Couldn't the CPP see that this a national disgrace for Cambodia?

In Cambodia, No Land Title, No Rights

OCTOBER 17, 2010
By WILL BAXTER
The Wall Street Journal

An estimated 250,000 Cambodians have been affected by land grabbing and forced evictions since 2005. Few Cambodians possess official land titles, making it easier for private businesses to force people off their land to make way for urban development projects and large-scale agro-business plantations.

In central Phnom Penh, more than 4,000 families living near Boeung Kak Lake will be evicted from their homes to make way for a 329-acre housing and commercial development project. At left, residents harvested morning glory, a local vegetable, which grows in the shallows at the edges of the lake. Many families have lived there for 10 to 25 years, but few possess land titles. (All Photos: Will Baxter, The Wall Street Journal)

A Cambodian boy helped rebuild his family's home in central Phnom Penh, where a March fire destroyed 178 houses and displaced 257 families. Residents and rights groups say that government officials have tried to use the fire as a pretense to relocate residents to an undeveloped site that lacks water, electricity and toilets.

Shukaku Inc., which is headed by senator Lao Meng Khin, according to local media reports, was given rights in 2007 to begin work on a housing and commercial development project at the Boeung Kak Lake site. Sen. Lao and Shukaku could not be reached for comment. At left, workers contracted by Shukaku pumped sand and water into the lake into the lake in September in an effor to fill it in.

Residents claim that the filling in of the lake -- combined with seasonal rains and poor drainage -- has led to unsanitary conditions including garbage- and sewage-tainted floodwaters, at left.

A Boeung Kak Lake resident, who has been promised about $8,470 in compensation from Shukaku after agreeing to move away from the lake, dismantled his family's house before relocating in August. Dozens of families have taken apart their houses and left the area in recent months.

A girl ran through a Boeung Kak Lake neighborhood in June.

A girl rode a bicycle along the railroad tracks that skirt the southwestern edge of Boeung Kak Lake in June.

Meanwhile, a couple of hours outside the capital in Kampong Speu province's Thpong district, Phnom Penh Sugar Co., which is owned by another senator, has been granted an approximately 20,616-acre land concession in Omlaing commune, which will result in the eviction of more than 2,000 families. Two Omlaing Commune representatives were recently arrested and accused of involvement in a fire at a makeshift Phnom Penh Sugar Co. structure. At left, a woman cried during a protest against the arrests outside the Kampong Speu Provincial Court.

At left, villagers traveled in a convoy of 20 mini tractors to the court to protest the arrests. The accused were later released. The owner of Phnom Penh Sugar, who could not be reached for comment, has been granted a number of other large land concessions in other provinces.

A woman evicted from another community, called Dey Krahorm in Phnom Penh walked past makeshift homes at a relocation site in Phnom Bat commune in Kandal Province. Residents say there are no jobs in the area and they have no way of earning a living because the relocation site is more than 25 miles from Phnom Penh. In December of last year each family was given a 13-foot by 20-foot plot of land at the site, on which they have built shelters of wood, mud, tarpualin and corrugated tin.

In January 2009, police and construction workers employed by a local developer forcibly evicted hundreds of families to make way for the development project, which has not yet broken ground, on the former site of the Dey Krahorm community in Phnom Penh. At left, workers played soccer at the site.

Boeung Kak Lake residents who face eviction played volleyball on an area of sand where the lake has been filled in.

A Cambodian woman watched over her grandchildren at her family's home and business, which will be torn down to make way for Shukaku's commercial housing and development project.