BANGKOK, May 7 – Members of the People’s Movement for a Just Society (Pmove) today called on the government to solve long-standing problems of farmers and rural people.
The protesters who began camping near Government House yesterday publicly read their demands at one of the state office entrances before walking back to their temporary shelters to wait for the prime minister’s reply.
Pmove is a network comprising various groups including the Northern Federation of Farmers and the Mun River Revival and Community Committee. Their complaints mainly involve state projects’ negative impacts on their lands, communities or financial well-being and quality of life.
In another protest, Songkhla Democrat MP Thaworn Senneam and a group of other southern MPs led rubber and oil palm planters to Government House to urge the prime minister to tackle the declining prices of their agricultural produce.
Mr Thaworn urged the government to pledge the prices of oil palms at Bt5 per kilo and rubber at Bt120 per kilo.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra reportedly ordered Deputy Premier Chalerm Yubamrung to look into the rural people’s and farmers’ plight without them having to travel to the capital.
Mr Chalerm supervises the subcommittee on solutions to the people’s problems.
