Bulldozers, Start Your Engines
Jan 14th, 2009 by Jinja
Happy New Year, you’re evicted!
Some pictures from last year: breakdancing at the community center, 7NG company representatives watching the event.
Note the prominently placed picture of the Prime Minister. Residents maintain that they are defending land that was given to them by the current administration, and defending it on their behalf against private interests.
A flurry of text messages today: apparently Kung Nei and another musician have taken settlement options offered by developers. With these high-profile residents out of Dey Krahom, moving out the other residents can begin in earnest – some say as soon as tonight. Stay tuned.
Postscript: Wednesday ten families relocated in an offer, village representatives say 152 families remain, the municipality maintains 91 families officially remain. (PP Post, Thursday 15 January).
This is distressing for so many reasons. I’m not in a position to second-guess the decisions made by elderly, often-disabled musicians living at Dey Krahom, but it seems like a deeply unfair decision to reward only those who westerners would be concerned about at the expense of all the other residents who have provided the bulk of resistance to the eviction over the last few years, and who have, consequently, been the source of the higher values offered those same musicians…
[...] at Dey Krahom, if you can get in. Evictees evicting (new) evictees. Like I said, buzz kill. (previous coverage) Tags: [...]