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.

Evicted residents in final cash bid

Former Dey Krahorm residents protest outside the 7NG office on Tuesday. (Photo by: SOVANN PHILONG)

Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Written by Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

Families awaiting cash compensation say municipal officials failed to attend a Tuesday meeting, amid warnings they have until the end of the month to accept replacement housing.

FORMER Dey Krahorm evictees who are demanding US$20,000 in cash compensation from local developer 7NG say city authorities have broken a promise to meet with residents at 7NG's office near the former community's land in Tonle Bassac commune Tuesday.

Residents said that during protests outside Prime Minister Hun Sen's Takhmao home Sunday, Lim Leang Se, the prime minister's deputy Cabinet chief, promised residents that he would invite officials and 7NG representatives to meet and discuss the compensation claim of residents forcibly evicted from the site on January 24.

But former resident Dul Chantha, 52, one of those gathered outside 7NG's office Tuesday morning, said comments from the prime minister's staff had turned out to be empty promises.

"No representatives of 7NG or the Municipality are present this time, except police forces deployed outside the company's office," she said.

Residents left 7NG's office when no one arrived to meet them, continuing along to the municipality offices on Monivong Boulevard.

Resident Sam Ny told the Post that the cancellation of the meeting between the people and authorities had been postponed, according to one of Hun Sen's Cabinet officials, because city officials were not available.

"The City Hall representative is absent, so they cannot meet," he said, expressing scepticism about the government's commitment to finding a solution for the residents.

"This is not the first time that they have had an excuse not to find a solution for residents," he added. "We want them to put their promise in writing."

Lim Leang Se could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but 7NG General Manager Chheang Bona said that he did not expect residents to come to the company's office Tuesday.

"No one has broken their promise. We and the authorities have an appointment with them in Damnak Trayoeng village, where the majority of residents have moved, not at Dey Krahorm," he said.

In the weeks immediately preceding the January 24 eviction, the company offered residents $20,000 in cash compensation to relocate, a figure some local residents turned down, and residents claim 53 families remain to be compensated.

But Chheang Bona said only around 10 families had still not agreed to accept replacement houses from 7NG and appealed to them to accept housing by February 28.

"It is our last notice for residents. This means we are still generous with them," he said.

The poor pay for a property boom

Be it ever so humble (Photo: Reuters)

Jan 29th 2009
PHNOM PENH
The Economist

THE fading colonial charm of the French-built Renakse Hotel in Phnom Penh has faded for good. The last guests have been pushed out and the windows boarded up. A property boom in the Cambodian capital has brought a whirl of demolition of old buildings, plans for new high-rise developments, and speculative investment in satellite towns.

The victims of this have been Phnom Penh’s poor. Last week police and private security guards roughly evicted 120 families from Dey Krahorm, a slum in the centre of the city, on the orders of Phnom Penh’s governor. The firm developing the area, 7NG, is linked to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, the CPP, led by Hun Sen, the prime minister. The company plans to turn the site into an upmarket retail park. Nearby, a famous park area known as the Boeung Kak lake is also to be developed, bringing the eviction of 4,500 residents. Many had been living around the lake for 20 years. They have been offered only paltry compensation, and have been relocated to the city’s outskirts with no amenities or obvious way of making a living.

The controversial plans involve filling in 90% of the lake. The CPP has ditched past commitments to conservation and environmental protection, as the boom has driven prime-land prices in Phnom Penh up tenfold in two years, to $5,000 per square metre. The municipal government has granted a 99-year lease on 133 hectares (330 acres) of the Boeung Kak site to a CPP senator, Lao Meng Khin, who is also a director of a company called Shukaku, for a mere $79m—a fraction of its estimated true market value. In April 2008 Mr Khin signed a deal with a Chinese company to turn the lake area into a posh residential and recreation development, to be dubbed the “New City of the East”. A Korean company is building a similar city, known as CamKo, on Phnom Penh’s outskirts.

Critics say the Boeung Kak deal is illegal. Cambodia’s 2001 land law declares all lakes public property that cannot be leased for more than 15 years. The authorities say the deal was legalised by a 2008 decree from Mr Hun Sen’s cabinet, reclassifying “state-public land” as “state-private land”.

Mok Mareth, the environment minister, initially raised concerns that filling in the lake would do serious damage to Phnom Penh’s drainage system. This, he argued, would violate a 1996 law ordaining that Cambodia’s natural resources should be conserved, developed, managed and used in a rational and sustainable manner.

