People are pushed to the limit, their negotiations are not
listened to, they eventually explode, now they are terrorists,
and that means of course that they cannot be listened to, for
fear of "caving in to terrorism" and thereby exposing government weakness. The demands of terrorists get short
shrift in the news for similar reasons - heavens, we can't listen to the terrorists, that would only encourage them!

How convenient. How many stories have we seen following this same pattern? I'm always wondering, well, what DO they want?
Maybe they have a good reason? Maybe they have, indeed, reason?

In this particular case, I've heard that the price offered
for the farmland is low on the local scale. Why is that?
Why is it that it is apparently impossible to move urban
people to make room for the airport, but it's fine to move rural people? Certainly the ease of clearing the land has something to do with it, but the price differential probably also has something to do with it.

If we want to do the free market dance (it's quite the rage these days, and I've heard tell that Mr. Fox cuts quite a rug in that regard) then fair price should be paid to acquire the property of other people (or groups). But what is a fair price? Surely people have the right not to sell? Perhaps eventually a price would be reached. But, once the farmland is sold, what are the previous owners supposed to do for a living? Migrate to the city? And do what, exactly? Perhaps it isn't so unreasonable after all for them to refuse to give up what they have in exchange for rather uncertain job prospects elsewhere. Perhaps it isn't unreasonable for them to demand, as fair price for the land, enough money for them not to need to worry about such things? At least with farmland there is the ability to grow for yourself if nothing else.

But of course any price taking those things into account is probably more than the government is willing to pay, and the government has the army at its disposal, so we're probably not going to see a fair bargaining.

Sure, these people have indeed committed crimes. But we need to dig deeper, and talk about the "security" involved in farmland ownership and knowing where one's income and food are coming from next year as well as the sort of "security" the police are involved in providing.