Cambodian residents report threats over railway development [Bravo AusAID?!?!]

Railroad residents: Poor and vulnerable communities say they are regularly subject to forced relocation in Cambodia and say they are insufficiently compensated. (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Monday, May 16, 2011
Radio Australia News

Impoverished Cambodians say they are being forcibly moved out of their houses to make way for the country's redeveloped railway system.

The ABC's Southeast Asia correspondent, Zoe Daniel, says more than 160 families from a community in the capital, Phnom Penh, have been offered a few hundred dollars' compensation for their houses by local authorities.

The residents say the compensation they've been offered isn't enough. Some say they will lose buildings they live and work in, while others are angry that they've been told to move about 20km out of the city.

Residents who don't want to leave say they've been threatened by local officials.

One resident says she was asked to accept the deal by giving a thumb print.

"If I don't, they will bulldoze my house, they will hire [a] drug user to burn my house," she said.

The railway project being is built with funding from the Australian aid agency AusAID and the Asian Development Bank, and that marked buildings within 3.5 metres of the line are scheduled to be partially or fully demolished.

As Cambodia clamors to develop, a favorite bar is left in the dust

Scenes from Snow Bar on the banks of the Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Snow Bar was recently closed down to make way for a city "beautification project." (Photo by: Lauren Crothers)

Snow's got noticed overseas as well, featured on National Geographic and by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

April 17, 2011

Tim Sturrock

GlobalPost

“It's a kick in the head, you know what I mean? It happens to a lot of people in Cambodia.”   - Anthony "Snow" Woodford, bar owner

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Two decades ago Ian “Snow” Woodford, an Australian, came to Cambodia on a whim and has been watching the country recover from isolated madness ever since. He’s gotten an eyeful.

He saw firefights on the streets in late 1990s as political factions battled for power, while Cambodia was gasping for air after the Khmer Rouge's murderous reign. Later he saw the destruction of French colonial buildings, and the mass evictions of locals to make room for one new modern development after another.

Now, as developers continue to clamor for space in Phnom Penh, Snow has witnessed the end of another era. His business, Maxine's Bar on the River, more often called Snow's, has seen its final days, at least for now.

Tucked into a quiet, remote location across the river from the bustle of the capital, it was the only expat-run bar on the east bank of the Tonle Sap, and hence the favored spot for unwinding with a Beer Lao and watching the sun set over the city. The New York Times touted its authentic feel and National Geographic and the celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain used it as a backdrop.

Demonstrations await Ban Ki-moon's arrival in Phnom Penh

Boeung Kak residents gathered at the UNDP office on Monday to ask for intervention against
their eviction from the city (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Land-eviction victims are holding banners in front the UN office on Monday
(Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Video Training Targets Forced Evictions in Cambodia

October 7th, 2010
By Ryan Schlief
Source: http://blog.witness.org/2010/10/licadho-training/

In Cambodia, WITNESS has focused the past two years on supporting LICADHO‘s efficacy to produce and strategically distribute advocacy videos on forced evictions in the name of development - the same subject as our new global campaign.

LICADHO has produced some powerful and influential advocacy videos over the past two years – including video about the forced evictions in Dey Krahorm, Borei Keila, Group 78, Boeung Kak Lake, Kampong Speu, and others. Some of this footage came from community representatives throughout the country, who were trained by LICADHO to document forced evictions for its local and national advocacy work.

Much of this work however, was in the hands of a talented few. It was our joint decision to train more staff in video advocacy to support LICADHO’s commitment of addressing forced evictions in Cambodia.

It’s truly best practice when a training directly incorporates an ongoing campaign of an organization. In addition to classroom instruction, we conducted two field exercises with LICADHO staff. The first, far from the capital, was outside a courthouse where LICADHO was monitoring a trial of a local land dispute. The second was at the location where an HIV/AIDS affected community, forcibly evicted last year, now lives.

The video introduces you to forced evictions and then takes you through the training to explain how our organizations are using video to address these human rights abuses.

In particular, one video LICADHO produced was used to convince +100 HIV/AIDS organizations around the world – local and national organizations in Zambia, Brazil, India, Russia, China, Canada and elsewhere – to stand up for a community of HIV/AIDS affected families facing forced eviction in Phnom Penh.

To show the full extent of the human right abuses at different stages, it is extremely valuable to show what happens to a community before, during and after a forced eviction. During this training, we visited the former residents one year after they were forcibly evicted from their homes and just a few weeks after leaving the deplorable conditions of the so-called “AIDS colony” where the government sent them.

The residents now have housing provided by an international NGO – but because of the forced eviction they lost much more – including their jobs and access to their schools and hospitals. What you think this says about “what is ‘adequate housing?’” Is it more than just four walls?

For an introduction to housing rights, visit Housing is a Human Right.

Read more about WITNESS trainings.

Cambodian rights group says tax breaks leading to forced evictions

CPP senator-tycoon-cum-land thief Ly Yong Phat (aka Thai citizen Pad Supa), the owner of Phnom Penh Sugar Co. Ltd., is involved in many forced evictions in Kampong Speu province

There are reports of assaults, arbitary arrests and threats during forced evictions. [Supplied: LICADHO]

Monday, August 16, 2010
Radio Australia News

A land rights organisation in Cambodia says EU tax breaks meant to promote trade with poor nations are contributing to evictions at gunpoint in rural areas.

The EU tax-free status of exports from Cambodia to the EU is one of the key factors that's revived Cambodia's sugar industry, after years of war and instability.

But land concessions granted by the Cambodian Government to companies have led to forced evictions involving armed police and soldiers.

At least two people have been shot during these evictions, and David Pred, the Cambodia country director of Bridges Across Borders, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program there are many reports of assaults, arbitary arrests and threats.