Indeed, since August 2008 when developers started filling the lake in, some houses have already started sinking. An independent report released earlier this month by an Australian assessment team gave a strong warning against the project. It concluded it would lead to an increase in flooding, and would endanger water quality and public health.

Two decades ago, children paddled boats on the lake, families enjoyed picnics, and Mr Hun Sen used to entertain foreign visitors at a modest but picturesque bamboo restaurant. But today, as the bulldozers are poised to raze old Phnom Penh and plug its favourite lake, the urban poor are starting to feel nostalgic for a time when a park really was a park and not a so-called “state-private development zone”.

Cambodia: Hundreds left homeless after forced eviction

A Dey Krahorm resident carries away bedding as she passes red-clad hired hands from developer and property owner 7NG. In the foreground is a potrait of King Father Norodom Sihanouk, who in the 1960s pushed for construction of middle-class housing and shared public space, including the adjacent Bassac apartments, for which the Dey Krahorm land formerly served as a park. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Amnesty International
PRESS RELEASE
January, 26 2009

The Cambodian authorities must stop denying people the right to housing and ensure adequate compensation and restitution for over 150 poor urban families who were forcibly evicted from central Phnom Penh at the weekend, Amnesty International said today.

Cambodian security forces and demolition workers forcibly evicted 152 families from Dey Kraham community in the early hours of 24 January 2009, leaving the vast majority of them homeless. At around 3 am, an estimated 250 police, military police and workers hired by the company claiming to own the land blocked access to the community before dispersing the population with tear gas and threats of violence. At 6 am excavators moved in and levelled the village. Some of the families were not able to retrieve belongings from their homes before the demolition. Officials from Phnom Penh municipality were present during the destruction.

“The most urgent task now is for the government to immediately address the humanitarian needs of these people, who have lost their homes and face imminent food and water shortages,” said Brittis Edman, Cambodia researcher. “They will also need assistance for a long time to come.”

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. Saturday’s events show all too clearly how little respect Cambodian authorities have for these requirements.

The Phnom Penh municipality has provided less than 30 of the 152 families with shelter at a designated resettlement site at Cham Chao commune in Dangkor district, some 16 kilometres from the city centre. Most of the other structures at the site are still under construction and lack roofs. There is no clean water, no electricity, sewage or basic services. Earlier, most of the affected community rejected being resettled there because it was too far from Phnom Penh, where they work, mostly as street vendors.

Since the forced eviction, the Dey Kraham community has been told that the company, which has allegedly purchased the land, has withdrawn earlier offers of compensation, leaving families who have been living in uncertainty and insecurity for more than two years, now faced with rebuilding their lives with nothing.

Local authority representatives sold the land to the company, 7NG, in 2005 without the knowledge, participation or consultation with the affected community. Some 300 families were coerced into moving amid threats, harassment and intimidation, while 152 families continued to dispute the validity of the sale and refused to give up the land without compensation.

Just over a week before the forced eviction, the affected community told the authorities and the company that they were willing to move if they received adequate compensation for the land, where many of them have lived, uncontested, for decades and to which they have strong claims under the 2001 Land Law. The company then increased the offer of compensation, but the two sides had not yet reached an agreement.

“It is an outrage that the Cambodian authorities went ahead with the forced eviction, when progress was being made towards a mutual settlement. Now hundreds of children, women and men are left homeless”, said Edman.

Background
Forced evictions are one of the most widespread human rights violations in Cambodia, and those affected are almost exclusively marginalised people living in poverty, in both urban and rural areas. In 2008, at least 27 forced evictions affecting over 20,000 people were reported in the media and by local organisations.

Hundreds of land activists are facing spurious charges, and dozens have been imprisoned, as the rich and powerful are increasingly abusing the criminal justice system to acquire land and evict those living there. At least nine community representatives from Dey Kraham have been charged for criminal offences as a result of their peaceful defence of their right to housing.

As a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Cambodia is obliged to ensure, before any planned evictions, that all alternatives are explored in consultation with those affected by the eviction. Evictions may only occur in accordance with the law and in conformity with international standards, including genuine consultation with those affected; adequate notice and information on the proposed eviction; and provisions of legal remedies for those affected. Evictions may only occur if they do not render individuals homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights.

In May 2009, the Committee Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will consider Cambodia’s first and considerably delayed report on its compliance with the treaty.

