Families who were evicted from Dey Krahorm (Photo: John Vink/Magnum)Thursday, December 31, 2009
AFP
PHNOM PENH — Hundreds of poor communities in the Cambodian capital face potential forced evictions after parliament this week passed a controversial law, rights groups warned Thursday.
Lawmakers on Tuesday voted through a law on expropriations which will give the authorities legal grounds to seize private property for public development projects in Cambodia.
The law still needs to be approved by the senate and promulgated by King Norodom Sihamoni, but it has raised concerns from rights groups about a surge in forced evictions.
"The existence of a law on expropriation which was just recently passed... will create more negative effects on the poor people in the city," the rights groups said in a joint statement.
The statement said there were 410 vulnerable communities of urban poor in Phnom Penh, with 74 of them threatened with eviction.
"These (74) communities have already received notifications from the government authorities that ordered them to voluntarily move away from their homes with little compensations, the groups said.
The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, the Housing Rights Task Force, and the NGO Forum on Cambodia also said they had "deep concern about potential forced evictions of urban poor people from their communities in the near future".
The Cambodian government has faced mounting criticism for a spate of forced evictions throughout the country over the past few years at the hands of the army and police as land prices have risen.
Cambodia in September ended a World Bank-financed land-titling programme amid increasing property disputes and allegations of land-grabbing.
Land ownership is a controversial problem in Cambodia, where legal documents were destroyed under the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and civil war that ended in 1998.
Lawmakers on Tuesday voted through a law on expropriations which will give the authorities legal grounds to seize private property for public development projects in Cambodia.
The law still needs to be approved by the senate and promulgated by King Norodom Sihamoni, but it has raised concerns from rights groups about a surge in forced evictions.
"The existence of a law on expropriation which was just recently passed... will create more negative effects on the poor people in the city," the rights groups said in a joint statement.
The statement said there were 410 vulnerable communities of urban poor in Phnom Penh, with 74 of them threatened with eviction.
"These (74) communities have already received notifications from the government authorities that ordered them to voluntarily move away from their homes with little compensations, the groups said.
The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, the Housing Rights Task Force, and the NGO Forum on Cambodia also said they had "deep concern about potential forced evictions of urban poor people from their communities in the near future".
The Cambodian government has faced mounting criticism for a spate of forced evictions throughout the country over the past few years at the hands of the army and police as land prices have risen.
Cambodia in September ended a World Bank-financed land-titling programme amid increasing property disputes and allegations of land-grabbing.
Land ownership is a controversial problem in Cambodia, where legal documents were destroyed under the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and civil war that ended in 1998.
13 comments:
I would like to see a legitimate anti-corruption law passed.
SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! CPP, do you have no shame? No conscience? Or can you really live with the JUNGLE and VIOLENT mentality associated with you???????? YOU ARE SHAMEFUL for doing this to your own people and country!!! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAMEFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The CPP are the destroyers of Cambodia. They hate the Cambodian people and they loathe themselves or else they would not be this malignant and greedy!! Anyone associated with the CPP is a traitor and complicit in the crimes of poverty and hatred. Sam Rainsy is the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The forced evictions after evictions only the Khmer people none of the 7 millions Vietnamese has been evicted. The forced evictions continue to make Khmer people suffering, starvation, hardship, jobless, no place to call home, daily live became nightmare, sickness, lost of future, and homelessness in their owned country. Hun Xen make the whole Khmer population a Vietnamese slave and the whole Cambodia became a Vietnamese province. Why did our government make their owned people suffering and homeless just to please the Vietnamese needs. Is any country on earth do this to please a devil foreigner never and none. Why our King and Prime Minister are so stupid and dumb for not protecting and saving their owned country from the Vietnamese expansion.
Collecting People Property for a living. How simple their job are?
Communism!
"The statement said there were 410 vulnerable communities of urban poor in Phnom Penh, with 74 of them threatened with eviction."
=This is all the rage right now and everything is about Phnom Penh with the all the developments! What about the rest of Cambodia?
