Baby Hor: ...special provisions have been made to provide land to assist particularly vulnerable groups ... and the poor

Forced eviction in Dey Krahorm: An example of what Mr. Hor 5 Bora calls: "...special provisions have been made to provide land to assist particularly vulnerable groups within Cambodian society including disabled soldiers, the families of deceased soldiers - and the poor". Coincidentally, Mr. Hor conveniently failed to mention the title of the BBC's article: "Cambodia: A land up for sale?", could it be that Cambodia is no longer a land for sale ... because, everything that can be sold had been carted off already

Response to The BBC World Service August 13, 2009

Click here to read the BBC's article
Cambodia: A land up for sale?

Mr Andrew Whitehead
Acting Editor, News & Current Affairs
BBC World Service
Bush House
Strand
London WC2B 4PH

Dear Mr Whitehead,

I was concerned to receive the transcript of Robert Walker’s report from Cambodia produced for the “Assignment” programme broadcast on the BBC World Service.

I found his report to be somewhat unbalanced and at variance with the BBC’s worldwide reputation for independence and impartiality. Certainly it will have done little to enhance the reputation of your organisation, particularly in Asia.

I, of course, acknowledge that Mr Walker quotes Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Royal Cambodian Government’s Council of Ministers. But his comments are restricted to a couple of sentences and appear to have been inserted, rather calculatingly, to give the impression of a balanced report; when the reality is, it is extremely one-sided.

I was also disturbed that the BBC should give further publicity and credence to the pressure group Global Witness which seems intent on waging relentless and increasinglymalicious campaigns to try and discredit legitimatelyelected governments, particularly in southeast Asia and Africa.

On the specific issue of land management within Cambodia, the Royal Government of Cambodia has always been happy to acknowledge its reliance on foreign investors; believing this to be the most rapid and effective way of generating sustained economic growth which will allow Cambodia to become a significant power within the region, from which all its people will benefit.

However, that does not mean that the Cambodian Government has turned a blind eye to the tactics used by some foreign companies. All applications to buy land are carefully scrutinised by an independent body, the Cambodian Investment Board, which is committed to ensuring the rights of all Cambodian people.

The land policy of Cambodia commits the government to “administer, manage and distribute land in an equitable, transparent, efficient and sustainable way” with the aim of achieving the national goals of alleviating poverty, ensuring food security and natural resources; the protection of the environment, national defence and the development of a market economy.

You should be aware that special provisions have been made to provide land to assist particularly vulnerable groups within Cambodian society including disabled soldiers, the families of deceased soldiers - and the poor.

In closing, I wish it to be known that I am happy to be interviewed on radio (or television) at any time to support and defend the policies and track record of the Royal Cambodian Government and to counteract inaccurate and damaging allegations made by organisations such as Global Witness.

With kind regards

Hor Nambora
Ambassador of Cambodia to the Court of St James’s
London, United Kingdom

Rural poor petition Cambodian authorities over land grab

August 13, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

A group of 300 Cambodian people affected by land grabs and evictions - and representing thousands more - gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday to tell the government of their concerns, and to call with a single voice on the government and donor nations to act to protect their land.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael in Phnom Penh
Speaker: Leng Simy, villager; Loun Sovath, monk; Soal Nak, Jarai villager

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: It's hard being heard in Cambodia, particularly if - like 80 percent of Cambodians - you live in the countryside. It's harder still if you want to speak out against rich or powerful people trying to take your land. That's not something the government encourages, and the courts are seldom much help. That leaves few options. But this week in Phnom Penh a group of 300 Cambodians from 19 of the Kingdom's 24 provinces and municipalities joined up to petition the government, the prime minister, parliament and the national land dispute authority, to help them keep their land.

This is an agricultural society, and for rural Cambodians land is life. Organisers of the petitioning event say the amount of land under dispute for the 15,000 people they represent totals more than 700,000 hectares. It is commonly acknowledged by rights organisations that rising landlessness could prove the country's biggest challenge. In recent years Cambodia experienced a boom in land prices, and a similar rise in evictions, land grabs, and the granting of huge concessions to often-shadowy companies. That result works against the stated desire of government and donor nations to reduce poverty.