Nothing will help from Dey Kraham demolition: Not Sihanouk, not even Hanoi's Nong Duc Manh

Portraits of Norodom Sihanouk and Nong Duc Manh, Vietnamese communist party secretary-general, lie in a pile of rubbles after the demolition of Dey Kraham. How can the CPP face their Vietnamese bosses after this shameful mistreatment of their boss' portrait? (Photo posted at "Cambodia Evictions Update" by Monica

Dey Krahom Demolition Video by Karl Bille

Dey Krahom Eviction, morning of January 24 2009. Courtesy Karl Bille. Creative Commons Attribution licensed.

Veasna Reastr Dey Kraham - "Fate of Dey Kraham Residents": A Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea

Click on the poem to zoom in

Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea (on the web at http://kamnapkumnou.blogspot.com)

Land violences in Cambodia: Dey Krohom razed to the ground following a tough eviction

Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 24/01/2009: Police aiming a straight-shot tear gas gun during the final eviction at Dey Krohom. (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)
Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 24/01/2009: Mechanical shovel destroying private property during the final eviction at Dey Krohom. (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)
Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 24/01/2009: Family crying the loss of their belongings during the final eviction at Dey Krohom. (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)

25-01-2009
By Ros Dina
Ka-set in English

The threat of eviction had been lurking around them since 2006. The struggle of dozens of families who still clung onto their houses in Dey Krohom, in the central Tonle Bassac district of Phnom Penh, is one of the longest in the distressing two decade-old history of land matters in Cambodia. From one ultimatum to the next, the looming final offensive was expected to be carried out sooner or later. It happened in the early hours of the morning, on Saturday January 24th. Nobody imagined the eviction would be so well-organised but what is more, so violent. And the 7NG company, who was granted the land as part of a concession to build a residential tower block and a shopping mall, went all out in the process.

Methodical destruction
An army of more than 600 young men arrived at the scene shortly before dawn, accompanied by policemen sporting riot shields and batons, themselves followed by representatives of the authorities. The concept of task division was rigorously applied in this eviction operation. Split into several groups and told apart by the colour of their tee-shirt (red, blue, yellow, green, black and white), they cleared the site away with method. When the go-ahead was given at 6am, some erected in record time a barricade around the site which had been cordoned off prior to the offensive, while others were allocated the task of demolishing whole areas of the village. Some three hours later, the zone was entirely devastated, not a single thing was left to stand, not even trees, razed to the ground in the process.

Cracking down on every dwelling, house by house, like locusts swarming on crops, dozens of workers relentlessly applied themselves to knocking everything down with sledge-hammers and axes, leaving nothing behind but annihilation. The first action they set out to do was to wreck the houses of those who still formed pockets of resistance. There, diggers and bulldozers did the job without leaving enough time for residents to save their belongings. Even motorcycles parked inside homes were crushed by machines. Not an ounce of pity. Houses crumbled down at once in a crashing din of smashed objects, dishes, materials. A young woman, in an ultimate attempt to save a few things, fell with her own house, ravaged by a bulldozer. She came out of the rubble alive, but with several injuries.

Use of tear gas
Determined not to be bothered by residents showing protest, the one-off removers, covered by a large scale police cordon, tear-gassed the area and its inhabitants. As for those who still opposed to leaving their home, it is with fire extinguishers that workers attacked, filling houses and drowning their occupiers with white chemical solution until they came out. There again, fire extinguishers were used to tackle any fires started by inhabitants.

An old woman was sat outside on a raised board bed, lamenting the situation. “They shot teargas at us. It was impossible to breathe and it made us cry. They did this to flush us out! I don't know where I am going to live with my grand-children. Here, we only paid USD100 per month, we managed.” Her daughter, joining her, says with anger: “If I had known that they'd be capable of doing that, we would never have voted for them in the elections, in my family!”

Demolitions carried out with rage
One of the first houses to be targeted by workers was that of a young woman who obstinately refused to leave her house, racked by sobs and calling for help in harrowing cries. She was forced out by the day-workers hired for the occasion and taken away. Every single eviction gave way to violent altercations, and even direct confrontations between dwellers and workers. The latter showed excessive rage and anger in the way they proceeded, and even zeal, which sparked off the astonishment and daze of many. Every group was steered by a leader virulently exhorting workers to keep the same pace and not let the situation affect them. None of them agreed to reveal the amount of the salary they received for this task.

In one of the dwellings, a man tried to set himself ablaze and one of his relatives, a woman, threatened to throw a brick at the depredatory workers. They were interrupted in their hammering and axing task by their leader calling them to keep going with the destruction. Behind them, police officials wearing uniforms also encouraged them: “Go! Destroy! We can't do it ourselves, there are too many foreign journalists and photographers!”

