Showing posts with label Forced land eviction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forced land eviction. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Dey Krahorm Land Eviction Victim
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| Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com and also at http://sacrava.wordpress.com) |
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Ponchaud: 17 April 1975 was a bitter day for Cambodians
Father François Ponchaud, catholic missionary in Phnom Penh (Photo: RFI)17 April 2010
By Jean-François Tain
Radio France Internationale
Translated from French by Komping Puoy
Jean-François Tain’s weekly guest this Saturday is Father François Ponchaud, a catholic missionary. Father Ponchaud was in Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 and he personally witnessed the arrival of the KR to Phnom Penh 35 years ago.
Quote from Father Ponchaud: "Currently, Cambodia is developing very quickly, but the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, there are land evictions and land confiscations from (the workers,) the farmers, there are land concessions given out to foreigners. The government must remember that the Khmer Rouge came about when the government of Samdech Sihanouk confiscated lands in Kampong Kol, Samlot [Battambang province], and the people revolted during that time. Then the Khmer Rouge took over the people’s demonstration to form its movement and started their first insurrection. Right now, the situation is the same, because the government confiscates lands belonging to farmers, demonstrations are starting to take shape, like the ones in Kampong Speu, in Oral Mountain, in Banteay Meanchey. Therefore, I am concerned about the future. I’m afraid that because of intense injustice, the people will start their insurrection and this will create havoc in Cambodia. Injustice breeds war. This is a normal outcome: it’s the law of politics."
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The 7NG Co. took away their land, demolished their homes, and it even brought them to court: Justice Hun Sen regime-style?
Chan Vichet appearing in front of the court room (Photo: KK, Cambodge Soir Hebdo)Dey Kraham: Chan Vichet faces the court
12 Feb 2009
By Kang Kallyan
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French
Chan Vichet, the representative of the residents who were evacuated on 24 January, and two other activists appeared in front of the municipal court on Wednesday. The trio is accused of violent acts perpetrated on 3 December 2007.
Chan Vichet, the spokesman of the former residents of Dey Kraham, showed up at the Phnom Penh municipal court on Wednesday 11 Feb. He was accompanied by two other activists: Ly You Leng and Khieu Bunthoeun. The trio is accused by the 7NG Co. of “destruction of other people’s belonging” and of “fighting and hurting” on 03 Dec 2007.
On that 03 Dec 2007 day, Dey Kraham residents attacked workers of the 7NG Co. who brought in bulldozers to their area. They pelted the workers with rocks, the 7NG Co. alleged, and three of the 7NG workers were allegedly injured, one of them on the head.
At the dock, Chan Vichet was not allowed to discuss the details of the event, he was only allowed to tell his wish in regards to the court decision. Chan Vichet asked the court to dismiss this case, saying that he used a loudspeaker to call on the angry residents not to pelt rocks.
Ly You Leng, who is currently living in the Borey Santepheap II village located in Damnak Trayoeung where the 7NG dumped the former Dey Kraham residents, indicated also that, on the day of the incident, she told the residents that the 7NG was looking to provoke them, and that the residents should not go near the company’s bulldozers.
Seven witnesses confirmed the claims made by the activists, whereas the 7NG Co., which was not present in the audience, produced the depositions provided by 17 of its own witnesses consisting mainly of its own workers and security officers employed by the company. None of the 7NG witnesses were present in the court room.
The company brought up the lawsuit following the incident, and it asks for $10,000 in compensation for the damages incurred on the bulldozer and for the injuries inflicted on its workers.
Chan Vichet, Ly You leng and Khieu Bunthoeun appeared in court accompanied by two lawyers provided by the human rights group Licadho, Ham Sunrith and Sann Sokunthea, as well as by Ke Chamnan, the private lawyer for Khieu Bunthoeun.
The lawyers indicated that the 7NG Co. did not provide any details on the damage compensation, nor did the injured workers and the 7NG Co. representatives came to the court. Therefore, short of tangible proof, the case should be dismissed. “The victim (7NG) claimed that more than 200 people have pelted rocks … If this was true, how could they (7NG workers) get away with just a simple head injury?” Ke Chamnan asked.
On the other hand, Phlan Sophal, the prosecutor, asked the court to sentence the trio.
In the court room, numerous human rights activists were present and they can be distinguished by the blue krama (scarf) around their neck.
The court will issue its decision in the morning of Monday 16 Feb.
Chan Vichet, the spokesman of the former residents of Dey Kraham, showed up at the Phnom Penh municipal court on Wednesday 11 Feb. He was accompanied by two other activists: Ly You Leng and Khieu Bunthoeun. The trio is accused by the 7NG Co. of “destruction of other people’s belonging” and of “fighting and hurting” on 03 Dec 2007.