"We are extremely concerned that instiling this tariff-free status on Cambodia without recquiring any environmental and social safeguards is encouraging the expansion of a model of industrial agriculture, that is in fact very harmful to Cambodian farmers and rural communitites, and has been directly tied to violence and the abuse of human rights," he said.

The European Union has rejected the claims, with the Charge D'Affairs of the EU Delegation to Cambodia, Rafaelo Dochao Moreno, says it's unfair to link its trade initiative to rights abuses in Cambodia.

"It's like accusing for instance, where there's a drunk driver killing a pedestrian, you accuse the manufacturers of cars of this killing," he said.

"There is a relation because the car has killed a person but it is not a direct responsibility of someone that is manufacturing cars."

Group 78 families mark eviction

Group 78 eviction (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)
A former resident of the city’s Group 78 community prays at a ceremony Saturday marking the one-year anniversary of the eviction of 146 families from the site in Chamkarmon district. (Photo by: Pha Lina)

Monday, 19 July 2010
Jake Schoneker and Tang Khyhay
The Phnom Penh Post

MORE than 50 demonstrators gathered on Saturday at the former site of the Group 78 community in Chamkarmon district to mark the one-year anniversary of an eviction that saw city officials clear the homes of 146 families for development.

“We’ve gathered here today to tell the government that it needs to give proper compensation to those who are evicted from their homes,” said Lim Sambo, a former resident of Group 78. “We need to make people aware of what happened to us.”

The Group 78 families claim they should have been eligible for ownership of their land under the 2001 Land Law, but that the government refused to accept their applications for land titles. Most were given US$8,000 in exchange for evacuating their homes.

Several residents said last week that this amount was not enough for them to buy new homes in the city. Instead, they said they had been forced to move to remote resettlement sites such as Trapaing Anchanh, about 25 kilometres from the city.

“I decided to buy land in Trapaing Anchanh because it’s cheap,” said Pach Khan, one of the evicted residents.

He was among the former Group 78 residents who said they needed to continue working in the capital despite having moved away from it, resulting in higher transportation costs.

“I’m a moto-taxi driver,” he said. “I can’t do any business where I live now. That’s why I have to come to the city to work.”

Beyond this inconvenience, rights workers say moving to sites like Trapaing Anchanh results in a much poorer quality of life overall.

“Generally, families find themselves living in greater poverty, with worse access to drinking water, electricity and poor sanitation. As a consequence they can suffer from more health problems,” said Janice Beanland, spokeswoman for Amnesty International Southeast Asia.

City Hall officials could not be reached on Sunday. Last week, however, Mann Chhoeun, the former deputy governor who was in charge of the Group 78 evictions, reiterated his earlier argument that the families had no right to the land because it was state-owned.

Saturday’s demonstration allowed families affected by various land disputes to try to raise awareness about their respective situations. About 30 of the demonstrators said they face eviction from the Boeung Kak lake area, where a controversial development project threatens to force thousands of families from their homes.

“We’re here to join together, to protect our land,” said Rous Saen, a 73 year-old Boeung Kak resident. “The pain of the Group 78 families is just like the pain of people from Boeung Kak. We are all victims.”

Locals face eviction at Oz Minerals claim

Tuesday, 15 June 2010
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

THIRTY families in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district have ignored a deadline to tear down homes that government officials have ordered destroyed to make way for a gold-mining concession belonging to Oz Minerals.

In a meeting on Saturday, district authorities told the families that they needed to dismantle their homes and relocate by Sunday. On Monday, however, members of the community remained defiant, demanding either land or an unspecified amount of monetary compensation.

“I don’t care how much pressure the authorities put on me – I will not agree to move unless they provide me with compensation to buy new land,” said resident Sen Chhorn, who vowed to remain on her land even if her house is torn down.

Sok Seav, another Keo Seima resident, said she had lived in the community since 2006, though she noted that she does not have a land title. She, too, said the company should offer some form of compensation.

“We came to this area before Oz Minerals arrived, so they have to pay villagers if they need our land,” Sok Seav said.

An Oz Minerals spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

But Keo Seima Deputy Governor Len Vanna said the families’ claims were suspect, and that they had only recently moved to his district from a handful of other provinces. He threatened a harsh reprisal if the community is not dismantled in short order.

“If they do not agree to tear down their homes, we will burn them to the ground,” he said.

Am Sam Ann, a district councillor in Keo Seima, said the government had no plans to award the villagers compensation because they had set up their homes “anarchically” on land belonging to Oz Minerals.

Sam Sarin, Mondulkiri provincial coordinator for the local rights group Adhoc, said the villagers had moved to the area in the hope of benefiting from commerce generated by the company’s presence.

Oz Minerals, which began its operations in Cambodia in 2006, is also drilling for copper in Mondulkiri.

In March, the firm announced it had identified inferred resources of 605,000 ounces of gold from 8.1 million tonnes of ore at grades of 2.3 grams of gold per tonne at its interests in Keo Seima.

Government Bolsters Efforts Against Squatters

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Friday, 28 May 2010

“This [order] is good, but we worry about the concrete implementation of it, because the government has not provided fair compensation to people in exchange for their removal.”

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a legal circular that instructs provincial and municipal authorities to seek resolutions to illegal settlements on state property.

The order tells authorities to first meet with community representatives on state land to inform them of development projects and to then discuss compensation for residents.

The circular creates a regulation for measures already practiced by authorities, critics said Friday, and it does not address situations where residents refuse to leave.

Cambodian officials have steadily found themselves at odds with squatter communities, where land values have boomed and development projects are springing up.

The order is to “inform all provinces and municipal authorities to solve illegal construction on state land through discussion with residents,” according to the draft pass by the Council on Friday.

The order is meant “to solve the anarchic construction [done] without order on the state land, where the occupier has come to settle illegally and to construct a house without order [creating] a lack of road passage and lack of hygiene.”

The order now gives officials more authority to act against squatter communities who may not be getting enough compensation, opponents said Friday.