When the operations ended, injured people reportedly included four residents – among whom two suffered serious injuries - and ten workers. The police proceeded to several arrests. As she watched her house being wrecked and despite her imploring for some more time to move all their belongings, a mother collapsed and was taken to hospital. “We used to run a small grocery shop, we had many things to take out of there. They just wouldn't listen. I even tried to make the district chief change his mind, but he retorted: 'We allowed you several days to move out, so why didn't you?' We lost half of our personal property...” her husband said, appalled by the situation.

Inhabitants left in shock
Slightly further away, a resident, wearing his police uniform, eyes sore from crying and speaking in a choked voice, refused to helplessly witness the demolition of his home. “You're alone against them, you can't do anything! Stay calm!”, his friends told him. He arrived there in 1993 and remembers, like others, promises made by prime Minister Hun Sen back then, that the inhabitants of that neighbourhood could one day become the true owners of their piece of land...

A neighbour, whose house was faced with the same fate, could not stop expressing her astonishment in front of the violence deployed. A dweller at Dey Krohom since 1987, she did not show any more interest than other families - those officially recognised by the company 7NG - in the latter's offer of resettlement in the Chom Chao area on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, or in the USD20,000 cash compensation per family (last offer made by 7NG), which was thought to be insufficient. “They show more brutality and meanness than during Pol Pot's regime! But today, Cambodia is part of the ASEAN and has its place on the international scene, they cannot act like this! The government robs inhabitants to serve the company's own interest!” A young teacher, standing beside her, adds: “They see the poor as slaves. They decide on our life and death!”

Journalists and observers mistreated
No one was allowed to enter the zone, and those who tried hard to make their way through were severely reprimanded, shoved away in a more or less strong manner. The general trend was to keep observers away. Fire hoses were deliberately pointed at photographers.

“This is not good for you, Barangs [expatriates], to stay here, it's dangerous!”, the lawyer for the 7NG company insistingly advised. A Barang replied to him, not without irony: “But there are policemen here, and they are here to take care of security, aren't they?”. For his part, Phay Siphan, the spokesman for the Council of Ministers, enquired about observers' situation: “Were you treated well?”

Authorities trying to make a good impression
His back turned to the scene, Mann Chhoeun, the deputy governor of Phnom Penh, who arrived at the scene at about 8 o'clock, tried to be reassuring. “We are taking inhabitants to the resettlement site [Damnak Trah Yeung village, Chom Chao district, about 12 miles west of the capital], it is necessary to respect what is written here!”, he explained, waving a report made by the municipality on Dey Krohom, the back of which states the offer made by 7NG to inhabitants: a 4m x 12m house built by 7NG in the Damnak Trah Yeung village, or the sum of USD15,000, each offer being topped up with 770,000 riels (USD192,50) and 30 kilos worth of rice and dehydrated noodle packs.

In the light of this little reminder, the deputy governor defends the morning intervention: “We are not throwing them out into the street, we have a house for them!” The company 7NG acknowledged the existence of 91 families when the site actually houses 150 today, as a few came last minute to add themselves up to the lot. The company will examine each dossier on a case-by-case basis and it is down to them to decide whether they will do something for them”, Mann Chhoeun detailed, pointing out that 8 out 91 families accepted the offer of 7NG in the past few days

Authorities and 7NG promote the resettlement site
“Those who did not jump on 7NG's last offer [which settled the amount of compensations at USD20,000, an offer which is not valid any more today, according to 7NG manager] claim between USD50,000 and USD120,000, and the highest claim was made by a family. But negotiations have come to an end...” The deputy governor then painted the idyllic picture of the resettlement site, “connected to the drinking water network”, where dwellers will be able to benefit from “a 700 million riel [ USD175,000] credit fund set up for them to obtain loans”. “And also, the authorities are in charge of building a school there”.

7NG manager Srey Chanthou, on site, wearing a tee-shirt with his company's logo and a material mask, presented a similar line of argument. “More than 1,300 families in Dey Krohom agreed to go and settle there, why do others cause problems? They will have nice accommodation!...” The representative then added up to the list of assets of the Damnak Trah Yeung village by mentioning the existence of a market and a factory.

As Human rights and housing rights organisations set up a series of meetings since Saturday morning's events, some twenty evicted families found refuge at the headquarters of Cambodian Human rights NGO (LICADHO).

