Last one standing

City Hall workers dismantle the last house along a canal in the centuries-old Mahakan Fort community in Phra Nakhon district, Bangkok. The demolition is part of City Hall’s plan to improve the city’s landscape.

It’s time the government, in particular Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, steps into the Mahakan conflict or Bangkok will lose one of its last heritage sites which includes a precious community known for its conservation efforts. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has made it clear it will clear out the entire community. The latest house was reduced to rubble on Monday.

Unless something is done, all will soon be gone as more than half of the community has been demolished since 2016.

Over the past two years, the BMA has torn down much of the community structure despite concerns by historians and scholars as well as civic groups working on community conservation.

In pushing ahead with the Mahakan case, it’s obvious that people are not part of the BMA’s development policy despite its claims to the contrary.

It has never accepted research studies which recognise the value of the Mahakan community, including the one that it commissioned back in the 1990s which suggested Mahakan deserved to be developed as a living museum.

The BMA last year engaged in a meeting with experts, historians and the community in what were known as tripartite negotiations intended to classify the values of the houses and the community to conserve them accordingly.

The community is known for its “Mahakan Model” that enables conservation and development to go hand in hand. The community accepts the condition that it has no right of possession over the land.

It’s obvious, however, that the BMA only regards the negotiating process as a time-buying tactic as the agency ignored all the recommendations, especially the agreement on the houses that deserve recognition and preservation. A city official blatantly told the community on Monday that all the houses would be torn down.

This is not acceptable.

In fact, civic groups have questioned the BMA’s ability to take care of the city’s heritage. The Mahakan case just proves the suspicion is valid.

Last year it came under heavy criticism after it uprooted a number of old, stately trees, some aged more than 200 years, from this historical area. It is just one of the conservation faux-pas shamefully committed by this state agency.

In going ahead with the controversial plan, the BMA not only failed to honour the work of the tripartite committee, it also deliberately ignored policy and instructions made by the government.

One is the new policy adopted by the Committee for the Conservation of Rattanakosin and Old Towns that will incorporate old communities in the old-town development plan, not evict them.

Borvornwate Rungrujee, a key Rattanakosin committee member and former director-general of the Fine Arts Department, once told this newspaper he was open to a development plan that embraces the community.

In particular, Mr Borvornwate conceded communities had been living in the Mahakan area since the wall was built two centuries ago. Yet the BMA has turned a deaf ear to his statement, claiming vaguely that it has to “enforce the laws”.

More importantly, the BMA has shrugged off an instruction given by Mr Wissanu last November that state agencies must follow recommendations by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that the Mahakan community be spared from state eviction and that development must be inclusive of the people.

In making such recommendations, the commission has disputed claims by the BMA that the law forces it to evict the community.

Instead, the commission said there are ways to make it possible for the community to continue its existence while conserving the historic fort.

Mr Wissanu must do everything in his power to stop the shameful demolition, making sure agencies look for alternatives that will ensure people-friendly conservation.