Oh well! As long as Phnom Penh has a facelift and the rest of Cambodia can stay and look the same. At the end dirt poor Cambodian people will be chase out from Phnom Penh without a fair compensation.
If the whole development is about ports, power structures or an energy network and construction of an airport and the widening of a road and who will use these infrastructures if dirt poor Cambodian people are chased out from using it? How many rich Cambodian people can afford to pay and repair and use these infrastructures in away that will benefit the whole Cambodia?
The most logical way to understand the law on imminent domain regarding building any kind of infrastructure is to understand who will use the infrastructure and who will pay for the infrastructure to maintain and to repair in the long run! The imminent domain law must not make it easy to take away dirt poor Cambodian people land without a fair compensation because a fair compensation is one way to help develop dirt poor Cambodian people to be a productive citizen which will help pay, help maintain, and help repair these infrastructures in the long run.
Human development must go hand in hand with infrastructure development and without human development to help pay, to help maintain and to help repair these infrastructures in the long run then Cambodia will be more in debt from building these infrastructures?
Remember majority of Cambodian are dirt poor!
Message to all Khmer compatriots are living inside Cambodia and abroad. Our mother land in somewhat is in a grave danger to the 21th century colonization by the neighboring countries at the present time. This means, they don't need to use the military force to invade Cambodia anymore, but instead they use their economic wealth and their migrant settlers to invade our country.
As what is happening in the Campong Thom province right now that the Viet's company has leased several thousand hectares of land from Hun Sen government for 99 years to plant rubber trees. Recently, numbers of families around those concession lands were evicted from their towns, villages and this is one of a perfect examples that the Viet's new strategy to invade Cambodia in the 21th century. You and I know what exactly what happen next, the Viet will bring their population onto those lands to create towns and villages and don't you ever think that they will leave after 99 years expires. This what we all as the Khmer compatriots should be worry right now.
Now, in the present I see many our Khmer people inside and outside the country are so focusing on promoting religious specifically Buddhism. In this past six months alone I had been invited to attend the Fund raising ceremonies because he or she wanted to bring money back to Cambodia either to renovate or to decorate the Temple in his or her home town. Now, don't get me wrong I am a Buddhist myself, but in my opinion worship should come second after nationalist.
Cambodia has been long dead after 1975. Don't cry for Cambodia anymore and stop calling it "Cambodia"
The current land is called HUNAMSIA.
It is combined Hunnam deprived from Hun mixed with Nam and Sino.
In the name of development, there they go, more cash for the crooks. unfortunately, those poor Khmers who have long voted for the CPP are now paying the price. The CPP will evict Khmers out of their lands, to make way for more Vietnamese economic expansion. I wonder when the CPP will start cleaning up the Tonle Bassac floating residences? The lake is almost sealed up, and the water? Yak.... Shits and pees in there, by who? the migrant floating residences...
No,
we have no conscience,
we have no shame,
we have no brain,
we have our pockets,
we have our master.
CPP members
11:30PM
Bravo! this is what I have been saying to most of my friends. Politics dictate everything around you. While the CPP are doing their utmost to ruin the country, we are focusing our roads to heaven. No one know how to manipulate religion better than todays' TMILs, the former Khmer Rouges. Evidently, it happens all over the world, take Toronto as an example, using the Temple to promote and protect Phnom Penh's deadly vietnamization policy. When you don't have your own identity and freedom to live as such, then you are living a very abnormal life, sub-servient at best to your neigbour. The Khmer rouges are rulers today once again with supports of victims of that regime, even those who are seemingly intellectuals. Most have returned to serve for the benefit of their owns, personally wise. They left their skills and knowledge at the Porchentong Airport prior to entering Phnom Penh.
That's right folk see that HEART shape. Tonle Sap will divided in half sooner or later. From Tonle Sap to Mekhong to Mekhong Delta. Why? Shamemoney (Sihamoni) is half Khmer and Viet.
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