Who's next?
Residents of the Building, living right next to the Dey Krohom area, did not miss a second of the operations. They also said they were shocked by the deployment of violence. The net is tightening around them. All the squats and makeshift villages which used to surround them have now disappeared, replaced by tall buildings. They know it: they are now next on the list of evictions in Phnom Penh.

Cambodian police use teargas to evict [Dey Krahorm] slum dwellers

PHNOM PENH, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Cambodian police fired teargas and eight people were injured on Saturday during the forced eviction of 80 families from a Phnom Penh slum, rights activists and police said. At least two of the eight slum dwellers were seriously hurt in clashes with clean-up crews hired to tear down the dwellings on government land recently sold to a private company. Police cordoned off roads around the area near the Russian embassy, as the 300 workers backed by bulldozers and cranes cleared away the decade-old community. Rights activist Am Sam Ath and witnesses said eight people were injured during the forced eviction, including two seriously hurt and sent to hospital.

Witnesses said an old woman and a boy were hit by a bulldozer, while others were hurt in clashes with the workers armed with clubs and stones. Police denied using excessive force to evict the group, who had waged a 3-year battle against their eviction.

"We did not use violence against them, but tear gas to disperse the people who resisted," Phnom Penh police chief G. Touch Naruth told Reuters.

The eviction came after the squatters rejected the company's offer of $20,000 per family in compensation for the prime 2-hectare (4.9 acres) plot of land facing the Mekong River.

Land disputes are a hot issue in Cambodia, where garment factories and hotels have sprung up to expand the major textile and tourist industries. Last week, police opened fire on farmers protesting against a land grab south of Phnom Penh, wounding two of them, rights activists said.

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Alex Richardson)

Dey Kraham residents given 3 days of reprieve before eviction

16 Jan 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The plan to evict Dey Kraham residents on 15 January has been delayed after a request was made by the local residents. Chan Vichet, the representative of the residents, said in the morning of 15 January that the time allotment for the residents to decide on the $20,000 offer for each owner is too short, and some of the residents did not even know the allotted time and yet it is already over. Chan Vichet would like the authority to allow 15 to 30 days for the residents to think about the offer and to negotiate the price with the city and the 7NG company. The city hall had already prepared police force to evict the residents in the morning of 15 January, however, the plan was delayed after a request was made by the residents. Lo Yuy, the Chamcar Mon deputy district governor, indicated that the city hall is providing another 3 days for the residents to come up with a decision. Chan Vichet said that a 3-day delay is too short and the residents would not be able to think about it or to conduct any negotiation. Chan Vichet also asked the authority to abstain from using force or impose any rule on the Dey Kraham residents.

Residents Defy Eviction to the End

Land dispute in Dey Kraham (Photo: Licadho)

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 December 2008

A group of residents of Phnom Penh's Dey Krahorm neighborhood are fighting to the last city orders to relocate to the outskirts of the city, with a final eviction notice issued by the city on Dec. 25.

Chamkarmon District Governor Lo Yuy said in his order the residents have until Tuesday, Dec. 30, to leave the neighborhood, but the impoverished residents said they were ready to face armed confrontation over their right to remain.

"They wait for an armed eviction by the authorities," resident Chan Vichet told reporters Monday. "They will use their rights to protect their property if there is a forced eviction."

Bun Rachana, a member of the Housing Rights Task Force, which advocates for resident rights, appealed to the government and the 7NGdevelopment company not to use violence against the remaining families, urging instead more time to find an acceptable resolution to the brewing confrontation.

Neither Ly Yuy, Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema nor 7NG Director Srei Sothea could not be reached for comment Monday, but Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Man Chhoeurn said he believed Kep Chuktema would resolve the situation peacefully.

"I believe that our leaders are clever enough to resolve this issue,"he said, adding that so far 1,374 out of 1,465 Dey Krahorm families had relocated.

The removal of the residents stems from an April 2004 agreement between the city government and 7NG to develop 3.6 hectares of slum area, forcing the removal of hundreds of families to suburb in Dangkor district, where the newly relocated found few services or job opportunities and began demanding greater compensation.

The dozens of families that remain could face charges varying from the destruction of property and assault on 7NG employees. One man was sentenced in August to three years in prison on assault, defamation and forgery charges stemming from conflicts with the development company and city authorities.

Four Villages Tried in Kampot Dispute

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
15 December 2008

One man received six months in jail and three were released on Monday when Kampot provincial court tried four villagers accused of property destruction, following a land dispute with local military.

The four were charged following a complaint brought by officials of RCAF Division 31.