On that 03 Dec 2007 day, Dey Kraham residents attacked workers of the 7NG Co. who brought in bulldozers to their area. They pelted the workers with rocks, the 7NG Co. alleged, and three of the 7NG workers were allegedly injured, one of them on the head.
At the dock, Chan Vichet was not allowed to discuss the details of the event, he was only allowed to tell his wish in regards to the court decision. Chan Vichet asked the court to dismiss this case, saying that he used a loudspeaker to call on the angry residents not to pelt rocks.
Ly You Leng, who is currently living in the Borey Santepheap II village located in Damnak Trayoeung where the 7NG dumped the former Dey Kraham residents, indicated also that, on the day of the incident, she told the residents that the 7NG was looking to provoke them, and that the residents should not go near the company’s bulldozers.
Seven witnesses confirmed the claims made by the activists, whereas the 7NG Co., which was not present in the audience, produced the depositions provided by 17 of its own witnesses consisting mainly of its own workers and security officers employed by the company. None of the 7NG witnesses were present in the court room.
The company brought up the lawsuit following the incident, and it asks for $10,000 in compensation for the damages incurred on the bulldozer and for the injuries inflicted on its workers.
Chan Vichet, Ly You leng and Khieu Bunthoeun appeared in court accompanied by two lawyers provided by the human rights group Licadho, Ham Sunrith and Sann Sokunthea, as well as by Ke Chamnan, the private lawyer for Khieu Bunthoeun.
The lawyers indicated that the 7NG Co. did not provide any details on the damage compensation, nor did the injured workers and the 7NG Co. representatives came to the court. Therefore, short of tangible proof, the case should be dismissed. “The victim (7NG) claimed that more than 200 people have pelted rocks … If this was true, how could they (7NG workers) get away with just a simple head injury?” Ke Chamnan asked.
On the other hand, Phlan Sophal, the prosecutor, asked the court to sentence the trio.
In the court room, numerous human rights activists were present and they can be distinguished by the blue krama (scarf) around their neck.
The court will issue its decision in the morning of Monday 16 Feb.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Ah P Wat - "Ah Phee takes it all (Pun for development)": A Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea
Click on the poem in Khmer to zoom inPoem in Khmer by Sam Vichea (on the web at http://kamnapkumnou.blogspot.com)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
JOEL BRINKLEY: In Cambodia, government watches as developers evict poor from their land
August 28, 2008
By JOEL BRINKLEY
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (USA)
By JOEL BRINKLEY
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (USA)
Well past the city limits, beyond the sign that says "Bon Voyage; See You Again," after the paved roads end, down a rutted dirt track, Un Thea sits in the mud outside her shanty house, peeling bamboo shoots - and seething.
Two years ago, soldiers and police showed up in the middle of the night to throw her family and more than 1,000 others out of their homes on a plot in central Phnom Penh. The soldiers torched the crude houses before Un and the others had time even to retrieve their meager belongings. Then all of the residents were herded onto buses and ferried out here, about 15 miles away, and dumped in a rice paddy without so much as a bottle of water or a tarp for cover.
Then the soldiers left - though a few stayed behind to turn away the aid groups that came out to drop off emergency rations. Un's case is among several thousands more or less similar land seizures across Cambodia in the last three years.
"Out here, it is hard making business," Un complains with considerable understatement. She is 25 but already looks decades older. "They dumped us here and gave us no money, no land title. Nothing."
Cambodia is a democracy. The modern state grew out of a U.N. peace conference in 1991 intended to create a free nation from the rubble the Khmer Rouge left behind. Since then, the government has purported to manage the country according to the rule of law.
Every democratic country, including the United States, fails at times to live up to its democratic ideals. But the cruelty the Cambodian government visits upon its weakest citizens can be breathtaking. You expect this in North Korea, or Zimbabwe. But Cambodia? In late July Cambodians voted in national elections that were generally peaceful with scattered complaints. Government leaders tolerate human rights groups that regularly castigate them and, within limits, critical stories in the news media.
Still, stories like Un's can overwhelm the positive developments here.
Chum Bon Rong is secretary of state in the National Land Authority, which is supposed to arbitrate land disputes like the Andoung case. Last week he told me that his agency has received more than 3,000 land-seizure appeals in the last two and one-half years. Of those, he acknowledged, only about 50 have been judged in favor of plaintiffs, the impoverished people whose land was seized. Even among those 50, he acknowledged with a rueful grin, "sometimes the cases disappear" after referral to another agency that is supposed to implement the Land Authority's findings.
In 2001, under pressure from the West, Cambodia enacted a Land Law that was supposed to set clear rules for property disputes. Seven years later, the government has yet to write the regulations implementing that law. Meantime, the seizures continue unabated. Phnom Penh is booming, and when a developer spots a choice piece of land, he simply pays off the proper official to win a newly minted land title. All that's left is rid the property of its pesky residents - almost always poor, uneducated people like Un.