“This [order] is good, but we worry about the concrete implementation of it, because the government has not provided fair compensation to people in exchange for their removal,” said Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party. “If there are effects to the people because of the [order] we would like the government to respect the constitution and to fairly compensate people through the market price.”

The measure is not clear about compensation, leaving room for authorities to offer low prices to residents, which can lead to conflict, said Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc.

Thai Navy, a 39-year-old resident of the Boeung Kak lake community, which has been locked in a dispute with Phnom Penh over a giant development project since 2008, said representatives were not happy with the measure.

“The resolution to remove houses is the same as before,” he said.

The city’s policy is to pay Boeung Kak residents $8,500 per family or to offer lots of land on the outskirts of the city. Residents have said that is not enough, but there has been no forced eviction in the area to date.

The order comes as Cambodia faces increased criticism of forced evictions of the urban poor.

In an annual report issued Thursday, Amnesty International said “a wave of legal actions against housing rights defenders, journalists and other critical voices” had “stifled freedom of expression in Cambodia.”

Svay Rieng: Adhoc demands the release a villager

Monday 24 May 2010
By Pen Bona
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luch Ky-Luch
Click here to read the article in French

As part of a land dispute, the Adhoc human rights organization demands that the Svay Rieng justice release the representative of families who are threatened with eviction.

In a communiqué issued on Monday 24 May, Adhoc deplores the arrest of the representative of the Peam Chaing families who are opposed to a rubber plantation company. Adhoc demands for an immediate release of the arrested villager and it also denounces the attempt by the Svay Rieng provincial court to arrest fifteen other farmers.

According to Adhoc, the conflict should not be brought to court yet at this point because the government was trying to solve the problem. However, Adhoc reminds that the villagers’ protest is legal: “According to the 2001 land law, they own these lands that this private company tries to clear since 2007,” the Adhoc communiqué indicated.

Adhoc also noted that the authorities were in a hurry to take care of this matter whereas the private company involved in the land dispute did not even fill the paperwork needed to obtain a land concession.

"Development" does not justify land grabs

Clash between police and residents during an attempt of forced eviction in Kampong Speu (Photo: Uon Chhin, RFA)

April 08, 2010
By Chak Sopheap
Guest Commentary UPI Asia Online

Niigata, Japan — The problem of forced evictions and land grabs is growing worse in Cambodia, leading to violence due to deep dissatisfaction over existing resettlement schemes. Some 133,000 residents of Phnom Penh, or 11 percent of the city’s population of 1.2 million, have been evicted since 1990.

According to Amnesty International, there were 27 instances of forced urban evictions reported in 2008, affecting some 23,000 people. A further 150,000 are currently at risk of eviction, including approximately 70,000 in Phnom Penh.

Amnesty International reported that several urban communities had been evicted from their homes and relocated to areas that lacked the most basic infrastructure. Other communities facing eviction orders are crying out for legal and humanitarian support from the government and civil society groups.

This phenomenon is not unique to Cambodia; it occurs in both developed and developing countries where poor communities or informal settlements and slums are often targeted. People are evicted to make way for development and infrastructure projects, large international events like the Olympic games and urban redevelopment and beautification initiatives. Sometimes political conflict, ethnic cleansing and war are factors. However, “development” is the most common justification in all countries, including Cambodia.

Surprisingly, almost all regions have experienced forced evictions including Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region. According to a global survey by the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, covering 80 countries from 1998 to 2008, more than 18 million people were victims of forced evictions. Of this number, 47 percent occurred in Asia and the Pacific, followed by 44 percent in Africa, 8 percent in the Americas and 1 percent in Europe. The data showed that nearly 2 million people face eviction annually.

Cambodia ranks first among Asian countries in the number of evictions. These occur because of five key factors: 1) illegal construction and occupation of the land; 2) city development and beautification; 3) property market forces, gentrification and private development; 4) the granting of economic land concessions; and 5) the granting of social land concessions.

While the government justifies evictions for the sake of beautifying and developing the cities, there are many eviction cases where violence and legal abuses have occurred while little or no actual development has taken place. Strikingly, most of the areas that have been cleared to make way for development projects have been turned over to private companies owned or chaired by high-ranking officials and affiliated powerful businessmen.

Many areas cleared for the sake of “development” are yet to be developed. For example, the Sombok Chap area, from which more than 6,000 people were evicted in 2006, is still undeveloped. The same is true of the Monivong Hospital site, from which 168 families were forcibly evicted to make way for commercial development. This area is now being used for a parking lot and carwash.

There have been a few model resettlement cases, like that of Veng Sreng, where people were given enough time and allowed to choose their place of relocation. In this case there was close collaboration among the authorities, the community and local and international organizations in planning and coordinating a resettlement scheme. This positive approach meets the needs of the people and the government, while addressing the government poverty reduction program and advancing the millennium development goals.

In cases where the government urgently needs an area for development or investment projects, this model should be applied so that human security risks are avoided. The government’s current pursuit of development has often brought legal abuses and violations of peoples’ rights and produced little or no actual development. Thus it is important that the government reevaluate its development criteria.

Different people may define development differently. In traditional economic terms, it is strictly based on the capacity of a national economy valued in terms of gross national product. However, development as introduced by Michael. Todaro and Stepen C. Smith must “represent the whole gamut of change by which an entire social system, tuned to the diverse basic needs and desires of individuals and social groups within that system, moves away from a condition of life widely perceived as unsatisfactory toward a situation or condition of life regarded as materially and spiritually better.”

This concept includes three basic components of development: 1) Sustenance, or meeting basic needs including food, shelter, health and protection; 2) Self-esteem, or a sense of worth and self-respect; and 3) Freedom from servitude, including access to choices with minimal external constraints.

Based on these criteria, development must bring about certain goals. It must increase sustenance or life-sustaining goods including food, shelter, health and protection. It must raise living standards including the provision of more jobs, better education and greater attention to cultural and human values, contributing to greater individual and national self-esteem. And it must expand the range of economic and social choices.