The government, ever wary of dissent, seems to have been taken off-guard by the petitioners. Authorities are trying to find out if civil society organisations were behind the collaborative effort. Whether or not there was help from civil society is beside the point. The voiceless rural people whose land is being taken from them - often with official collusion - got the chance to be heard. People from across the Kingdom stood up and told the media and each other of their experiences and fears.

Leng Simy's story was typical. She comes from Pursat province in western Cambodia, and told attendees that a company came and took communal land five years ago to plant cassava and a palm oil plantation.

LENG: As the journalists know, the land is our rice pot. Before we were afraid that the government didn't know we had a problem there. But now we have raised this problem, so the government is now aware of it. We will not file a complaint again.

CARMICHAEL: From further west in Cambodia, Loun Sovath, a monk, said villagers in his area of Chi Kraeng in Siem Reap province were victims of a high-profile land grab by rich and powerful people earlier this year which saw them lose 100 hectares. Some villagers were shot and wounded during a protest at the disputed site. The monk said the police arrested and handcuffed villagers just as the Khmer Rouge had done, then jailed them.

LOUN: I request that the land issue please be considered by the government. This is not a game. Before when they had a problem people were not injured - they still had the use of their arms and legs, even those who were poor. But this time they have broken arms and legs, and imprisoned people who have also lost their land.

CARMICHAEL: Soal Nak is from the Jarai tribe, an ethnic minority in the north-eastern province of Ratanakkiri whose communal land is under threat. He applauded the idea of submitting the petitions to the different ministries, and like many of the people has hopes that the national government will resolve their problems where the local authorities have failed.

SOAL: Our people remain worried about losing our land and our forests and our traditional way of life. If we lose our forests or our land, then our traditional ways go too, and more than that we will lose our togetherness as a tribal community.

CARMICHAEL: At the close of the two-hour session, a man stood up at the microphone and sang a haunting song - one I am told whose words he composed himself. He sang about loss - the loss of his land, his cattle, his livelihood, and the corrupt authorities who refused to help. It was more than a metaphor for the difficulties experienced by rural Cambodians. His worries are those of many tens of thousands. But today, at least, those concerns were heard.

Groups Lodge Massive Land Complaint [-Getting closer to Hun Xen's predicted "farmers' revolution"?]

Protesters in front of Hun Xen's fortress (Photo: DAP news)

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
12 August 2009

More than 300 representatives from 19 provinces urged government agencies and offices to resolve disputes in more than 700,000 hectares of land, complaining their daily existence was threatened by their displacement.

“We are losing land, forests and fisheries that are important sources of our daily livelihoods, because of some private companies and powerful officials,” said Hor Sam Art, a representative of family in Battambang province.

The group, from 29 different communities, filed a joint complaint to the offices of the prime minister, the Council of Ministers, the National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution, and the Ministry of Land Management on Tuesday.

The complaint included 119,218 signatures, from disputes in 164 villages in provinces ranging across the entire country.

“We want the government to know our sufferings, difficulties and needs,” Hor Sam Art said. “We know that we are making difficulty to the government in the complaints. We have made many complaints with local government, but it did not find a resolution.”

The complaints included pictures of land dispute locations and reports of shooting injuries and death, beatings, detention, imprisonment of dissenters and the clearing of houses and crops.

“We request the government to quickly suspend or end the new concession contracts and development projects affecting the livelihoods of the communities, as well as put an end to threats and arrests and release prisoners,” the group said in a joint statement.

“We do not have any intention of disgracing the government, but we have no choice, because in the past we’ve protested and complained again and again, but we have not found a resolution,” said Seng Sok Heng, a representative from Banteay Meanchey province.

Ny Chakya, chief investigator for the right group Licadho, said the group would follow whether the government can find soltuions.

“Providing economic land concessions to private companies in the wrong direction affects people’s family economic development and jeopardizes the government’s poverty reduction plan,” he said.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the complaints will be solved “in conformity with the law.”

