By Ky Soklim
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Families relocated to the Sok Sen village, in the suburb of Phnom Penh, 7 years ago, are starting to sell the plots of land given to them by the state. Poverty does not allow them to wait for further land price increase.
Seven years ago, a blaze destroyed the shanty town located behind the Russian embassy in Phnom Penh. Then, the municipality transferred more than 300 families to the Sen Sok village, in Russei Keo district. Each family received a plot of land measuring 105-square-meter (15-meter-by-7-meter). At their arrival, hardship was indescribable: no infrastructure, no water, no electricity. The victims of the blaze lived in makeshift tents.
At the time, land prices were not very high. Each 105-square-meter lot cost $200. At the beginning of 2008, the average price increases to $15,000 each, i.e. $143 per square-meter. However, between 7 years ago and now, 50% of the families already sold their land at cheap price, and more well-to-do people took over their lands.
Built on former rice fields, Sen Sok is currently a modern community with wooden or brick homes. Duos Sereyvuth, the village chief of Sen Sok 4, regrets that the original land owners did not benefit from the development. He explained that the families had to sell their lands because of lack of everything.
When these families lived in Phnom Penh, they could survive by working as motodoup, or through some small family owned businesses. Currently, traveling to downtown is very expensive due to the high price of gasoline. The lack of schools was also one of the reasons for the departure of these families. “After they sold their lands very cheaply, they returned back to Phnom Penh to live in shanty towns, or they rent an apartment,” the village chief claimed.
Sok Thann who is in charge of the community of poor people in Sen Suosdey – a community consisting of huts built on state lands, located next to the Sen Sok commune – confirmed the sales of the lands by the poorest families in the community. His community accepted 40 such poor families. “I sold my land for $2,500 because I indebted myself for the wedding of my son,” 68-year-old Nguon Sem said. He now lives in Sen Suosdey.
Not everybody sold their land, 60-year-old Nguon Tim was able to buy another plot of land. “It’s for my children and grandchildren,” Nguon Tim explained in front of his house. He had to make sacrifices: price steadily increased for several years, before zooming up when electricity lines were installed, a few months earlier. “Buyers come and go every day. Price increases by $1,000 daily for each plot of land,” Tim said. According to the latter, the buyers are mainly people from Phnom Penh.
Land price in Phnom Penh’s commercial area costs more than $3,000 per square-meter, whereas this price was $400 in the 90s. In rural area, the trend of land price also follows this increase. However, poor people did not benefit from this boon. Some blame them for lacking patience, and for not waiting for the good timing before selling. These poor people replied: misery does not leave them with any other choice.
Seven years ago, a blaze destroyed the shanty town located behind the Russian embassy in Phnom Penh. Then, the municipality transferred more than 300 families to the Sen Sok village, in Russei Keo district. Each family received a plot of land measuring 105-square-meter (15-meter-by-7-meter). At their arrival, hardship was indescribable: no infrastructure, no water, no electricity. The victims of the blaze lived in makeshift tents.
At the time, land prices were not very high. Each 105-square-meter lot cost $200. At the beginning of 2008, the average price increases to $15,000 each, i.e. $143 per square-meter. However, between 7 years ago and now, 50% of the families already sold their land at cheap price, and more well-to-do people took over their lands.
Built on former rice fields, Sen Sok is currently a modern community with wooden or brick homes. Duos Sereyvuth, the village chief of Sen Sok 4, regrets that the original land owners did not benefit from the development. He explained that the families had to sell their lands because of lack of everything.
When these families lived in Phnom Penh, they could survive by working as motodoup, or through some small family owned businesses. Currently, traveling to downtown is very expensive due to the high price of gasoline. The lack of schools was also one of the reasons for the departure of these families. “After they sold their lands very cheaply, they returned back to Phnom Penh to live in shanty towns, or they rent an apartment,” the village chief claimed.
Sok Thann who is in charge of the community of poor people in Sen Suosdey – a community consisting of huts built on state lands, located next to the Sen Sok commune – confirmed the sales of the lands by the poorest families in the community. His community accepted 40 such poor families. “I sold my land for $2,500 because I indebted myself for the wedding of my son,” 68-year-old Nguon Sem said. He now lives in Sen Suosdey.
Not everybody sold their land, 60-year-old Nguon Tim was able to buy another plot of land. “It’s for my children and grandchildren,” Nguon Tim explained in front of his house. He had to make sacrifices: price steadily increased for several years, before zooming up when electricity lines were installed, a few months earlier. “Buyers come and go every day. Price increases by $1,000 daily for each plot of land,” Tim said. According to the latter, the buyers are mainly people from Phnom Penh.
Land price in Phnom Penh’s commercial area costs more than $3,000 per square-meter, whereas this price was $400 in the 90s. In rural area, the trend of land price also follows this increase. However, poor people did not benefit from this boon. Some blame them for lacking patience, and for not waiting for the good timing before selling. These poor people replied: misery does not leave them with any other choice.