The courts sentenced Nhek Chantha, 52, to six months with time served, from June 23, and released Nov Kakda, 19, Nov Sopheak, 18 and Vong Ma, 47, all from Cheysena village in Kampot’s Chhouk district.

“We’ve already made a decision, but we don’t know if the prosecutor will file a complaint against it or not,” presiding judge Pich Chhoeut said.

The charges stem from a dispute between 313 families in the area and Division 31 over 20 hectares of land, where residents had built a center for the disabled but where the military planted posts to demark its land.

Residents removed the posts, prompting the lawsuit from Division 31 officials, who could not be reached for comment.

The rights group Adhoc, which is filing suit against a number of judges to the Supreme Council of Magistracy, has said at least 146 people were arrested nationwide in 2008 over land disputes, some of them in an abuse of power by the courts.

A cappella group sends message through song

Land and Life featuring Chapei Master Kong Nay
(Click here to download the song in MP3 format)

Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Written by Ellie Ainge Roy and Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

Garment workers form musical group to entertain while raising awareness of the struggles of women, from domestic abuse to sexual exploitation

THE crowd falls quiet as the slight Khmer women file to the front of the room at Meta House on Saturday night. Their dark heads are bent shyly, and their faces soft and demure in the fading evening light. Tonight is one of many concerts they have presented, but like any good performers, they are always a little nervous.

As the women begin to sing, their voices - crisp and aching - ring across the night like lost birds calling to a home that is rapidly changing. They sing of land grabs, greedy development and sex workers as the poorest of all. Their eyes are distant and unfocused, and their graceful hands rest across their bellies, their fingers swaying sometimes, to the music.

Bad women?

The audiences are captivated by the Messenger band, and when they sing their final song, everyone is asking for more.

The Messenger band is an all-female vocal group formed in September 2005 and made up entirely of garment workers. The group members are the successful participants of a competition held by the Womyn's Agenda for Change. The idea was to create a group that would inspire with their music and that could sing from real experience to carry messages of hope across Cambodia from one disadvantaged group to another.

People will come up to us and tell us, ‘Yes! It is my story, you have told my story!

"I think it helps people," says Vun Em, leader of The Messenger band. "I think it's good for farmers to understand about sex workers and for parents to know that their children leaving for the city are having a hard time there, working so much and getting little money for their labour," she said.

"It helps people to know that others across the country struggle, and that they need sympathy too."
When the group first formed, their families and neighbours were critical. Already disapproving of their low-paid work at the textile factory, their opinions of the young women dropped further.

"Our neighbours thought we were ‘bad women' because we stayed out late every night practising our music, and sometimes we didn't come home and slept at the centre instead," Vun Em said. "Our families also didn't like it; we would hardly see them because we would work all day in the factory and then practise in the centre during the evenings and weekends."
But the band says attitudes are beginning to change and that the public is starting to see their strength.

Reaching conclusions

"Before I joined the Messenger band, I knew nothing about the outside world," said group member Kao Chevika. "I was afraid to introduce myself, or to talk with people. But now I am so much happier, so much more social, and I know how to communicate effectively. I am braver now."

Band members say that their music is successful because they are not forcing people to change but suggesting it instead, through lyrics, role play and entertainment.

"When we sing about sex workers or domestic violence, it's hard because people are conservative and don't like to feel blamed. This is why talking directly often doesn't work," said Vun Em.

"But with our songs the idea of change forms in their own minds, and they come to good conclusions alone. One of the girls in our band used to suffer from domestic violence, but her father has stopped now. After listening to songs about our struggles, he realised how much harm he was doing."

A few members of the band have now stopped working at the textile factory and are conscious that they must stay "in touch" with local struggles and people. The Messenger band often use their audience to test that their music still reflects social realities.

"When we visit the provinces we gather lots of information about life there, and the problems people face. People talk to us quite openly, because we are woman, we are seen as ‘gentle'. We then compose songs out of the things they have told us, sing it back to them while we are still in their town, and ask them, ‘Is this true? Are we singing your story?'

"When we see tears on their faces we know we are close to the reality of their lives. People will come up to us afterwards and tell us, ‘Yes! It is my story, you have told my story!" Vun Em said.

Opening minds

Messenger band manager Hin Kunthea said she was often in awe of the girls, their tirelessness, and their strength and confidence, which has continued to grow day by day.

"I feel this group has so much potential, that they are becoming a powerful force. They are fantastic! They are always learning and they work so hard. I almost can't understand how they can be like this. These women work just as effectively as the people who go to university, because they are willing to open their minds."

