down, either to the proposed site or to a self-selected one. The community ceases to exist.
In this last scenario, the wealthiest households are generally the ones that move first. They have the capital and can afford to pay for paddy land in the lowlands. Poorest segments usually composed of elders, single-headed households, etc. often remain in the hills and will finally come down to join a community since for scattered hamlets, negotiation isn’t an option and they are usually consolidated in larger units or grafted onto existing communities.
Elders are generally opposed to leaving their traditional environment. In resettled communities their traditional knowledge becomes obsolete, depreciated and contested. On the contrary, the youth are more receptive to resettlement plans and may form a pressure group within the community, notably because they own the manpower.
Testimony
An Elder:
“We gave up bird’s songs and the sound of the wind in the tree’s canopy for the sound of trucks coming on the road.”
Some committed to the Party representatives will follow directives. And resettlement also allows certain individuals wishing to emancipate from traditional leadership to gain political power. Former soldiers back in the village may become the new head of the village by leading a portion of the population to settle down in the lowland according to the plan.
3.5 Reactions and adaptations
As we see, people are not passive and elaborate a plurality of answers and resistance patters to the imposed discourse and resettlement. Village leadership is a determining factor in the negotiation process with the authorities that will insure that the villages have some guarantees regarding the resettlement site, the availability of farming land, access to services, etc. Some communities follow the plan andmove to the selected site, others refuse to move. Reactions and adaptations to the plan are elaborated and if at the end villages do move, the final picture is often far from the model planned by the authorities. Modes of population redistribution dictated by internal mechanisms: clan schisms, migration due to diseases or episodes of mortality still happens, but now we observe the emergence of new patterns of mobility. Facing government pressure to resettle, communities elaborate different answers; scission, fragmentation, refusal, compromises, etc., and government and international development agencies have lost the control.
3.5.1 Meeting compulsory criterions
When district officials ask villagers to move down to the lowland, they use the legal criterions that any village in Laos must fulfill (including a minimum of households, a road or riverlink to the village, access to schoool, health services…) Using the legal way too, villagers try to reach these criterions in order to avoid resettlement.
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Villagers are usually well aware of the new regulations regarding a minimum of households for villages that the local authorities try to enforce. Therefore they set up plans to maintain the size of their village or, if necessary, increase it to reach the minimum required. Villages make it the easiest possible for newcomers but try in the same time to deter any departure.
Testimony
Head of an upland Lamet village:
“For those who want to settle here, they just hav to offer a chicken, a bottle of alcohol and 5000 kips to perform the welcoming ritual. But villagers who want to leave here must pay one million kips to the village. We put that harsh rule to encourage people to stay. In fact we are afraid of a population diminution. We haven’t reached yet the district target which is a minimum of 200 persons for our village.”
3.5.2 The ‘no’ way
Although risky, the decision to refuse any resettlement is taken by many villagers. For most of them they have already experienced a traumatic forced resettlement in the recent years and can’t see how to go through it again.
Sometimes, human tragedies faced by resettled communities weaken government discourse and allow communities to resist based upon the irrelevance of the site proposed, the incapability from local departments to reasonably manage resettlement. The case of Dak Lieng Loung in Tad Seng Focal Site in Sanxay district, Attapeu province illustrates well this phenomenon.
A first segment of Dak Lieng Loung village was resettled in 2003. Then in 2004, 22 households from Dak Lieng Loung village came down and cleared the land in order to build their houses. Acknowledging the bad conditions of the first segment already resettled: lack of food and no access to water in the dry season, they decided to go back to the upland village located 1.5 hours away, declaring that they will not come back.
Testimony
A villager:
“We prefer to be assassinated in our hills instead of dying miserably in the plain.”
This comment reveals the type of relations with the authorities and the kinds of threats received by upland communities.
3.5.3 The middle way
Villagers who realize that staying in their initial locations are impossible and do not want to confront the authorities work on a third choice. They do not try to maintain their village at its place and do not accept to go where local authorities want them to go, but they propose or sometimes impose a middle way. Even when it does not fit its plans, the government often accepts the third choice made by the villagers because at least they are moving from their initial location. The negotiations with the authorities is not about the fact of moving but about the destination. That choice is also a guarantee for the government that villagers will not return after resettlement.