27 comments:
This is called the bubble economy. Land speculation price in Cambodia is booming because foreigners can own those lands.
In one good reason, Cambodia can have more foreign currency ($$$) but those currency absolutely inject to those powerfulmen's pocket, the poor peoples are becoming poorer; they are tearing, evicted, begging, and starving...etc
And may be Hun Sen give back to the poor only during voting season...vote-buying...
Hun Sen's leadership is contradict of Robin Hood because Hun Sen is plundering from the poor to offer to the rich.
KY
Bubble economy, my ass. There is no such thing as everyone benefited from any economy on this planet; otherwise there is no such thing as poor people, period. So stop contradict yourself, will ya (4:54)?
I don't understand your point. But this land skyrocketing price is not sustainable development in Cambodia.
It is serving the place for only those rich and powerful men. Cambodian people in general, 97% will become the slave because of they have no land to farm in next 3 or 4 years.
KY
If these bastard retarded gorillas do not notice these developments (throughout the country) and robust economic growth in Cambodia -- unfortunately, these apes must be blind ... along with the rest of the Western slaves.
Come on, kids, you cannot reside in those slum ghetto neighborhoods forever. You called this SUCCESS (as someone claimed).
5:05, FYI, there are lot of poor people in Cambodia who owned land too, not just the riches, and the price increase made them very very happy. Yul teh?
These are the forces of capitalism and people learn quickly. Today somebody comes by asking how much for your land. You say, $5 m2. Tomorrow another one comes by, you say $7, two days later it's $10, and so on. In a week you say, $50 because there are so many people asking. And the good thing about this, there is always someone who pays the highest price. Now, who's to blame?
My beloved 5:41!
A ya kidding me? The price increase made da poor very very happy? Yike, that's right, my beloved friend! If da poor doesn't want to sell his land for 10% of the exact whole price, he will be became a criminal and ended up in jail, while da CPPers are unhumanly mockering!
Oh give me a break, mate (12:28). That is generally not true, but sure, some poor people have been scammed by some greedy officials who abused their power, but that doesn't make the rest of us bad, does it?
The bottom line is that there are a lot more happy poor people than sad, and the coming election will certainly to reflect that. just wait and see.
i don't think cambodia is a poor country. it just look poor (or even dirty certain places) from the outside; however, most cambodian people are wary of instability and political conflict, for good reason due to their experiences as war refugees, victims, and of course, the pol pot era, etc., made cambodian very wary of chaos, etc. therefore, cambodian people are very cautious people when it comes to trusting others, not to mention wary of the thai and the viet due to historical incursion of these neighbors into cambodia, etc. having said that, though, things are due to change in cambodia for a better future; but it will happen slowly but will take place, whether one want to believe or not. there are many great potential in many development projects in cambodia. i'm sure, one day, the world will be very surprise to see many good things come out of cambodia, despite, all the negative things they see now. like the lotus grows out of the muddy bottom, but turn up to be one of the most beautiful flower that cambodian used for worshipping the lord buddha. i see cambodia is like the lotus flower. and like the churning of the sea of milk on the ancient stone walls of the angkor wat, good things are bornt out of chaos. have hope, khmer people, we will prevail.
another thing too, the field of study called sociology tells that a great civilization on our planet comes and goes, like an ocean wave; there are low points (trough), there are high points( the peak), and there are long decline, and there are long renaissance or golden era as well. and remember, cambodia existed for thousand years or more already; and as old as our khmer nation was, i'm not surprised a bit to see the fluctuation in this so-called great civilization of ours. as long as there is the sun and the moon, khmer nation will always exist with the rhythm of nature. god bless cambodia.
The land resource in Cambodia is limited due to population growth and if AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave government kept chasing dirt poor Cambodian people off their land like this and where would they go and Cambodian people can keep on running like this forever like a nomad!
Cambodia people need land and stability to grow!
I hear what you say, bro, but that is not the case in Cambodia. We only chase squatters out of our way so that everyone can benefit from continue development.
Squatters has not right to deny the whole country to better days.
i have an idea! how about sending all squatters to the new settlements along the borders with all cambodia's neighboring countries, this way they can help protect cambodia's territory. plus, their new villages can mark cambodia's boundar. i bet you if the gov't give them enough incentives, they will move to the border areas to form new towns along the borders. what you do think, all? good idea, huh!
It sounds like a reasonable suggestion, but what type of incentive are we talking about? and are you sure they are willing to move? and more importantly, how much will all this going to cost us. FYI, right now, we are struggling to give our civil servant a pay raise.
To 5:15AM
Can you define squatter? What does it take for a person to qualify to be squatter? Are these the new Cambodian homeless people? If these Cambodian people are homeless and AH HUN SEN government has an obligation to help them in some ways to get them back on their feet!