Boeung Kak residents requesting Hun Sen’s support

17-09-2008
By Nhim Sophal
Cambodge Soir Hebdo in English
Click here to read the article in English

While a court complaint was filed over the filling of the lake, the Boeung Kak residents have the intention to travel to the Prime Minister’s residence in Takmao on Wednesday morning, 17 September.

The residents intend to ask Hun Sen’s intervention in order to stop the lake filling operations already started by the Shukaku Inc. Company. Another important problem is the subject of compensations. This action is the result of the impossibility to reach an agreement between the residents and the local authorities. It ensues from a complaint over the filling of the lake, which the court has to examine before the 19th of September.

Moreover, the residents’ lawyer is studying the possibility of cancelling the contract signed between the company and the Phnom Penh authorities. The latter had granted a 99-year land lease to Shukaku Inc. However, for such a procedure the court requests an advance payment of 50 to 100% of the costs. The lawyer estimates this amount to reach 160 million riel (40,000 dollars), which will be difficult to find.

[Hun Sen's elite] Brigade 31 seizing land: villagers

The Centre for Development of Disabled Soldiers in Kampot province. (PHOTO SUPPLIED)

Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Written by Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

On the fringes of Bokor, a dispute is raging between Brigade 31 soldiers, who say they're redistributing land to the poor, and local villagers who say they're losing their homes

A VILLAGE in Kampot province's Bokor National Park remains the focus of a land dispute that villagers say has resulted in members of Prime Minister Hun Sen's elite Brigade 31 evicting residents and preparing the land for sale to a private company.

The Centre for Development of Disabled Soldiers was begun in June this year, nominally to provide housing for veterans with disabilities at Kbal Damrei, located in the park.

But local residents say the military has used the pretense of the centre to expel them from their homes and sell the land for profit.

"We have been told that soldiers are preparing the land for sale to a private company," said Nhek Chanthol, who lives in Kbal Damrei.

Nhek Chanthol said about 1,000 families live on the land but that nearly 500 of them have been displaced and their crops destroyed by soldiers bulldozing the area.

Brigade 31 commander Sun Saroeun denied the claim and said his troops are only dividing the land with the villagers for the benefit of veterans.

"I don't have the right to sell any of this land," Sun Saroeun told the Post Sunday.
"The agreement to divide land into smaller plots was signed by the head of our government."

Sun Saroeun said those spreading the rumours of a private sale are themselves outsiders who purchased plots illegally from current residents and lost them when authorities redistributed the plots.

"We are trying to provide land for landless people," Sun Saroeun said.

Land redistribution

The dispute began on June 23, when Brigade 31 soldiers posted land redistribution signs throughout the village.

Residents responded by pulling them up. A later protest saw the arrest of four residents, including Nhek Chanthol's mother - all of whom remain in Kampot provincial prison on charges of robbery and destroying property.

Chin Lida, a lawyer from the human rights group Licadho who is defending the four prisoners, said the court is in the process of investigating the case and a trial is expected to start soon.

One resident, who gave her name as Thim, said the land the soldiers had allotted to villagers is being repossessed, according to a press release from the human rights group Adhoc.

"They let people onto new areas of land. Once it is cleared, they repossess it," she was quoted as saying.

Korean investors reach for Cambodian skies

Sep 16, 2008
By Geoffrey Cain
Asia Times (Hong Kong)

Some analysts believe fast rising property prices, fueled by rapid South Korean capital inflows, might even be inflating Cambodia's first-ever property market bubble.

PHNOM PENH - Planned to tower 52 stories above this city's low-slung skyline, the US$1 billion International Finance Complex (IFC) embodies the bold new ambitions of Cambodian capitalism. If South Korean investors actually complete all the projects they have announced and launched, the once colonial Phnom Penh will soon come to resemble a mini version of high-rise Seoul.

Led by property developers, South Korean investors accounted for over 70% of the $1.5 billion worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) that entered Cambodia in the first half of this year, nearly three times higher than the $520 million it received all of last year. South Korean investments have since 2006 dwarfed Chinese inflows, which have been more critically scrutinized, but only represented 10% of total FDI in the first half of 2008.

Cambodia has long been one of Southeast Asia's laggard economies, plagued by its war-torn past and a backward period of communist-led central planning. With economic opening and market reforms, Cambodia's economy is zipping along nicely, with gross domestic product surging at 9.5% last year. Nowhere is that fast growth more noticeable than in the city's fast-changing skyline.

