People are being moved to new sites out of the city (Photo: BBC)2006/09/29
By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh
Human rights activists have warned that forced evictions in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh are spiralling out of control.
In recent weeks, thousands of people have been removed from their homes, and thousands more are set to follow.
As the local authorities make the slum residents leave, property developers are waiting to move in to build luxury apartments and shopping centres.
The official line is that the evictions are necessary for the development of the city.
There are an increasing number of luxury housing projects in various stages of construction in and around Phnom Penh. Prices for each unit run into hundreds of thousands of dollars - well out of the reach of the vast majority of residents.
Estate agents say businessmen and well-connected officials are the main buyers, but at least a quarter of the units on average remain unsold.
By contrast, Phnom Penh's shanty towns have provided refuge for people at the bottom of the economic pile for at least two decades.
For families getting by on a couple of dollars a day, a bamboo and corrugated-iron shack in a slum is all they can afford.
Living in the city, however, provides the hope of a better life. There are employment opportunities for the adults, and children can go to school.
Some people have lived in the same place for more than a decade, giving them a strong legal claim to own their property - but that has had little effect on preventing evictions.
Sit-down protests
Village 14 was one of the city's biggest and longest-established shanty towns.
Hundreds of makeshift dwellings were crammed onto the muddy ground next to the Bassac River. Green sludge collected under the wooden porches of the shacks, and the tang of rotting vegetables mingled with the stench of raw sewage.
"I could make a dollar and a half by selling some vegetables in the city, but it would cost two dollars to get there and back" - Ot Sokoeun, Resettled dweller (Photo: BBC)
Even so, it was still a community. The 1,200 families who lived there had set up an electricity supply, and simple grocery shops operated out of the front of some of the houses. There was even an official neighbourhood office.
All that has gone now.
At first, the residents were full of defiance. They staged a sit-down protest to prevent their homes from being dismantled.
The workers from a property development company that had claimed the land backed off, but their trucks still stood outside the shanty town, ready to shift the residents more than 20km away.
They returned with riot police, and the evictions began.
Soon, just a small huddle of people remained, shivering under blue tarpaulins as the rain came down. Within days, the riot police had moved them out as well - and the land where their homes had stood was enclosed with a green, corrugated-iron fence.
Other long-standing slum communities are facing the same fate.
They have been told the reason for their forthcoming eviction is the "beautification of the city."
The municipal authorities say the riverfront land they occupy should be for tourists, government ministries and luxury housing developments.
Continuing row
Meanwhile the former slum dwellers are finding life difficult in resettlement sites outside Phnom Penh which have no running water, mains electricity or sewage.
There are no markets or schools nearby, and the rainy season has caused conditions to deteriorate rapidly.
"They use the word development as a pretext for evictions" - Phal Sithol, Community council member (Photo: BBC)
One elderly woman, Ot Sokoeun, wiped away tears as she explained how difficult it was to cope.
"When it rains, my shack is knee-deep in water, because of the poor drainage," she said.
"It is really hard to make a living. I could make a dollar and a half by selling some vegetables in the city, but it would cost two dollars to get there and back."
The municipal authorities insist that conditions will improve at the resettlement sites over time.
"Now people think it's very far from the city," said Phnom Penh's Deputy Governor, Mann Choeun. "But maybe in the near future this new area will be the centre of the city."
The residents of the remaining shanty towns are unconvinced.
They hope that instead of evicting them, the local authorities will work with them to upgrade their communities, but many of them think there is little chance of that happening.
"They use the word development as a pretext for evictions," claimed Phal Sithol, a member of the commune council for another riverside community.
"They say we're living on someone else's land, but we've been here since 1991, and the property developers didn't come until this year so how can that be the case?"
The arguments are likely to continue. The authorities have recently announced plans to fill-in and build on one of Phnom Penh's biggest lakes.
The development will bring more luxury housing as well as a park, but thousands more families will be displaced.
In recent weeks, thousands of people have been removed from their homes, and thousands more are set to follow.
