(AFP Photo) - Cambodian police evict shantytown squatters (Tue 06 Jun, 01:46 PM)Cambodian police evict shantytown squatters
PHNOM PENH (AFP) - More than 1,000 police, many armed and in riot gear, evicted hundreds of families refusing to leave a Phnom Penh shantytown, as authorities moved to end a standoff that has stalled millions of dollars in commercial development.
Hours before dawn, security forces sealed off the entire slum and cut power to the area. As day broke, they began pulling down the collection of shacks that squatters had been erecting for the last week.
By mid-morning, dozens of trucks were carting off dismantled homes. It was unclear where they were being taken, but the city has tried to resettle more than 1,000 families as the land is cleared for a private construction project.
The evictions have been condemned by local and foreign rights groups but government officials have defended their tactics saying the squatters have no legal right to the land.
Many of the squatters have lived there for years before a real estate boom more than tripled property values.
The slum has been a source of tension punctuated by violent outbursts for weeks, with hundreds refusing to move to a new site some 22 kilometers (13 miles) outside the capital, complaining that the land offered to them is unlivable and too far away from markets or work.
Instead, the squatters dug in under crude shelters of plastic sheeting and bamboo poles amid the debris of their dismantled homes, enduring daily monsoon downpours that turn the area into a vast mud pit.
The situation deteriorated last Wednesday when hundreds armed with farm tools and metal bars rioted after a child was badly hurt by falling timber as authorities pulled down one of the squatter's homes, forcing an inevitable showdown with the city government, rights workers said.
Early Tuesday, some 300 riot police had lined up near one of the shantytown's main entrances, while hundreds of others spread out in small groups around its perimeter.
"There are a whole bunch of riot police pulling into formation -- they're all on the move now," a rights worker who was inside the slum told AFP.
The rights worker, along with foreign journalists and other onlookers, was later caught by security forces and escorted from the area.
At least six squatters were taken away in handcuffs by police, witnesses said, while others stood by as the demolition crews went to work. Security forces were trying to push nearby onlookers back into their homes.
Police blocking the roads near the shantytown Tuesday said many had been deployed since midnight and that they had orders to clear the slum.
"The people in this place need to move out," Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth told AFP.
The United Nations has warned that Phnom Penh was being turned into an "apartheid city" by the police actions.
"I do not think we should look to a situation where Phnom Penh becomes a type of apartheid city where there are clear divisions between where the wealthy people live and where the poorer people live," said Miloon Kothari, the UN's special envoy on adequate housing.
Rampant corruption and a lack of credible land records -- most of which were originally destroyed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s -- have made land disputes increasingly common in Cambodia.
Hours before dawn, security forces sealed off the entire slum and cut power to the area. As day broke, they began pulling down the collection of shacks that squatters had been erecting for the last week.
By mid-morning, dozens of trucks were carting off dismantled homes. It was unclear where they were being taken, but the city has tried to resettle more than 1,000 families as the land is cleared for a private construction project.
The evictions have been condemned by local and foreign rights groups but government officials have defended their tactics saying the squatters have no legal right to the land.
Many of the squatters have lived there for years before a real estate boom more than tripled property values.
The slum has been a source of tension punctuated by violent outbursts for weeks, with hundreds refusing to move to a new site some 22 kilometers (13 miles) outside the capital, complaining that the land offered to them is unlivable and too far away from markets or work.
Instead, the squatters dug in under crude shelters of plastic sheeting and bamboo poles amid the debris of their dismantled homes, enduring daily monsoon downpours that turn the area into a vast mud pit.
The situation deteriorated last Wednesday when hundreds armed with farm tools and metal bars rioted after a child was badly hurt by falling timber as authorities pulled down one of the squatter's homes, forcing an inevitable showdown with the city government, rights workers said.
Early Tuesday, some 300 riot police had lined up near one of the shantytown's main entrances, while hundreds of others spread out in small groups around its perimeter.
"There are a whole bunch of riot police pulling into formation -- they're all on the move now," a rights worker who was inside the slum told AFP.
The rights worker, along with foreign journalists and other onlookers, was later caught by security forces and escorted from the area.
At least six squatters were taken away in handcuffs by police, witnesses said, while others stood by as the demolition crews went to work. Security forces were trying to push nearby onlookers back into their homes.
Police blocking the roads near the shantytown Tuesday said many had been deployed since midnight and that they had orders to clear the slum.
"The people in this place need to move out," Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth told AFP.
The United Nations has warned that Phnom Penh was being turned into an "apartheid city" by the police actions.
"I do not think we should look to a situation where Phnom Penh becomes a type of apartheid city where there are clear divisions between where the wealthy people live and where the poorer people live," said Miloon Kothari, the UN's special envoy on adequate housing.
Rampant corruption and a lack of credible land records -- most of which were originally destroyed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s -- have made land disputes increasingly common in Cambodia.
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