Thousands of students and alumni of the Rajamangala University of Technology Tawan-ok Uthen Thawai campus thronged Phaya Thai Road yesterday afternoon in an effort to defend that campus’s claim to the 21-rai property on which it is located.
A suffocating atmosphere has lingered in the Siam Square area since March 11, 2004 when Uthen Thawai inked a deal with Chulalongkorn, agreeing that they would relocate and return the site by September 30, 2005 – two years after the lease, agreed to by both parties, had ended. The relocation did not happen. And yesterday, Uthen Thawai has developed a sense of ownership and is urging Chulalongkorn to review whether or not it can lay appropriate claim to the land.
“According to the initiative of King Rama 6, he wanted to build Uthen Thawai as the first school of arts and crafts in Thailand,” said Pheeradit Pholmuangsri, one of the rally leaders. “That was even before the Kingdom’s democratic revolution in 1932.”
Speaking via a megaphone, Pheeradit scolded Chulalongkorn for abusing its power and using its PR machine to frame Uthen Thawai as the villain in the case.
Chulalongkorn leased the land to Uthen Thawai for 68 years, starting in 1935. It first informed Uthen Thawai of its intention to reclaim the land in 1975. In 2002, the Treasury Department attempted to talk Uthen Thawai into moving to a new location in Samut Prakan’s Bang Phli district, with a THB200-million budget approved by the cabinet for site construction and moving expenses.
Chulalongkorn continuously pressured Uthen Thawai to leave. It delivered three letters to this effect in December 2006, February 2007 and July 2007. Chulalongkorn won ownership of the land in 2007 and the cabinet endorsed its victory in March 2010. In 2009, Uthen Thawai tried to protect its right by filing an appeal with the Office of His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary but failed to convince the Office, which ruled in 2011 in favor of the 2010 cabinet approval.
Recently, settlement talks were revived when Uthen Thawai’s executives met with the Ministry of Education to discuss a possible relocation to Bang Ping in Samut Prakan’s Muang district. But the issue, once again, was waylaid by its complicated nature.
“Chulalongkorn has almost 1,200 rai of land while Uthen Thawai’s property only takes up 21 rai,” stated Uthenthawai deputy rector Suebpong Muangchoo.
Many signs that protestors held aloft during the rally reflected Suebpong’s statement. The protesters suspected that Chulalongkorn’s plan to develop the land for educational purposes was not in earnest. Marching along Phaya Thai Road, protestors approached Chamchuri Square – a 21-rai space at a corner of Sam Yan Intersection that Chulalongkorn turned to a five-star high-rise condominium, office building and shopping mall in 2007.
Earlier, Chulalongkorn had downplayed the accusation Uthen Thawai brought up by assuring that the campus was part of 51% of space the university would put into academic use. Chulalongkorn laid out its THB4.6-billion development plan, which included efforts to construct a dormitory for international students, a park, a road and an innovation center. This latter structure would replace Uthenthawai. Chulalongkorn plans to invest THB2 billion in the center, which will serve as an incubator for entrepreneurs.
It seems unlikely, however, that the center will take shape in the near future. Uthen Thawai has never appeared more confident about its claim to the land. Chulalongkorn has always cast its lot with the 2010 cabinet approval. It insists that the university has approached the reclamation project by the book. While an investigation into the land’s true owner continues, pink and blue, the symbolic colors of Chulalongkorn and Uthen Thawai, respectively, will still stand side by side in the Siam neighborhood.
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