The government reviews the laws for land property of ethnic minorities, he said, and if it finds companies breaking the law, it ends the contract with the company.

“Now we’ve ordered the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction and the concerned provincial authorities to investigates the complaints of the communities,” he said.

New UN rapporteur concerned about land rights in Cambodia

Surya Subedi (Photo: Reuters)

June 29, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

The new UN special envoy for human rights to Cambodia says a corrupt judiciary, forced evictions and land grabs are the country's most pressing issues.

Nepali-born Surya Prasad Subedi is Professor of International Law at Leeds University. Professor Subedi has just spent ten days in Cambodia.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Surya Prasad Subedi, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

SUBEDI: The impression I have formed after meeting so many people both within the government and outside of the government, NGO people, people who have been evicted from the land, other pressure groups, I have met a broad section of the population and have come to the conclusion there are serious human rights issues here that have to be tackled and I will doing my best to help the government to tackle those problems.

LAM: Yours is a delicate job of course. You are the UN representative of UN Secretary-General, and at the same time you must work with the Cambodian Government, which in the past, hasn't taken criticism to well. Do you think that might pose a huge challenge to you?

SUBEDI: Indeed, I am aware on the rather unpleasant relationship between the government of Cambodia and my predecessor - that is always the risk for any special rapporteur, because your mission, your mandate is to promote human rights and be critical where there are shortcomings and failures. If people are willing to accept the shortcomings and engage in a constructive dialogue, then we can be effective. But I met the prime minister and a number of other senior ministers and I was pleased that they have acknowledged that there are shortcomings and they would like to engage in a constructive dialogue with me. I have noticed that there was a change in approach, a change in tone at least, during my first visit to Cambodia.

My meeting with the prime minister this time was a cordial one. It lasted for nearly two hours and I was able to raise a number of issues with him, especially relating to the rights of people evicted from land and their settlement problems and other issues relating to corruption and the independence of the judiciary, clearer separation of power between the three main branches of the government - mainly the legislative, judiciary and the executive. And he was listening to me attentively, and that gave me certain indication that perhaps they are willing to listen to me and work with me, but it remains to be seen how they will react when I go into the details.

LAM: The question of forced eviction and land grabs in Cambodia, for instance. Many of these developers have links to people in high office. Do you think that might pose a huge insurmountable challenge to getting some kind of justice for these people who were forcibly removed from the land?

SUBEDI: There are very many difficulties that lie ahead, but again my approach would be to give them concerted set of recommendations. If you were to do the following things, perhaps the situation would be better. For instance, those forcibly evicted from the land don't have a great deal of confidence in the judiciary. So if the judiciary were to strengthen, independence of the judiciary was enhanced, corruption was controlled, then people would go to court, and to get their legal remedies. For instance, those who have possession rights over the land, but not a proper title, they can go and prove their case before a court of law. That should be the way in a democracy, so that these are the areas that we can planning to pay particular attention during my work.

LAM: Well, you have just finished a ten-day tour of Cambodia. When do you intend to return to the country?

SUBEDI: Hopefully in the second half of November, and at that time I will have a special focus on certain areas, but have land rights and the resettlement issues would be on the top of my list and then make a series of recommendations to the government and to the United Nations.

LAM: What to your mind is the most pressing human rights issue in Cambodia today?

SUBEDI: The most pressing right is the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of speech. These are the two overall key issues, but within that you have the third one will be people evicted from their land and the resettlement. I have identified already these three areas as the private areas of my work.

Cambodia's development benefits whom?

April 01, 2009
By Chak Sopheap
Guest Commentary
UPI Asia Online

Niigata, Japan — Eighteen years after the Paris Peace Agreement that brought relative stability to Cambodia, the country is still suffering from the effects of two decades of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship, civil wars and political conflicts. The Constitution of 1993 allowed the country to strive toward democratic governance, providing a framework for multiparty democracy, a liberal market economy and social development.

Yet, while parts of the economy are making considerable progress, more than 30 percent of the population is still living in extreme poverty. Together with corruption and continued human rights violations – especially the increasing forced evictions and land grabbing under the so-called development claims – there is little hope that Cambodia can move out of poverty. Thus the question arises: For whom is the Cambodian government attempting to achieve its development goals?