3.5.4 New distrust and mistrust
Forced resettlement, absence of support by the government and its regular change of plans engender uncertainty and fuel new feelings of distrust and mistrust among villagers toward the Lao authorities. For many of them, even used to following the rules imposed by the Party, the experience of resettlement questioned seriously their relation with the State.
Testimony
An Akha woman from a resettled village in Northern Laos:
“If we hadn’t been forced to follow the government policy we wouldn’t be so poor now. But we respected the law. In this country if you respect the law you get poorer! You have nothing to gain by respecting the government policy….”
Distrust and mistrust is very strong among villagers who accepted and followed the government’s plan but then were told to move again. They have a feeling of betrayal. The head of an ethnic Lamet village explains in details how after they were told by the governor to move to another district they received a letter from the district forbidding them to move. Finally they were told to find relatives anywhere and to go to live with them. “The district treats us like a young boy to whom you hold the Willy to make him stand or sit!”
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The distrust and feeling of betrayal is particularly vivid for members of the Party. Being the local Party secretary, the head of an Akha village, accepted to move even though the new location imposed by the district was far from offering good conditions for his villagers. Lacking water, the villagers would like to return but fear a new imposed resettlement.
Testimony
A villager:
“The district will never let us return. But if the district asks us to move to another place, I leave to Burma! That’s enough! I do not know anybody in Burma but I will go. Here we are like dust; we are swept up from one side to the other. I do not know if the situation is better in Burma but here we are thrown one day on the right, the day after on the left. They treat us like dog, like enemies. I’m not an enemy. We respect the law but now it is become unbearable.”
3.5.5 The valley as a cul-de-sac
If some impoverished resettled villagers who can’t make their living in the valley manage to return to their original site, for a large majority of them this option is very improbable. First, in the case they left a village still existing, going back there would mean to lose face. The remaining villagers can also refuse to accept them, especially if their departure wasn’t the result of a shared decision inside the village.
The cost of moving back to the mountain and the cost of a house constitute another obstacle for villagers who have already lost most of their capital, usually animals, because of their move down and potential returnees are also facing the state administrative control, especially in new settlement zones where the government keep a presence, police or army, to deter any departure.
Nevertheless, unable to survive in the lowland due to the lack of paddy land, hundreds of communities throughout Laos have challenged the policy and returned to their hills.
3.6 Discrimination against ethnic minorities
Testimony
An Akha Elder:
“You are Akha (talking to the translator), you know what it means to move, it is not easy. When we were young we were moving because we decided so. Nowadays, we do not decide anymore, the government is forcing us. I moved five times in my life but it is the first time that I’m forced to it by the government. We, Akha, never move if the conditions are not favorable.”
Although Laos has signed the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the resettlement of ethnic minorities is discriminatory in practice as double standard is applied on displacement criteria and restriction on swidden cultivation.
UNOCHA’s guiding principles on internal displacement stipulates that: “States are under a particular obligation to protect against the displacement of indigenous peoples, minorities, peasants, pastoralists and other groups with a special dependency on and attachment to their lands” (Principle 9). Ethnic minorities in Northern Laos have obviously “a special dependency” on their land: without their traditional subsistence-based livelihood they loose their self-reliance in terms of food production and access. Once resettled, villagers are forced into a market-oriented economy focused on cash crops production. They become dependent on different economic dynamics that they cannot control.
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Global Approach
1. Resettlement analysis at national level
1.1 Methodology
in order to determine the potential for resettlement at national level, we used the list of the 47 poorest districts set out in the NGPES (National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy). Among the 16 districts where resettlement had been studied in depth, 15 were on this list. (1)
The results of this survfey showed that the main criteria for resettlement were the absence of access road and small size of the village. It appeared that 55% of the villages with no access road were included in the plan, and that the average population in one village was 215 people. The study also revealed that only 28.4% of the population included in the resettlement plan for 2001-2005 had actually been resettled. Based on the assumption that resettlement has on average the same f