In this context, the Cambodian and other governments that justify forced evictions for the sake of “national development” must reevaluate their development agenda in order to faithfully address the core values and objectives of development.
--
(Chak Sopheap is a graduate student of peace studies at the International University of Japan. She runs a blog, www.sopheapfocus.com, in which she shares her impressions of both Japan and her homeland, Cambodia. She was previously advocacy officer of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.)

SRP MPs in action in Kampong Speu

Three SRP MPs lead a group of Omlaing villagers to demand for the release of two jailed villagers (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

27 hurt as police try to evict Cambodian villagers

2010-03-18
By SOPHENG CHEANG
Associated Press

Police and villagers clashed Thursday in Cambodia, when authorities tried to evict residents of land awarded to a Taiwanese man by a court, leaving 27 people injured.

Brigadier Gen. Keo Pisey, chief of Kampong Speu province's police, said 100 police officers charged with the eviction were met by some 400 villagers, who attacked the officers as they arrived at the disputed land and wounded 14 of them.

"We were assigned to implement court-ordered eviction proceedings by asking those villagers to move out of the disputed land but once we arrived, we were welcomed by stones, sticks and slingshot," Keo Pisey said.

A representative of the villagers, Son Bun Chhuon, said police arrived with AK-47 rifles, shields and electric batons and beat them. He said 13 villagers were hurt, including a pregnant woman and a 12-year-old boy. He said four of them were in critical condition.

All 13 injured people are being treated at their homes because they fear that if they go to the hospital, the police will return and succeed in ousting them from their land, he added.

In recent years, land disputes have become frequent occurrences in Cambodia, usually pitting poor farmers against developers. Several people have been killed and wounded. Human rights groups have charged that several thousands of urban and rural dwellers have been illegally and inhumanely evicted from land that has been appropriated by corporations and influential individuals.

Keo Pisey, the police official, said he ordered his forces to withdraw from the disputed area - 160 acres (65 hectares) of rice paddies and houses 25 miles (45 kilometers) west of the capital, Phnom Penh - to avoid further violence.

Keo Pisey said the villagers had lost a lawsuit in which a court award the land to the Taiwanese man, but the villagers claimed the land belonged to them and the court just favors the rich and powerful.

Son Bun Chhuon said the land had been owned by the villagers since the collapse of communist Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, but a decade later a senior police officer and the Taiwanese man staked a claim to it and asked the villagers to move away.

"I have only a small piece of land for my home and planting rice; if I lose that land, it means that I will lose my life," he said by telephone. "I would became a beggar and my children will die if our protest is not successful."

Cambodia pushes out the poor

February 25, 2010
By Joel Elliott
Special to GlobalPost

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Rumbling bulldozers at 2 a.m. sent residents of the Dey Krahorm community scrambling from their beds. The time for eviction had come — not of an individual, or of a family, but as the final stage in the demolition of a 1,400-family neighborhood.

Neighbors and family members tried to stop the bulldozers and excavators from tearing down their homes by linking arms and forming a human wall around their neighborhood. But they could not withstand the tear gas. They broke ranks, choking and coughing. Besides tear gas, police beat residents with electric batons and fired rubber bullets into crowds.

The January 2009 incident was caught on videotape and set the tone for a year that brought the largest number of mass evictions in Phnom Penh since 1975, when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge evacuated the entire city in the process of killing more than 2 million Cambodians.

Over the past year, according to the Cambodia Housing Rights Task Force, a NGO dedicated to the issue, the Phnom Penh government has evicted and relocated an estimated 20,000 people, part of an increasing trend over the past decade in which poor people are being forcibly moved out of the city, and rich and powerful private companies take the land.

About 133,000 people have been evicted since 1990 from Phnom Penh alone, according to Licadho, a human rights organization, and an estimated 250,000 more have been displaced in the provinces since 2003.

“My neighbor, when he saw the truck breaking his house, he tried to jump in front of the truck and die, but another neighbor stopped him,” a 19-year-old former resident, who gave only her first name, Lina, said. “The people were crying. They did not have time to take their possessions out of their homes before the men broke them down.”

Lina told her story as we stood atop a nearby building, looking down on the site, now a dusty lot filled with rubble.

While those evicted in Phnom Penh are the most visible victims, land-grabbing and forced displacement is happening all over the country at an unprecedented rate, said David Pred, director of Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, an organization that promotes human rights in the region.

“This is the most serious human rights problem in Cambodia today,” Pred said of the land-grabbing. “It is not getting nearly the attention it deserves.”

Pred said that more than one quarter of Cambodia’s arable land has been granted to private corporations in the form of economic land concessions, displacing people from their farm lands and forests that they depend upon for their subsistence. If they have paperwork proving ownership, they might receive some sort of compensation, but most do not, according to Phearum Sia, director of the Housing Rights Task Force, another advocacy group in Phnom Penh. Renters are not compensated.

In Phnom Penh, the government usually loads those it evicts onto buses and transports them to a distant point and drops them off. The government sometimes ensures adequate housing; other times, the former residents find themselves in an empty field with nothing.

At some relocation sites, residents who worked in the city said they sometimes paid more per day in fuel costs traveling to Phnom Penh and back than they earned in a day.

Community members have occasionally protested, but these efforts sometimes backfire. A 2008 land dispute in Siem Reap between poor rice farmers and the government ended in multiple arrests and the police opening fire on a crowd of about 200 people, injuring four. Other protests fizzle before confrontation. Ghosts of the Khmer Rouge terror linger in the national psyche, Sia said.

“We work to empower the people, but the people are poor, and weak in their solidarity,” Sia said. “Our communities are still affected by the Pol Pot regime. He killed without law and without justice.”

Mann Chhoen, deputy governor of Phnom Penh, said he is responsible for land rights issues, but twice declined comment for this article.