Once the residents have been disposed of, they are forgotten. Licadho, a local human rights group, noted in a new report that Un and the others dumped out here suffer from "malnutrition, typhoid, dengue fever, hepatitis A or B, hypertension, respiratory tract infections, gastro-intestinal illnesses including stress-related ulcers, depression," and last in this litany, "anger management problems." Um and her husband built a one-room shelter on stilts from scrap wood, bamboo matting and plastic tarps. Ten people now live in and under the house. She has no electricity or running water. No one in this community has a phone; there's not a single toilet.
"We have to buy water from the water seller," she says, nodding toward an earthen cistern beside the house. Mosquito larvae seem to roil the water surface. Tacked to her shelter's front wall, a poster warns of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness.
Um says she can make about 5,000 riel selling her peeled bamboo shoots at market. That's $1.22. She sends her young sons into Phnom Penh "to shine shoes for the people. They go and stay for a month."
A few months ago, the United Nations issued a report saying the government here always "tilts in favor of businesses" that want to develop land, "pitting poor farmers against developers." Even though his own agency's numbers show the very same thing, Chum says complaints like that from abroad are "a case of propaganda."
Two years ago, soldiers and police showed up in the middle of the night to throw her family and more than 1,000 others out of their homes on a plot in central Phnom Penh. The soldiers torched the crude houses before Un and the others had time even to retrieve their meager belongings. Then all of the residents were herded onto buses and ferried out here, about 15 miles away, and dumped in a rice paddy without so much as a bottle of water or a tarp for cover.
Then the soldiers left - though a few stayed behind to turn away the aid groups that came out to drop off emergency rations. Un's case is among several thousands more or less similar land seizures across Cambodia in the last three years.
"Out here, it is hard making business," Un complains with considerable understatement. She is 25 but already looks decades older. "They dumped us here and gave us no money, no land title. Nothing."
Cambodia is a democracy. The modern state grew out of a U.N. peace conference in 1991 intended to create a free nation from the rubble the Khmer Rouge left behind. Since then, the government has purported to manage the country according to the rule of law.
Every democratic country, including the United States, fails at times to live up to its democratic ideals. But the cruelty the Cambodian government visits upon its weakest citizens can be breathtaking. You expect this in North Korea, or Zimbabwe. But Cambodia? In late July Cambodians voted in national elections that were generally peaceful with scattered complaints. Government leaders tolerate human rights groups that regularly castigate them and, within limits, critical stories in the news media.
Still, stories like Un's can overwhelm the positive developments here.
Chum Bon Rong is secretary of state in the National Land Authority, which is supposed to arbitrate land disputes like the Andoung case. Last week he told me that his agency has received more than 3,000 land-seizure appeals in the last two and one-half years. Of those, he acknowledged, only about 50 have been judged in favor of plaintiffs, the impoverished people whose land was seized. Even among those 50, he acknowledged with a rueful grin, "sometimes the cases disappear" after referral to another agency that is supposed to implement the Land Authority's findings.
In 2001, under pressure from the West, Cambodia enacted a Land Law that was supposed to set clear rules for property disputes. Seven years later, the government has yet to write the regulations implementing that law. Meantime, the seizures continue unabated. Phnom Penh is booming, and when a developer spots a choice piece of land, he simply pays off the proper official to win a newly minted land title. All that's left is rid the property of its pesky residents - almost always poor, uneducated people like Un.
Once the residents have been disposed of, they are forgotten. Licadho, a local human rights group, noted in a new report that Un and the others dumped out here suffer from "malnutrition, typhoid, dengue fever, hepatitis A or B, hypertension, respiratory tract infections, gastro-intestinal illnesses including stress-related ulcers, depression," and last in this litany, "anger management problems." Um and her husband built a one-room shelter on stilts from scrap wood, bamboo matting and plastic tarps. Ten people now live in and under the house. She has no electricity or running water. No one in this community has a phone; there's not a single toilet.
"We have to buy water from the water seller," she says, nodding toward an earthen cistern beside the house. Mosquito larvae seem to roil the water surface. Tacked to her shelter's front wall, a poster warns of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness.
Um says she can make about 5,000 riel selling her peeled bamboo shoots at market. That's $1.22. She sends her young sons into Phnom Penh "to shine shoes for the people. They go and stay for a month."
A few months ago, the United Nations issued a report saying the government here always "tilts in favor of businesses" that want to develop land, "pitting poor farmers against developers." Even though his own agency's numbers show the very same thing, Chum says complaints like that from abroad are "a case of propaganda."
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thousands displaced by Cambodia lake development
Friday, August 15, 2008
ABC Radio Australia
ABC Radio Australia
Cambodia's Boeung Kak Lake is set to be filled with sand and thousands of people removed from their homes, as part of a development project starting next month.