As the local authorities make the slum residents leave, property developers are waiting to move in to build luxury apartments and shopping centres.
The official line is that the evictions are necessary for the development of the city.
There are an increasing number of luxury housing projects in various stages of construction in and around Phnom Penh. Prices for each unit run into hundreds of thousands of dollars - well out of the reach of the vast majority of residents.
Estate agents say businessmen and well-connected officials are the main buyers, but at least a quarter of the units on average remain unsold.
By contrast, Phnom Penh's shanty towns have provided refuge for people at the bottom of the economic pile for at least two decades.
For families getting by on a couple of dollars a day, a bamboo and corrugated-iron shack in a slum is all they can afford.
Living in the city, however, provides the hope of a better life. There are employment opportunities for the adults, and children can go to school.
Some people have lived in the same place for more than a decade, giving them a strong legal claim to own their property - but that has had little effect on preventing evictions.
Sit-down protests
Village 14 was one of the city's biggest and longest-established shanty towns.
Hundreds of makeshift dwellings were crammed onto the muddy ground next to the Bassac River. Green sludge collected under the wooden porches of the shacks, and the tang of rotting vegetables mingled with the stench of raw sewage.
"I could make a dollar and a half by selling some vegetables in the city, but it would cost two dollars to get there and back" - Ot Sokoeun, Resettled dweller (Photo: BBC)Even so, it was still a community. The 1,200 families who lived there had set up an electricity supply, and simple grocery shops operated out of the front of some of the houses. There was even an official neighbourhood office.
All that has gone now.
At first, the residents were full of defiance. They staged a sit-down protest to prevent their homes from being dismantled.
The workers from a property development company that had claimed the land backed off, but their trucks still stood outside the shanty town, ready to shift the residents more than 20km away.
They returned with riot police, and the evictions began.
Soon, just a small huddle of people remained, shivering under blue tarpaulins as the rain came down. Within days, the riot police had moved them out as well - and the land where their homes had stood was enclosed with a green, corrugated-iron fence.
Other long-standing slum communities are facing the same fate.
They have been told the reason for their forthcoming eviction is the "beautification of the city."
The municipal authorities say the riverfront land they occupy should be for tourists, government ministries and luxury housing developments.
Continuing row
Meanwhile the former slum dwellers are finding life difficult in resettlement sites outside Phnom Penh which have no running water, mains electricity or sewage.
There are no markets or schools nearby, and the rainy season has caused conditions to deteriorate rapidly.
"They use the word development as a pretext for evictions" - Phal Sithol, Community council member (Photo: BBC)One elderly woman, Ot Sokoeun, wiped away tears as she explained how difficult it was to cope.
"When it rains, my shack is knee-deep in water, because of the poor drainage," she said.
"It is really hard to make a living. I could make a dollar and a half by selling some vegetables in the city, but it would cost two dollars to get there and back."
The municipal authorities insist that conditions will improve at the resettlement sites over time.
"Now people think it's very far from the city," said Phnom Penh's Deputy Governor, Mann Choeun. "But maybe in the near future this new area will be the centre of the city."
The residents of the remaining shanty towns are unconvinced.
They hope that instead of evicting them, the local authorities will work with them to upgrade their communities, but many of them think there is little chance of that happening.
"They use the word development as a pretext for evictions," claimed Phal Sithol, a member of the commune council for another riverside community.
"They say we're living on someone else's land, but we've been here since 1991, and the property developers didn't come until this year so how can that be the case?"
The arguments are likely to continue. The authorities have recently announced plans to fill-in and build on one of Phnom Penh's biggest lakes.
The development will bring more luxury housing as well as a park, but thousands more families will be displaced.
9 comments:
OK! So AH HUN SEN said "the evictions are necessary for the development of the city!" Well! If AH HUN SEN can build luxury apartment and shopping centers then the bastard shouldn't have a hard time building decent houses(not a luxury one!) for poor Cambodian people! The bastard needs to remember that shelter is one of the basic need for any human!