Phnom Penh city police guard the sites of impending evictions and attempt to keep out NGO workers and journalists. At one site on Boeung Kak Lake, where a Cambodian development company known as Shukaku seized 3.6 hectares of land and began using the city’s police force to evict the occupants, police on three occasions barred our way and threatened us with arrest for even approaching the site where several evictions were in progress.

At Dey Krahorm, 200 former residents observed the one-year anniversary of their eviction, Jan. 24, with a procession to the edge of the wall surrounding their former neighborhood. Police officers in plain clothes, their walkie-talkies peeking from beneath their polo shirts, monitored the gathering and photographed the faces of those present, but didn’t try to break up the gathering.

There was no point.

The government had already destroyed their homes.

Groups Continue Opposition of Seizure Law

Forced eviction in Dey Krahorm (Photo: John Vink/Magnum)

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
30 December 2009

Rights and housing advocates on Wednesday continued to rail against a new law on imminent domain that they say will make it easier for people to lose their land.

The Law on Expropriations passed through the National Assembly on Tuesday, allowing for authorities to move people from their land in the name of national development, such as the construction of an airport or the widening of a road.

The bill had the support of 76 lawmakers from the Cambodian People’s Party and was opposed by members of the opposition Sam Rainsy and Human Rights parties.

“When the law on expropriation is enforced, it will allow the government and the authorities, in the capital and in the provinces, the full ability to easily expropriate real estate of citizens, under a pretext for the sake of fundamental infrastructure,” Ny Chakrya, lead investigator for the rights group Adhoc, told reporters in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia’s poor have faced increasing pressure, from both legitimate authorities and unscrupulous officials and businessmen, in recent years, as the country experienced a boom in land prices. Some people have been evicted by the government or had their land taken, creating a source of unease for many and, critics warn, potential unrest.

“There was the confiscation before the draft law passed without reasonable compensation,” said Kem Sokha, president of the Human Rights Party. “And because of this law, the government will have more ability to confiscate the land of citizens.”

However, Ouk Rabun, secretary of state for the Ministry of Economy and Finance, who defended the bill in the National Assembly this week, said the law was suffering from “negative interpretations.”

“In this case, the government will do the expropriation,” he said. “We must distinguish between legal expropriation and violence and abuse” in land disputes.

The law, which has eight chapters and 39 articles, allows the state to seize land for development in the national interest. That can mean for ports, power structures or an energy network, but it can also mean for security or national sovereignty.

Opponents of the law say it is not clear enough and could allow the government to evict people from their land before a case has been arbitrated. They also warn the law makes no provision for fair market values; instead, compensation will rely on a decision by a national committee.

Ny Chakrya said rights and housing groups sent recommendations for the law to the National Assembly and the government, but they were not heeded.

Cheam Yiep, a CPP lawmaker, said some of the recommendations may find their way into subdecrees when the law is promulgated.

Many Forced Evictions on Horizon: Groups

Forced eviction in Dey Krahorm (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
30 December 2009

Man Chhouen, a deputy governor of Phnom Penh, denied families were unhappy when evicted from their homes, saying they are generally glad to move to a new area. (sic!) [KI-Media Note: Let's evict Mr. Man Chhoeun out of his house and let's see if he is glad!]

Dozens of urban poor communities in the capital are facing the prospect of evictions with little compensation, a broad coalition of rights groups and housing advocates said Wednesday.

Phnom Penh has approximately 410 communities of poor families inside its eight districts, and of those, 74 are facing imminent eviction, the coalition told reporters.

The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, the Housing Rights Task Force and the NGO Forum jointly expressed deep concern that the communities, which have already received notification from the government, will not be properly paid for moving.

The coalition said it worried that notified families will not be able to find jobs, afford new homes or properly educate their children when they are removed from the city.

The municipality often gives reasons of development when evicting families, Ny Chakrya, a lead investigator for the rights group Adhoc, told reporters.

The problem will be exacerbated with the passage of the Law on Expropriation, which passed through the National Assembly on Tuesday, because it tightens controls on people who occupy land without title, he said.

Man Chhouen, a deputy governor of Phnom Penh, denied families were unhappy when evicted from their homes, saying they are generally glad to move to a new area.

“The government guarantees that all legal possessors will have equal access to the titling system,” he said.

Forced eviction in Russei Keo - The pictures speak for themselves

Photo: DAP News (Pro-CPP news media)
Photo: Chulthea, Koh Santepheap (Pro-CPP news media)
Photo: The Phnom Penh Post
Photo: Koh Santepheap (Pro-CPP news media)
Photo: Koh Santepheap (Pro-CPP news media)
Photo: Sovan Philong, The Phnom Penh Post

Trip to Cambodia opens eyes of Chicago native

Dey Krahorm forced eviction (Photo: Sarah Grime)

September 7, 2009
Sara Lugardo
Los Angeles Examiner (California, USA)

Christine Robinson grew up in the Chicago area and attended the University of Iowa with a Bachelors’ in International Studies. Her recent visit to Cambodia opened her eyes to their economic situation.

While staying at a hotel in Phnom Penh Christine witnessed the forced evacuation of the slum, Dey Krahorm, by the Cambodian military. Trucks hauled out the few possessions people were allowed to take from their homes.

The evacuation of the slum was in collaboration with the Cambodian Peoples’ Party and a development company named 7NG. The 150 families living in the slum had been offered compensation by 7NG to relocate to Cham Chao before the evictions.

However, by relocating, the families would lose their income and so they refused. Once negotiations failed, the police and the Cambodian military forcefully evacuated the families.

Christine wrote on WIP that according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia, “The eviction was carried out in the middle of the night, with bulldozers, tear gas, rubber bullets, batons, and workers equipped with sticks and axes contracted to demolish the houses… The residents were thrown onto the street to watch their homes being destroyed.”