While the exact nature of the development is unclear, the developer will dredge the water and replace it with sand with a view to build shops, apartments and hotels.
Radio Australia's Sonja Heydeman reports the plan leaves the fate of four thousand lakeside families unclear.
Boeung Kak Lake and surrounds, an area of around 133 hectares, was leased in February last year to a private developer by the Municipality of Phnom Penh.
The decision has sparked a human rights outcry.
The director of Bridges Across Borders in Southeast Asia, David Pred, told the Connect Asia program the lease agreement is illegal under Cambodian law.
"Under international law, Cambodia's human rights obligations under the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, the circumstances surrounding the development and the impending eviction have also constituted serious violations of law," he said.
"People have been intimidated, there's been lack of consultation serious lack of information, there's been no transparency surrounding the development of what's happening."
The $US79 million leasehold agreement has been made with Shukaku Inc.
Cambodian opposition MP from the Sam Rainsy party, Son Chhay, says there is some background to the deal.
"The company which is led by Senator Lao Meng Khin will be involved in the business of deforestation, land concession," he said.
"They are invloved with this kind of business that not many people are able to do, unless you are very close to the ruling CPP.
"We believe that there was some share from the Hun Sen family in the company."
The amount of compensation on offer to families remains unclear, while some reports suggest there's a figure of around $US10,000 per house.
Son Chhay believes the people will be given a small fraction of what the market price actually is.
While the exact nature of the development is unclear, the developer will dredge the water and replace it with sand with a view to build shops, apartments and hotels.
Radio Australia's Sonja Heydeman reports the plan leaves the fate of four thousand lakeside families unclear.
Boeung Kak Lake and surrounds, an area of around 133 hectares, was leased in February last year to a private developer by the Municipality of Phnom Penh.
The decision has sparked a human rights outcry.
The director of Bridges Across Borders in Southeast Asia, David Pred, told the Connect Asia program the lease agreement is illegal under Cambodian law.
"Under international law, Cambodia's human rights obligations under the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, the circumstances surrounding the development and the impending eviction have also constituted serious violations of law," he said.
"People have been intimidated, there's been lack of consultation serious lack of information, there's been no transparency surrounding the development of what's happening."
The $US79 million leasehold agreement has been made with Shukaku Inc.
Cambodian opposition MP from the Sam Rainsy party, Son Chhay, says there is some background to the deal.
"The company which is led by Senator Lao Meng Khin will be involved in the business of deforestation, land concession," he said.
"They are invloved with this kind of business that not many people are able to do, unless you are very close to the ruling CPP.
"We believe that there was some share from the Hun Sen family in the company."
The amount of compensation on offer to families remains unclear, while some reports suggest there's a figure of around $US10,000 per house.
Son Chhay believes the people will be given a small fraction of what the market price actually is.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Hun Sen fed with false land dispute resolution report in Group 78 by the city of Phnom Penh
Land disputes: Villagers regain hope
28 March 2008
By Ung Chansophea
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
28 March 2008
By Ung Chansophea
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
In the end, it was a delegation of 80 people who went to the gate of Hun Sen’s mansion in Takhmao this morning. They represent the interest of three communities in Phnom Penh – Group 78, Dey Kraham and Reekreay – which are embroiled in land disputes opposing them to private companies.
These villagers live in the Bassac district and they must move out to make place for housing development. The representatives arrived at 3:30AM in Takhmao. They were surprised to discover that in front of Hun Sen’s mansion, a special place is clearly marked for those who want to attract Hun Sen’s attention on any subject.
On the spot, the delegation who came without any banners “so as not to be noticed by the police” met with one of Hun Sen’s representative. “This person spoke to us nicely. We were able to hand over a petition and he listened to our complaints. I am regaining hope,” Lim Likeang, a villager from Group 78, said. Nevertheless, Lim Likeang was shocked when Hun Sen’s representative told him that a recent report from the city of Phnom Penh indicated that the land dispute for Group 78 was already resolved. “I believe that this is a false report,” Lim Likeang deplored.
These villagers live in the Bassac district and they must move out to make place for housing development. The representatives arrived at 3:30AM in Takhmao. They were surprised to discover that in front of Hun Sen’s mansion, a special place is clearly marked for those who want to attract Hun Sen’s attention on any subject.
On the spot, the delegation who came without any banners “so as not to be noticed by the police” met with one of Hun Sen’s representative. “This person spoke to us nicely. We were able to hand over a petition and he listened to our complaints. I am regaining hope,” Lim Likeang, a villager from Group 78, said. Nevertheless, Lim Likeang was shocked when Hun Sen’s representative told him that a recent report from the city of Phnom Penh indicated that the land dispute for Group 78 was already resolved. “I believe that this is a false report,” Lim Likeang deplored.
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