PM puts Grandma on a Hai

       Wearing a brown sarong, dark blue long-sleeved shirt and white flowers in her hair, Hai Khanjantha knew yesterday was her happiest day.
       Grandma Hai was up early in the morning to prepare for her meeting with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who travelled from Bangkok to hand over a compensation cheque for 1.2 million baht to her.
       In return, she gave an unfinished bamboo basket to the prime minister, saying it represented the many problems of the poor still to be addressed by his government.
       "I have waited for this happy moment for 32 years. I will pay off my 400,000 baht debt and spend the rest buying land for my children," she said after receiving the cheque.
       Grandma Hai has 10 children, 60 grandchildren and 25 greatgrandchildren.
       The handover ceremony was held before hundreds of northeastern farmers at a learning centre in Phibun Mangsahan district of this northeastern province.The centre is also the northeastern head office of the Assembly of the Poor.
       A member of the assembly, Mrs Hai is one of the three farmers to whom the cabinet last month approved a grant of 4.9 million baht compensation after they had fought to reclaim their 61-rai submerged paddy fields from construction of the Huay La Ha reservoir at Na Tan village at Phibun Mangsahan district.
       The other two are her late husband,Fong, and her late elder brother-in-law Sua Pankham.
       The reservoir was built when Gen Prem Tinsulanonda was prime minister.The government did not seek her consent or ask how the farmers were likely to be affected. After construction, the land was submerged immediately, which resulted in them being unable to grow rice for nearly three decades.
       Mrs Hai said she and the other farmers had asked many government agencies for help but no one offered a solution.
       "I lost tears to the land battle. It is such a painful memory. I don't want to see other people facing the same problem," she said.
       After being ignored, Grandma Hai dug a hole in the crest of the reservoir to reclaim her submerged land.
       She regained her paddy in 2004 when the Thaksin Shinawatra government intervened and demanded state agencies look into her case.
       They concluded that she had never given her consent for the dam and should be compensated."Even though my family have now been paid, we will not let our brothers and sisters in the Assembly of the Poor fight alone," she said.
       Petch, 36, Mrs Hai's daughter, who received the 1.3 million baht cheque on behalf of her late father, said she fought with her mother to reclaim the land when she was aged only four, and knew just how much her mother had struggled during that difficult time.
       "Our family relied on the paddy as its main source of income but when the paddy fields were inundated we did not know what to do," said Mrs Petch, who quit school at Mathayom 3(Grade 9)because her mother had no money to support her.
       The mother of two children said she intended to put some money aside for the education of her children.
       The prime minister also pledged to help the other 16 farmers affected by construction of the Huay La Ha reservoir.