I had been to Snoul and there are some very poor Cambodian people who got free land and free house (little shack)!
It seems that AH HUN SEN government is running out of ideas to help dirt poor Cambodian people!
9:55, Cambodia is no heaven. As such, it will always have some poor people and homeless just like any place else.
As for definition of squatter, it is anyone who settle on state land and called their own home, and most of them happened to be homeless people who lost their home due to various reasons, such as gambling -- and you know fair well how some of us gamble -- or being scammed by scammers -- and you know scammers are not indegenous to Cambodia...
As for helping homeless, sure if they are a legitimate homeless through no fault of their own and we have the budget for it; that is if we charge enough tax like many other countries, but we can't do that right now without jeopardizing jobs and businesses for the many, but we will, once our economy go into a full swing. Other than that, I don't see how you can hold us responsible for every homeless idiots at a time like this. We are not the super rich US, you know?
To 10:34AM
This is just fucken excuse after excuse! This is what can happen when Cambodian people live in broken corrupted government system!
I am not asking AH HUN SEN government to support these dirt poor Cambodian people for the rest of their life! All that I am asking to help these dirt poor Cambodian people to get back on their feet and to do something meaningful for Cambodian society such having a fucken job to support their family, job training, some sort of technical training which they can use right away to make a living...unless AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave government want to treat these dirt poor Cambodian people as animal and left them behind!
By the way if these dirt poor Cambodian people have mental illness and they still need a place to stay (decent place) so that their extended family member can help them in some way since AH HUN SEN government can't help them!
Just wonder where those people who have sold their land are living now?
Actually 10:50, PM and the first lady have been donating a lot of foods, clothings, mosquito nets,... to a lot of poor people. Despite they are rich folks, it is still beyond their capacity to help every poor person in Cambodia, and that is the truth. The problem with you is you are fucking lazy to do the math to verified this. You preferred to go by our opposition propaganda which blown every little shit out of proportion.
In any case, I have no objection to helping people back on their feet. To me, it is a "hard to lose" investment. The way I see it, if these people are not working, they can't pay taxes ever, and if we get them jobs and home, we should be able to get back our investment through tax sometime in the future. And with any luck, we might even get to collect more then we invested.
However, even that is not as easy as it sounds because 1) we don't have enough job to go around at this time. 2) we don't have the initial principle to invest, and the stupid World Bank, ADP, ..., or whatever wouldn't lend us the money unless it is for an infrastructure project or something along that line.
And that is our sad story. What else can I tell you, except for "HELP!"
Good question, 11:23, to the best of my knowledge some of them just become beggar and sleep on the street, some move with relatives and work with them, and some just risk sneak in our neighboring country with the hope to start a new live or whatever, ... , and of course some will get into drug dealing and gang.
No people born to this world know everything and that is why they have to learn from someone else such parent, friend, relative, teacher, book, magazine...Dirt poor Cambodian people don't even understand the concept of money and property for them to sell their land in such a careless manner without thinking of the serious consequence down the road!
The lack of proper financial education in Cambodia is a very serious issue and without the financial knowledge dirt poor Cambodian people will be misled by the wrong information given by the middlemen which trick them into making the wrong decision!
It is time to put land regulations in place otherwise more dirt poor Cambodian people will fall into victim!
What do you mean by land regulation? Do you mean put a price limit on land? If so, I am not fully against it, but many will opposed it because now you put a stop to their profit potential.
Well! The fucken land should be regulated for the use of certain purpose such as for farming only not for residential use! The fucken government should give certain incentive such as tax break and create and promote the farm products that can benefit dirt poor Cambodian farmers so these farmers see the real benefit of owning their farmland!
If you favor profit over the food that you eat produce by these dirt poor farmers and that is fine by me! But majority of dirt poor Cambodian population can't afford to go hungry just to gain a short term profit!
LOL, tax break? How much more break can we do when there is hardly any tax in Cambodia to start out with.
To 3:47AM
It doesn't have to be a fucken tax break and it can be anything as incentive to make these dirt poor farmers to keep their farmland for agriculture production!
I know there is hardly any tax base in Cambodia because AH HUN SEN government wasted the tax money on corrupted officials and the business middlemen! Cambodia can afford to waste $500 million dollars on corruption alone and you are telling me that Cambodia can’t afford to tax people to pay for basic goods and services such hiring police, fire fighter, park and recreation, street sweeping, literacy education, job training…
It is the tax system that makes civilization possible!
Bullshit, we did not wasted no 500M. it was well spend and monitored, and audited by international community and NGO.
Deny! Deny! Deny!
Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!
1:39 PM
What corruption?!
Or, maybe you don't know what corruption is?!
I absolutely despise these cagged-retarded gorillas.
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