Don't just go around developed a little pocket of this and a little pocket of that! Why not develop the entire Cambodia! Hey man! You still have one eye left to see what the hell is going on in Cambodia before I go down there and kick your stupid ass! ahahahaha!
Cambodian people are too poor to live and too poor to die! Cambodian people had become a new nomad in the 21th century in their own country and it is outrageous!
oh...preah euy...when buddha will see and will kill all those who has no heart....and bless all the poor...my heart go to all of you that has no chumrok and no food to eat...may our god buddha kill all the evil ones.....
Ah Viet-dog (Chhka'aer Yuon) HUN SEN - Watch out for those desparate Khmers that you are playing the boomerang with...All they need is just ONE LUCK!
(*My heart goes out to my beloved poor compatriot*)
09/29/06
AKnijaKhmer
Ah Viet-dog (Chhka'aer Yuon) HUN SEN - Watch out for those desparate Khmers that you are playing the boomerang with...All they need is just ONE LUCK!
(*My heart goes out to my beloved poor compatriot*)
09/29/06
AKnijaKhmer
Is there anyway the KI-media can publish our comments to ah CCP regime? I believe Shithanouk read our comment and decided to quit writing his stupid comments.
Our comments are great power tools to get our concerns for the country. We hope that Ambassador Mussomeli can pound on ah Hun Sen more with this new evidence. God bless Khmers.
Lord Buddha's monks are taking offerings from rich and corrupted officials in Cambodia everywhere. Lord Buddha's monks gave them a best wished thru their chanting without asking where all the money that they got to build thousands of tall millions $$ wats surround by poors shaky houses. Look at lord Buddha's monks in Tabet are being crushed daily.. The real power is bullets and blood.
Did you or did not you know?
Right after the Communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, who had ordered the Khmer Rouge to chase all the innocent Khmer people out of the Pnom Penh and other cities to start their lives in the rural areas?
Hint: Sihanouk, he was temporary exiled in China - (He was pissed off with the Khmer Nationalists and he was also rebelled against his own mother). . . REVENGE . . after 4 years later, 2 plus million innocent Khmer people got slaughtered by Ah Viet Cong & Viet Minh that he had invited them to station on Cambodia soil in 1970's.
Is this another vicious political scheme that Sihanouk is playing with innocent Khmer people again?
Sihanouk had recently informed the world that he would continue to stay in China until sometime in 2007. And at this moment in time, Hun Sen regime has once again, intensify their political stratagem to rid off innocent Khmer people from the cities. How coincident!
Sometime in May or June of 2006, Ah Cheam Yeap announced that the government was mandatory to implement this eviction policy because it is very important to beautify the city and the country.
My question to this asshole, how about those illegal Viets - living in the boats, river banks, prostitutions, drug dealings, etc., are they helping to beautify our cities and Cambodia at all?
Hun Sen is taking advantage of the royal family because he knows: (1) Sihanouk is going to be long gone soon, (2) the younger royal bloodlines are all wacko and stupid.
WHETHER WITH OR WITHOUT SIHANOUK,FOR THE SAKE OF HIS POWER AND GREED, HUN SEN IS GOING TO CONTINUE TO BUILD BILATERAL TIES WITH HANOI, WITH EACH TIME IS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE BY HANOI.
What are we going to do about this? We need to be united to work ONLY one common goal - OUR KHMER PEOPLE AND OUR NATIONAL INTEREST.
Beware: China and Viet are working on the same plan.
Good night,
Ah Samlor Ma-Chou Yuon Leay Cong Choe
Have a great weeken!
At present, ah Animal Hun sen is implementing vietcong second plan to evict all Cambodian from their birth place to be begger in neighbour countries. His third plan will be declaring Cambodia as part of Vietnam. Only people hungry of monies and power like Hun sen who dare to sell off their country to Vietcong. If anyone stupid enough can also sell to thailand to remove ah Hun Sen out.
You would think that this would happen only in Thailand's border or in some foreign countries, but it's here in our very own land! and It's our very own government that did it? How Ugly! How Heartless! and
How Brutal! Who did they think they are?
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