Cambodia has a long history of battling with property rights and this situation is very common to its’ people. Check out Christine’s full story on Property Rights for the Urban Poor in Cambodia.

AIDS patients struggle in isolated Cambodian town

Many Cambodian AIDS patients and their families have been relocated to this community outside Tuol Sambo.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
By Miranda Leitsinger

TUOL SAMBO, Cambodia (CNN) -- Van Thy says the government evicted her from her home in the Cambodian capital and trucked her and others out to a town an hour away where she now lives in a hot green metal shed with no running water and dim prospects.

Before the move, she had a job as a dishwasher, but now the 36-year-old woman is unemployed, penniless and her health has taken a turn for the worse. She has AIDS like many of the others in the 40 AIDS-affected families that were resettled here.

"We were called for a meeting and when I got there, a lot of trucks were already prepared. There was no meeting. They told us to prepare our stuff for moving out," she said, her voice trembling as she detailed her departure from the Phnom Penh shantytown she called home for nine years. "Everybody cried the day we left."

As Cambodia emerges from the 1970s Khmer Rouge genocide and decades of conflict, evictions for development purposes have become a hot issue, with rights groups and upset villagers living on desirable land launching protests in recent years. But what sets the families apart at Tuol Sambo is that they have AIDS.

"The problems that this community face are not unlike problems that people face throughout the country," said Kathleen O'Keefe, an independent consultant focusing on HIV/AIDS and land issues.

"What has made these problems extreme is that they have been isolated and treated as a community" and their relocation has added "additional problems, like real health risks of many immune compromised people living far too close together. This place would be a health risk to healthy people."

This is the second relocation for many of these families. They had been living in a shantytown in the Cambodian capital, an area called Borei Keila that was across the street from a hospital where they received medical care and where they could find jobs to earn $1.25 or $1.50 a day.

O'Keefe said they had lived dispersed throughout the community but were forced to move into one building there in 2007 when the area started to undergo development.

"They were segregated into a green building, which very quickly became known as the ... AIDS village," O'Keefe said. "This AIDS colony in Tuol Sambo is the second time they are being even further isolated ... it's been an extremely traumatic situation for them."

O'Keefe said most of the families that were moved to Tuol Sambo told her they have lost their jobs, their health is worsening due to a lack of clean water and food, and they face discrimination from their new neighbors because of their illness.

"We feel very ashamed to go outside, they look like they discriminating against us," Van Thy said.

Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Mann Chhoeun said those who were relocated got a plot of land, a house and $275. He also noted they were provided rice, electricity and said, "when the water supply can be connected to this area, then we can connect it for these people."

Mann Chhoeun said the people were illegally squatting in the Phnom Penh shantytown, but they were not forcefully evicted.

"They proposed to go ... because living in that area (their previous shantytown) they had floods and they have no proper business to do in there, so that's why they proposed to us to go there," he said. "They think that when they go there (to Tuol Sambo), they can own the land, they can own a house and they can make some business or something like that."

He also said he did not believe there was discrimination in the area, "but there is some feeling when they (people) learn that someone has been living with HIV/AIDS."

Van Thy said her new home has brought many challenges and a recent blood test showed that her CD4 count -- a marker of decreased immune function that is often used to demonstrate how well anti-HIV drugs are working, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- had gone down.

She said the doctor told her she needed to eat more, but she said having little money means eating less: "It means that my health is getting worse," she said.

The water in their new home is from a well and is undrinkable unless it is boiled or purified.

"We are patients, we need some clean water," she said. "They said the water cannot be drunk, just for using to wash clothes and things like that."

Another man, Chheang Toma, takes the temperature inside his green shed at noon every day. On average, it is 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) but one time spiked up to 50 Celsius (122).

"This area is very difficult," he said. "I am always sick and I always have a headache. The weather is so hot even my son has gone to the clinic two times already."

Fact Box
HIV/AIDS in Cambodia

• The estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS 67,000
• Vulnerable groups: Entertainment workers, men having sex with men, injection drug users

SOURCE: National AIDS Authority of Cambodia

Home care specialist, Oum Vicheth, has been working with this community since 1998 and holds a clinic at Tuol Sambo once a week. He said the move "has strongly affected them."

"This is a long-term effect, not a short-term one, because medicine alone cannot help them. It combines with other factors like food, eating enough, sleeping enough, and a good environment, so all this can help make their health stable," he said.

"The problem is right now that what these people are facing is about their food, about their sleep and about the heat. It's very hot. Sometimes this affects the quality of the medicine they keep."

Chheang Toma said his son, who is in first grade, heard that parents of local children told them not to play with him because he has HIV.

"He just told me that he wanted to play with those children but when they saw him they just run away," he said. "I know right now some parents they just learning and understand about us, and they start to tolerate, but some others keep us in isolation -- like they still look at us, treating us very bad by not coming very close and not making friends with us."

Oum Vicheth said he was providing health care to the villagers as a way to bring them closer to the group and they have held meetings with them about how HIV is contracted.

"There was very little thought given to integrating the community into the larger resettlement area of Tuol Sambo," said Tony Lisle, the UNAIDS country coordinator for Cambodia. "By basically settling the community in one contiguous place it opens the community up to discrimination."

The UN team in Cambodia also "was disappointed that the relocation was carried out before the site was made habitable" and monitors would visit the site in late August, Lisle said.

Tang Kunthy, secretary-general of the Cambodian government's National AIDS Authority, said the Tuol Sambo group's worries were about the housing, not their health care, since he said they still had good access to treatment, including home-based care, medicine and the help of charities.

He said the housing situation could not be changed overnight, but it would improve "step by step," and he also noted Tuol Sambo was an area the municipality wants to develop.

"The municipality has a plan for the future," he said. "I asked the government to explain to them (the Toul Sambo residents), to provide more information to them."

He also noted there was "no serious discrimination" in Cambodia against people with HIV/AIDS, but that the AIDS authority would try to ensure any such problems did not arise in the future.

