It is almost one month since Den Kamlae, a land-rights activist who has been fighting for his community to gain the legal right to live in Khok Yao Forest Park, mysteriously disappeared in the forest near his home in Chaiyaphum’s Khon San district during a routine expedition to gather bamboo shoots on April 16.

While the search for Den has proved unsuccessful, Chaiyaphum Governor Chusak Trisan said yesterday that Phu Khiao Provincial Court had issued a warrant for his arrest on Tuesday.

He is seen by the authorities as a fugitive criminal suspect.

Chusak said the authorities had discovered that Den and two others, Kraingkrai Bunlork and Praphan Buamuangpia, went hunting in Phu Khiao Wildlife Sanctuary on April 13 and shot a deer to sell the meat at market and share the money between the three of them.

“We captured Kraingkrai and Praphan on April 26 on a charge of violating the Forest Act and the Wildlife Reservation and Protection Act. The case is now being investigated, so the authorities will track down Den and bring him to justice,” he said.

In contrast to the authorities’ claim, Den’s wife Supap Kamlae insisted that her husband did not go hunting, and said she still did not formally know about the warrant.

“I can confirm that my husband never hunted anything. He went to the forest to gather bamboo shoots and galangal to sell in the market. He only took a knife with him. How could he hunt a deer with that?” she said, adding that she did not know the other two suspects.

Angkana Neelapaijit, a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), commented on the authorities’ move, saying that she saw it as an effort to spin Den’s disappearance as that of a runaway crime suspect rather than the victim of forced disappearance.

“The warrant issued on the disappeared person is unjust. The authorities should prioritise finding him before investigating the reason he disappeared. I see this as a clear intention by the state to manipulate the fact that his disappearance was forced,” she stressed.

Sor Rattanamanee Polkla, a lawyer from the Community Resource Centre, commented that the issuance of the warrant would make the search operation harder.

“If Den is still alive, he will find it difficult to get help from another person to bring him back, because that person could be seen as an accomplice in the case,” the lawyer said.

“The authorities have a duty to find the disappeared person, not to press charges against him while he is missing. From this action by the authorities, I can’t help thinking that they have some degree of involvement in Den’s disappearance.”

Angkana said the NHRC would visit Supap to gather information and investigate whether the case was a matter of forced disappearance.

Asked about the progress – or lack of it – made in finding Den, Supap said the local community network had found new evidence that could lead to answers as to how and why he had disappeared.

“We are now contacting Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand [expert forensic pathologist] to examine our new evidence,” she said, arguing that the police had made very slow progress to date in trying to find her husband.

However, Chaiyaphum Deputy Governor Thanapon Chantaranimit insisted that the police had been working strenuously to find Den, and that the provincial authorities did not remain inactive when it came to solving problems concerning those living in Chaiyaphum – despite what those on the activist side of the case were alleging.

The Khok Yao community, in which Den and his family reside, has been disputing the consequences of a Royal Forestry Department declaration in 1973 that the area lies within Phusam Paknam National Forest, and its issuance of an order in 1985 for the locals to move away so that a forest park could be planted in the area.

However, the local community discovered that the land that the department had provided for them was already occupied, so they had to move back to their former land.

The community has, therefore, been in conflict with the authorities over the land for 31 years. Moreover, because of the government’s forest-reclamation policy, the community recently faced several threats from the authorities to drive them off their land.