The current pursuit of development by the Royal Government of Cambodia has often brought legal abuses and violations of peoples’ rights to housing and development. While the judicial system is corrupt and the state is the main violator of the law, the poor communities are voiceless and powerless.

One example was the eviction of residents of Sambok Chab village on June 6, 2006, which threatened to turn into a serious humanitarian crisis. According to the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, an estimated 6,000 people at a relocation site close to Trapeang Andong village in the Dangkao district were denied the basic rights to food, housing, clean water, public health services and schooling.

More than 1,200 families from Sambok Chab were forcibly relocated to idle rice fields under the supervision of hundreds of armed police and soldiers. Located more than 20 kilometers from their former homes, these people lost their meager means of making a living and many were starving. There was no administration over this site and no security; people dared not leave their small huts for fear that others would take their few belongings.

According to human rights and media observers, on Jan. 24 this year residents of the village of Dey Krahorm were evicted at 2:00 a.m. by over 400 workers from the 7NG Company, a property developer, together with over 300 heavily armed police officers. During this operation, tear gas and heavy machinery including bulldozers were used. Eighteen community members were injured and private property was systematically destroyed.

More than 400 families were reportedly forcibly evicted. Most of them were market stall holders and renters. They were relocated to Damnak Trayeung, 20 kilometers from Phnom Penh, where they set up a makeshift camp on 7NG land beside a road. Some house owners also went to Damnak Trayeung, but others were able to stay temporarily with friends, family or NGOs in Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, or LICADHO, reported a lack of facilities at the relocation site including food, water, shelter, mosquito nets and medical facilities. There are no toilets, forcing people to use open fields or unfinished apartment buildings. These unhygienic conditions are obviously harmful to health.

Despite appeals from local and international organizations, as well as pleas from affected residents, evictions have not stopped. Other communities fear it will soon be their turn. In addition to these evictions in urban areas, there have been many cases of land grabbing in the provinces.

The evictions generally follow a pattern with four characteristics: They are violent, using armed forces, tear gas and heavy machinery to drive people out. They follow illegal procedures, without public consultation, prior announcement or justification. They ignore peoples’ right to private property, taking their homes without providing proper compensation or adequate social infrastructure. They are not in the public interest, as most evictions occur on land contracted to private companies in the name of “development projects,” which often turn out to be shopping malls or multistoried apartment buildings.

The relocated people are not benefitting from such development. Hence, the so-called development projects are merely an excuse to hide the government’s violations of peoples’ rights. This must be stopped.

In fact, there are legal guarantees to housing and development. The right to housing is entrenched in a number of international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Article 3), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Article 14) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 27).

Furthermore, the right to development is an inalienable human right. Equal opportunity for development is a privilege of both nations and of individuals who make up nations.

The Cambodian Constitution (Article 31) states that the government shall recognize and respect human rights as stipulated in the United Nations Charter and other declarations, covenants and conventions related to human, women's and children's rights. In addition, the 2001 Cambodian Land Law ensures the right to private ownership of land and prohibits violent, forceful eviction.

The government must abide by its own Constitution and laws.

In principle, people strongly support the government’s development plans and recognize its right to sell land to private companies that can develop it according to the public interest. Yet the government also has the obligation to protect its citizens and their fundamental rights to adequate housing and the means to make a living.

To protect these rights, the government should propose onsite development plans rather than opting to evict poor villagers in the name of city development. If evictions are necessary, the residents should be informed and consulted beforehand. They should be fairly compensated for their property, and relocation sites should include sufficient infrastructure for the people to live in dignity and earn income for themselves and their families.

Most importantly, the government’s master plan must be presented to the public. It is a crucial part of a democratic system for the people to be aware of their country’s development plans.
--
(Chak Sopheap is a graduate student of peace studies at the International University of Japan. She runs a blog, www.sopheapfocus.com, on which she shares her impressions of both Japan and her homeland, Cambodia. She was previously advocacy officer of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. )