At 107, ethnic Karen elder Ko-ee Mimee had only one wish -- to return to his ancestral land deep in the Kaeng Krachan jungle and die there. On Friday, the icon of indigenous forest dwellers' struggles against state violence and injustice passed, his last wish unfulfilled and the future of his people hanging in the balance.
In 2011, Kaeng Krachan national park officials torched his bamboo hut and forcefully transplanted him in a resettlement village where hunger and landlessness prevail.
The crackdown was spearheaded by Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, then chief of Kaeng Krachan National Park, to destroy the forest dwellers' homes once and for all "to save the forest".
