BackThe area surrounding Yala Mountain is an archaeological site aged around 30.000 years, where prehistoric colour paintings from the period of Srivijaya Empire have been found. Thus, it presents a significant heritage to the history of the Yala Province as well as a public domain of the state, giving everyone a constitutional right to conserve, nourish and restore this national heritage. However, rock-blasting operations near the site damaged or destroyed some of these paintings.
The Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand supported a complainant who considered the Announcement of the Yala Mountain area reduction, issued by the FAD, to be illegitimate and favouring to rock mining entrepreneurs and the construction industry. The Announcement as administrative law declared that Yala Province and its surroundings were experiencing security issues, wherefore rock had to be harvested from Yala Mountain. The complainant, however, disagreed with this rationale, highlighting it to be untrue. Furthermore, the complaint stated that the mandatory peer review according to the Constitution had not been adhered to.
Following this complaint, the Office of the Ombudsman requested the Director- General of FAD to provide facts and send documents of evidence. From the gathered information it became clear that there had been a dispute between rock-miners and protectors of the archaeological site for years. This conflict arose due to the fact that the concession for industrial rock-mining operations had already been granted for the area around Yala Mountain before FAD had conducted an archaeological survey and registered it as an archaeological site resulting in an overlap of both interests. It became also clear that residents of the area, civil society organisations and the Committee of the House of Representatives had expressed their opposite viewpoints prior to the Announcement of the FAD.
Subsequently, the FAD was obliged to revoke its Announcement since no benefits had been given by this administrative law unruly favouring the rock-mining entrepreneurs and construction industry. Following this end-result, this complaint became a leading example for the power of people by becoming the ears, eyes and the voices to safeguard the property and historical heritage of the nation to preserve it for later generations.
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Source: The Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand
