Why Victims of a Cambodian Land Grab are Protesting at the US Embassy

January 6, 2012
Faine Greenwood
UN Dispatch

Protesters have thrown down a symbolic gauntlet in front of Western embassy staffers: major powers with a presence in Phnom Penh now must choose to press the Cambodian government over this issue, or ignore a blatant human rights abuse.

Violent clashes and protests over a land-grabbing disputed have taken place in the heart of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh this week, after a development company began to bulldoze the slum homes of 300 poor families.

The destruction has prompted a wave of evictee protests at Western embassies, as victims hope to draw world attention to their plight—and perhaps inspire measures like the World Bank’s continuing freeze on loans to Cambodia, after similar government-backed evictions took place at Boueng Kak Lake in 2010 and 2011.

As bulldozers moved into the downtown slum Tuesday, enraged residents threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police, who fired back with rubber bullets: 30 protesters and 34 police were injured in the fray, while 8 protesters were taken into police custody, where they remain as of Friday.

According to evictees, some houses were obliterated while occupants were still sleeping inside. Others lost all their possessions, escaping only with their lives. Villagers, operating under the assumption that they’d find some sort of impasse with the Phan Imex development company, were given no advance notice that bulldozers were coming.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Aid Donors

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Khmer Intelligence News - 22 July 2007

22 July 2007

CPP leadership to be reshuffled (2)

Rivalries within the CPP leadership have been exposed (see KI, 22 April 2007: "Hun Sen wants to replace Chea Sim as CPP Chairman"). When CPP Chairman Chea Sim retires in the near future, Hun Sen wants to become party Chairman while remaining Prime Minister, which some other party leaders are opposed to. In order to ensure a smooth transition, the CPP Permanent Committee has recently made the following decisions:

• Heng Samrin, currently President of the National Assembly and CPP Honorary Chairman, will be the new party Chairman.
• Sar Kheng, currently Interior Minister and a CPP parliamentarian, will replace Heng Samrin as President of the National Assembly.
• Hok Lundy, currently Head of the National Police, will replace Sar Kheng as Interior Minister.
• Hun Sen will strive, as CPP Vice-Chairman and candidate for the 2008 national election, to keep his position as Prime Minister.

Donors consistency in financing and endorsing elections in Cambodia (1)

Two very detailed reports were prepared by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the European Union on the 2003 national elections in Cambodia. The two institutions made a number of recommendations in order to address the most serious shortcomings that justified the view that those elections were flawed. However, as of today, none of the recommendations has been implemented, which will make problematic any endorsement by the international community of the result of the upcoming national elections to be held on 27 July 2008 (See KI, 14 July 2007: "Second step in the disenfranchisement of non-CPP voters"). One of the recommendations was to "ban [CPP-affiliated] village chiefs acting as political agents or election observers" and another one was to ensure that "citizens be allowed to register and vote anywhere within the province, as was done [by the United Nations] in 1993."

See detailed list of recommendations by clicking here.

CPP provincial leaders reprimanded for poor election results (2)

Following the 1 April 2007 commune council elections, several CPP provincial and district leaders have been reprimanded and/or removed for achieving poor electoral results for their party at their respective levels. The CPP suffered the most serious setbacks in Battambang, Kampong Chhnang and Siem Reap provinces.

Compared with the results of the previous commune council elections held in 2002,

• in Battambang province, the CPP gained only 12,246 votes (versus 53,682 for the opposition SRP) and it lost 14 commune council seats to the opposition;
• in Kampong Chhnang province, the CPP gained only 12,178 votes (versus 21,472 for the SRP) and it lost 19 commune council seats to the opposition;
• in Siem Reap province, the CPP gained only 10,461 votes (versus 34,914 for the SRP) and it lost 41 commune council seats to the opposition.

Nationwide, the CPP gained only 470,403 votes (versus 572,911 for the SRP); it increased the number of its commune councilors by only 274 (at the expense of Funcinpec), while the SRP secured 1,311 additional commune councilors (at the expense of both Funcinpec and CPP).

Cambodia excluded from international submarine cable system (2)

The first high-bandwidth optical fibre submarine cable system linking the South East Asia region directly to the USA is under construction. But Cambodia is excluded from this system known as the Asia-America Gateway (AAG). Cambodia will be only indirectly linked to AAG by a land cable from Phnom Penh to Vong Tau, which is the landing point of AAG in Vietnam. The Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) will build the related communications network for Cambodia .

The disadvantages for Cambodia of this arrangement are the lack of independence and security with regard to international communications, and an income loss since the payback period for an investment in submarine cable is less than three years.

For more information click here.

Khmer Intelligence, 22 April 2007

Hun Sen wants to replace Chea Sim as CPP Chairman (2)

According to a reliable source from the ruling party, CPP Chairman Chea Sim is considering retiring for health reasons but wants his brother-in-law, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng to replace him. But Prime Minister and CPP Vice-Chairman Hun Sen also wants to be the next CPP Chairman. Chea Sim has reportedly told Hun Sen that Sar Kheng should then be Prime Minister if he (Hun Sen) was to be CCP Chairman.

Khmer Intelligence, 14 July 2007

Second step in the disenfranchisement of non-CPP voters (2)

To secure landslide election victories before voting day, the ruling CPP is implementing a two-step strategy based on manipulation of voter list:

1- Preventing non-CPP supporters from casting their ballots:

At the 1 April 2007 commune council election, with the full support of the National Election Committee (NEC) and the Interior Ministry that controls all the village chiefs, the CPP succeeded in preventing some 2 million "suspicious" potential voters (25 percent of the electorate) from casting their ballots. The techniques used against those perceived as non-CPP supporters included confiscation or retention of voter identification documents, administrative harassment, withholding of accurate/relevant information and dissemination of false/misleading information, intimidating and/or paying people not to go to vote.

2- Deleting the names of non-CPP supporters from the voter list:

For the upcoming 27 July 2008 national election, the CPP is trying to delete from the voter list the names of citizens identified by CPP-affiliated village chiefs as non-CPP supporters. In every commune, starting 12 July 2007, the voter list is going through a "cleaning" process whereby the commune authorities are supposed to delete the names of people who are "dead", "unknown", "cannot be found", "have already been registered", "have moved out of the commune", or are "foreigners with no voting right." Actually and more importantly, by using the pretexts "unknown", "cannot be found", and "have moved" put forward by village chiefs, the commune authorities are deleting the names of those perceived as non-CPP supporters. Therefore, through this "cleaning" process, the CPP and the NEC are legalizing and making permanent the political exclusion of those who were not able to vote on 1 April 2007 for artificial reasons (see point 1 above).

Read protest letter and suggestions in English from the parliamentary opposition to the UNDP by clicking here.

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Political Cartoon: Durian Odor

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)