Cambodian government decrees land deal for villagers at city site

Aug 16, 2011
DPA

Phnom Penh - The government has ordered that a tract of land at a controversial development site in central Phnom Penh be reserved for thousands of residents under threat of eviction, national media reported Tuesday.

The deal follows pressure from the World Bank, which said last week it would not lend more money until the government properly compensated villagers living around the city's Boeung Kak lake.

Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered 12 hectares be set aside for housing for 1,000 families still living at the lake, Phnom Penh Post newspaper reported.

About 2,000 families have already been evicted from the lakeside area over the past two years to make way for a 2-billion-dollar development at the 133-hectare site.

The development is being carried out by a prominent ruling party politician and a Chinese company called Erdos Hong Jun Investment.

Earlier this year the World Bank, which was involved in a nationwide land-titling program, admitted the evictions had caused 'grave harm' to lakeside residents.

Few if any of the lake's residents have been able to get land title documents from the local authorities, despite legal experts saying many are entitled to them.

Sia Phearum, the secretariat director of the Housing Rights Task Force, an NGO that has advised lakeside residents on how to avoid eviction, welcomed the news.

'We are very glad to see (this deal) happen,' he said Tuesday. 'We also congratulate the government for using the smart strategy to solve the problem. This is a good model for other communities.'

The World Bank last loaned money to Cambodia in December.

Earlier this year the bank's own assessors found significant failings in its handling of a 24-million-dollar land-titling scheme.

Their investigation found key errors by the bank's management, and said the evictions of thousands at the lake had violated the bank's policy on involuntary resettlement.

The report said residents had been denied due process in assessing their claims and had been evicted by the authorities in violation of agreed procedures.

The government cancelled the land-titling project in 2009 after the World Bank raised its concerns about evictions.

In recent years land prices in Cambodia have rocketed as the economy strengthened, with tens of thousands of people driven off their land by the powerful and well-connected.

The country's land-tenure system was destroyed during decades of conflict. Around 1.6 million households have received land title documents since the programme began in 2002.