Back at Tuol Sambo, people think of the future and how they will make ends meet.

One man in the community who has AIDS lost one job in the move but still has part-time work. He said things have improved with their new neighbors.

"When we first arrived here, the villagers around the area just said look at AIDS people living here and so they did not allow their children or relatives to come and play in this area and they don't talk to us. But now after seeing the home care specialist," things seem to be getting better with them, he said.

Still, he and his friends from the old shantytown are not happy with their new lives.

"We are living with disappointment," he said.

Cambodia's Shanty Evictions Roll On

Shanty town in Cambodia (Photo: kevincure/Flickr)

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (OneWorld.net) - The 60 low-income families forced to abandon their homes in Phnom Penh's "Group 78" are just the latest victims in a string of mass evictions carried out by the Cambodian government in recent years, say international observers.

What's the Story?

In mid-July, security officers entered the settlement to remove the final families that had refused to accept a government compensation offer that was widely considered inadequate and did not include any access to new land -- a key necessity for low-income families. Seven families held out an extra day, but eventually left the area as government workers dismantled homes around them.

Amnesty International monitors say the Cambodian government has been harassing the families for over three years, pressuring them to leave the area that is considered valuable real estate near two key rivers.

People have been living in the riverfront area since the early 1980s and have applied for land titles several times over the last few years. But Cambodian authorities have ignored these land ownership claims while forcing families out of the area. A final eviction notice was issued to residents of the district in April 2009, an order which goes against international law prohibiting forced evictions, according to Amnesty International.

In a series of meetings following the notice, officials warned residents that their homes would be demolished by military and police forces if they did not leave. A local commission has yet to make a decision on who owns the rights to the disputed land, and the options for accommodation and compensation were characterized as "inadequate" by Amnesty International monitors.

"Group 78 was clearly cut off from due process and denied justice," said Brittis Edman, Amnesty International's Cambodia researcher. "The Municipality of Phnom Penh made no attempts to properly consult with the affected community or explore any feasible alternative to eviction." [See the full statement from Amnesty International below.]

Squeezing out the Poor in Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh's shanty towns have been a refuge over the last two decades for families who need to survive on a few dollars a day. Some people have lived in areas like Group 78 for more than 10 years, which gives them a strong legal claim to own their property, noted the BBC news service. But the government has refused to grant these families the right to the land.

"The official line is that the evictions are necessary for the development of the city," said the BBC report. But as the residents are forced out, property developers move in to build expensive apartments and shopping centers in and around Phnom Penh. By virtue of Group 78's proximity to the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, it is considered some of the most valuable land in the capital city.

Cambodian authorities have threatened the residents of Group 78 with eviction for three years without following any of the safeguards required under international law, said Amnesty International. No land was included in the compensation offer and many of the residents -- pushed out to make room for tourists, government officials, and the wealthy -- are unsure where they will go.

The World Bank, European Union, and a number of international embassies in Phnom Penh issued a statement condemning the forced evictions, saying actions like it are "creating uncertainty for, and putting at risk the livelihoods of, thousands of poor people living in disputed urban areas."

Life After Eviction

In past cases, low-income families evicted from their land often found conditions at government-provided resettlement sites much worse than those of their old homes. In 2006, families were relocated outside of the city, far from markets or schools, and had "no running water, mains electricity or sewage," reported the BBC.

Last year, around 300 families were forcibly evicted from a rural district in southern Cambodia and their houses burned to the ground. Some of the dispossessed, who were largely poor farmers who settled on the land believing it to be vacant, spent the night in the ashes of their homes. No prior notice or eviction order was given and no court decision was made, noted Amnesty International.

In January, over 130 families were forced to leave their homes in Phnom Penh in the middle of the night, without prior notice. These evictions are proving to be a trend to make room for property developers in Cambodia's capital, and they constitute a "grave breach" of human rights, said Raquel Rolnik, a United Nations housing expert.

"Given the disastrous humanitarian situation faced by the victims of forced evictions, I urge Cambodian authorities to establish a national moratorium on evictions until their policies and actions in this regard have been brought into full conformity with international human rights obligations," pleaded Rolnik.

In 2008, Amnesty International estimated that 150,000 Cambodians were living at risk of forced eviction.

- Article compiled by David Iaconangelo.
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Cambodian security forces forcibly evict 60 low-income families

From: Amnesty International
7/17/09

Sixty low-income families in central Phnom Penh, Cambodia were forcibly evicted from their homes by security forces on Thursday and Friday.

The families dismantled their homes after three years of government harassment and intimidation, with no choice but to accept inadequate compensation rather than have their homes demolished.

"Amnesty International strongly condemns this forced eviction and the deeply flawed process that led to it," said Brittis Edman, Amnesty International's Cambodia researcher.

Before dawn on Friday, at least 70 security forces, some armed with guns and electronic batons, moved in and blocked off the area known as Group 78 where seven remaining families were holding out. Human rights workers and journalists were monitoring the situation. Dozens of hired workers demolished what was left of the dismantled houses. Within hours, the resisting families had agreed to leave.

The families in Group 78 had been living under the threat of forced evictions for three years, with the Cambodian authorities following none of the safeguards required under international law.

"Group 78 was clearly cut off from due process and denied justice. The Municipality of Phnom Penh made no attempts to properly consult with the affected community or explore any feasible alternative to eviction," said Brittis Edman. "This makes a mockery of the government's obligations to protect the right to housing."

The Municipality issued a final eviction notice to Group 78 in April 2009 and, in a series of subsequent meetings, officials, including Phnom Penh's deputy governor, warned the community that the police and military police would demolish their homes if they did not accept the compensation on offer. The community had also received information that up to 700 security forces had been mobilized for the eviction.

Group 78 residents started moving into the area on the riverfront in 1983 and have applied for formal land titles several times since 2006, but the authorities have ignored their applications in spite of official documentation proving strong ownership claims.

