Kok Edoi, Thailand. – In a remote rural area near the border with Cambodia, a group of peasants decided that they would not allow themselves to be expelled. What began as a struggle to survive has become, over the years, an example of community organization and struggle against state dispossession, criminalization, and the advance of capital. Today, after almost three decades, the Kok Edoi community remains firm: organized, self-sufficient, and on a resistance footing.
From occupation to organization
In the 1990s, around 400 people settled on the 366-acre Kok Edoi estate. They faced companies holding land concessions and a State quick to defend those corporate interests. Between 1993 and 1996, border police persecuted and harassed peasant families, confiscating tools, destroying crops, and attempting to evict them with the use of laws made to benefit the powerful.
“They took away our tools, but not our will”
At that moment, they learned about other peasant struggles, like the resistance against a dam in a nearby province. This became their first spark of inspiration. Motivated, they decided to join the movement and reached out to the Assembly of the Poor (AOP).
“There we learned to organize, not to be afraid, to resist together.”
“They taught us to unite and to fight.”
With the help of AOP, they collected evidence, maps, and documents that demonstrated the historical presence of more than 400 homes in the area. In 1996, they presented the case to the prime minister. There was no response. Then, under another government, they organized a mass demonstration. The state still did not offer a real solution, but the community was no longer alone.
The right to live where you fight
In the absence of an institutional response, they made the riskiest decision: to occupy the land. They knew that everything was at stake.
The land was arid, dry, “unfit,” according to authorities. And perhaps that is why they let them stay “for a week.” But that week has been 27 years since then.
The conflicts did not cease. The concessionaire company continued to claim the land and tried to manipulate former inhabitants into opposing the occupation. The government did not intervene. The community responded with more organization: they drew up a collective plan, divided the land, and established themselves. They decided to build their homes on the company’s eucalyptus plantations, sending a clear message: here we are, and here we stay.
The march to Bangkok
In 2007, during a military government, the community decided to take a new step: to walk to Bangkok. They did so to demand their right to cultivate the land. Although they tried to arrest them, they managed to negotiate with the provincial governor, who provided them with transportation to reach the capital. The action had an effect: they obtained a permit to cultivate, and felled eucalyptus trees, a symbol of corporate extractivism.
But with each change of government, the threat returned. That is why they made a radical decision: to stop negotiating with the State. From then on, their struggle would be completely self-managed.
“We realized that the government was not on our side. So we decided to organize ourselves.”
Agroecology and self-management: sowing autonomy
Today Kok Edoi is organized into 12 zones: houses, markets, wildlife sanctuaries, collective farming areas, and a school of agroecology. Each family receives an equal amount of land. They work without heavy machinery, using community-led agroecological practices. The production doesn’t just feed families: it’s also marketed at local and monthly markets in Bangkok.
During the historic 1998 demonstration in Bangkok, the community founded its self-managed savings fund, with initial installments of 10 baht. The goal: to send children to school, take care of the elderly, and fund the fight. Today, that fund has grown to more than one million baht, with 54 associated families.
“With this fund we send children to school, we take care of the elderly and we finance our resistance.”
The market committee, for its part, guarantees food sovereignty and fair prices. Each vendor contributes a symbolic amount to cover services, waste management, and maintenance of the space. They established quality standards, affordable prices, and a solidarity system where each person who sells contributes a percentage to a bamboo piggy bank for maintenance and to be able to continue the fight.
Decisions on the use of income are made in community consultation, and it is women who lead this process.
Kok Edoi: Territory Recovered, Community Standing Up
Kok Edoi shows that it is possible to confront dispossession and build autonomy. Their history is marked by dignity, solidarity, and hope. Today, 53 families live, farm, and resist in Kok Edoi. They are living proof that the land is not given away: it is recovered, defended, cultivated. Faced with the abandonment of the State and the advance of extractivist companies, they built their own path.
“Here we are. Because we decided that this land is ours. Because we fight to stay.”
During all these years they have confronted companies, governments, the military, and policies of dispossession. But their strategy has always been the same: to cultivate, organize, and resist collectively.
For Peasant movements and other communities around the world, Kok Edoi brings hope.
To occupy is to cultivate!Globalize the struggle, Globalize hope!
The report draws on the field visit of a delegation from La Via Campesina, which attended the Diversity Articulation meeting in Thailand in April 2025.