The final eviction order was issued by the Municipality, which has no mandate under national law to issue such a document, and without the judicial overview required under the 2001 Land Law. It was issued despite the fact that a local Commission has yet to determine who owns the disputed land. The options for alternative accommodation and compensation offered by the Municipality were inadequate.

Under international law, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights (ICESCR), Cambodia is prohibited from carrying out forced evictions, and must protect people from forced evictions.

The Cambodian Government has consistently failed to guarantee the right to adequate housing and protect its population against forced evictions. In 2008 alone, Amnesty International received reports about 27 forced evictions, affecting an estimated 23,000 people. Amnesty International is repeating its calls on the government to end forced evictions and introduce a moratorium on all mass evictions until the legal framework protects human rights.

As part of its Demand Dignity campaign, launched in May 2009, Amnesty International has called on the Cambodian Government to end forced evictions and introduce a moratorium on all mass evictions until the legal framework protects human rights.

The organization also called on governments globally to take all necessary measures, including the adoption of laws and policies that comply with international human rights law, to prohibit and prevent forced evictions.

Property Rights for the Urban Poor in Cambodia

The Dey Krahorn eviction underway in Phnom Penh. Photograph by Sarah Grime

July 27, 2009
by Christine Robinson
The WIP

It was two in the morning when we first heard the loudspeakers. My friend was annoyed thinking the noise was coming from people partying late, but we later learned something very different was happening. I got up early that morning to eat breakfast before a long day at the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng. Walking downstairs, I saw about a hundred people outside our hotel in Phnom Penh including press, local police, and the Cambodian military.

I rushed outside and found a member of my group. He explained that the slum down the street, Dey Krahorn, was being forcefully evacuated by the military and police. A barrier kept us from getting too close, and a green fence had been put up along the perimeter. We saw trucks coming out of the slum carrying what I thought was junk, but later realized were whatever possessions the people could salvage from their houses.

We stopped to talk to Kevin Knight, who works in a different slum with an NGO. He told us that the development company 7NG, along with the ruling party in Cambodia, the Cambodian Peoples’ Party (CPP), were responsible for the evictions. Dey Krahorn was located in a prime location in downtown Phnom Penh and worth an estimated US$44 million.

Kevin explained that the 150 families living in the slum had been negotiating with 7NG in the weeks prior to the evictions. The company offered each family US$20,000 or an apartment in a resettlement site named Cham Chao, located at least 16 kilometers from the center of Phnom Penh.

At first this seemed like a reasonable offer, but what I failed to realize is that the residents of the slum had livelihoods, access to water and education, and other things that the city center offered. The majority of people living in Dey Krahorn made a living as street vendors, so if forced into a location with a reduced population they would lose their incomes.

The truth of what was happening just a few hundred yards away was finally settling in. Why was all of this happening here, I wondered, and why now? I learned that because of all of the foreign investment in the area (including our hotel), land prices had dramatically increased. According to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), slum evictions are not a new phenomenon in Cambodia. The country is suffering from a classic case of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer.

According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia, “The eviction was carried out in the middle of the night, with bulldozers, tear gas, rubber bullets, batons, and workers equipped with sticks and axes contracted to demolish the houses… The residents were thrown onto the street to watch their homes being destroyed.” A friend of Kevin’s who had been inside the slum when the eviction started described a woman collapsing in front of her house and bulldozers that continued to plow into her, sending her to the hospital with injuries.

After speaking with Kevin and other foreigners in the area, I realized how much the past really does influence the present. In order to understand what is happening in present day Cambodia, it is necessary to look to history, especially the period immediately following the Khmer Rouge.

When the Khmer Rouge came into power they wanted to make everyone in the society equal, which meant destroying money, books, private possessions, and land titles. During the period from 1975-1979, the cities of Cambodia were cleared out as the people were made to live and work in rural areas. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the people came flooding back into the cities. Since all of the land titles had been destroyed, people grabbed whatever they could, and the cities, especially Phnom Penh, became home to thousands of “squatters”.

Not everyone I spoke with explained the situation in the same manner. Some were sympathetic to the residents of Dey Krahorm, while others believed the government and 7NG were taking the required actions for the city to further “develop”. I was told by several people that the majority of the residents in Dey Krahorn had legal rights to their land. Some families were “squatting” illegally, but according to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), around 140 families living in Dey Krahorn had been there since the 1980s and were given rights to the land under the Cambodian Land Law (2001). Not only do the residents meet all of the preceding requirements, they have documentation to prove it.

According to Amnesty International, Cambodia is a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and “has an obligation to protect the population against forced evictions… [the evictions at Dey Krahorn] show all too clearly how little respect Cambodian authorities have for these requirements”. Another person added that while the residents had been living in Dey Krahorn for years, the land was owned by the government so it was free to be taken at any time.

Regardless of the exact legal situation of the slums in Phnom Penh, it’s clear that Cambodia’s land title situation is in peril. A quick search for the land laws of Cambodia reveals relentless confusion in the period following the Khmer Rouge. We are only just starting to see the severe affects of the land laws today, as foreign investment and rapid growth in Phnom Penh cause once worthless land to become a precious commodity.

Christine's blog entry is part of a two-part series written by WIP Contributor Pushpa Iyer's students. In the coming weeks, more entries will follow. Part I, "Legacy, Responsibility, Justice and Spirituality" will contemplate how Cambodia is coping with its painful past. Part II, "Identity, Sex Trafficking, HIV/AIDS and Property Rights" will explore some of the challenges modern-day Cambodia faces. – Ed.

Christine Robinson grew up in the Chicago area and completed her undergraduate work at the University of Iowa with a BA in International Studies and Spanish. She is currently studying at the Monterey Institute of International Studies where she is pursuing a MPA in International Management. In her spare time, Christine enjoys sports, travel and studying languages.