With all the building activity, some are beginning to wonder if the economics of the building spree compute and how the broader Cambodian economy might be affected if South Korea goes into financial meltdown, as some analysts have predicted. South Korean investors are overseeing and building at least eight major property projects in Phnom Penh, but that number is constantly changing as new concepts arrive at and leave the drawing boards.

There are clear risks to the high-end developments, which are banking heavily on the arrival of high spending foreigners once a purported major oil and gas find on the country's southwestern coast is realized and exploited. The World Bank once estimated the country's total offshore production potential to be at around 2 billion barrels, though Chevron, the US energy company managing the concession, has remained tightlipped about the details and viability of the fuel find.

Consider, for instance, Gold Tower 42, a $240 million condominium project financed by South Korea's DaeHan Real Estate Investment Trust and built by developer Yon Woo. The high rise project is selling units for between $460,000 to $1.5 million and the developer claims 75% of the tower's space has already been sold, mostly to Chinese and South Koreans. Considering 33% of all Cambodians earn less than US 50 cents a day, according to government statistics, the project's pricing is out of reach for nearly all local buyers.

The same is true of the $2 billion Camko City, a satellite city built and owned by South Korean developer World City Company, which entails an international university, condominiums, exercise centers and modern shopping for a community of over 1,000 well-heeled residents. Another South Korean-built mini-neighborhood, Sun Wah International Finance Center, is also on the drawing board and promises similar top-notch amenities.

Camko City, like several other South Korean-led developments, has stirred local controversy and carries big political risks. To make way for the project, the developers completely filled Pong Peay Lake, once a main outlet for the city's dysfunctional drainage system, while evicting long-term residents with compensation at one-tenth of the property's market value, rights groups say. According to Cambodian land laws, lakes are public property and may be developed only in a "rational" manner.

Bypassing donors

South Korea's building spree comes just 11 years after the two countries re-established formal diplomatic ties, which were broken off in 1975 when the communist Khmer Rouge regime took power. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has warmly welcomed Seoul's capital inflows and even presided over the launch of certain South Korean-led big ticket property projects. The former communist guerilla-cum-market reform champion was recently reelected to a new five-year term and has successfully leveraged the country's recent fast economic growth to his political advantage.

During an inauguration event in May for a new road project, funded by the South Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Hun Sen pointed to the South Korean-built Gold Tower 42 as a sign of coming Cambodian prosperity. He lauded South Korea for being at the forefront of eight Cambodian business sectors and said that "diplomatic relations with the Republic of Korea are remarkably developed".

He attended in person the inauguration earlier this year of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and surprised many when he told a local television reporter that Lee was his former "economic adviser".

South Korean investment signals a shift from Cambodia's traditional reliance on multilateral development aid funded by the likes of US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), towards more private investment-led growth. The South Koreans' no-strings-attached approach to business is also believed to be favored by Hun Sen's government, which often found itself at loggerheads over issues of transparency and corruption with multilateral lenders.

At the same time, there are mounting and apparently unhedged market risks to the breakneck growth. The building spree in Phnom Penh notably coincides with a spike in inflation, which rose a dramatic 25% in the first half of 2008, according to the National Bank of Cambodia. That's driven up substantially the prices of imported building materials such as glass and steel.

Some analysts believe fast rising property prices, fueled by rapid South Korean capital inflows, might even be inflating Cambodia's first-ever property market bubble.

The National Bank of Cambodia recently projected gross domestic product would slow to 7.2% in 2008, down substantially from last year's 9.5% clip. The report noted that the construction sector is now the country's biggest urban employer.

Some economic and financial analysts have drawn worrying comparisons to neighboring Vietnam, where land and property prices skyrocketed in line with rapid FDI from Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea in 2007, but fell back around 25% in the first half of 2008 due to softening economic conditions and dried-up finance for buyers. In response, Vietnamese banks have restricted their lending to property buyers and developers.

South Korean property developers in Phnom Penh have so far defied economic gravity, with representatives from IFC and Gold Tower 42 claiming that the impact of inflation on their ventures will be minimal and that construction would continue on schedule. So far most developers have not increased their asking prices, despite the fact existing housing prices and rents have increased five-fold or more since 2005, when the projects were first drawn up. Scaffolding prices alone have jumped to $1,035 per ton this from $400 in 2007, property analysts say.

Other analysts say South Korea's mounting economic troubles at home, including a ballooning short-term debt profile, could soon impact on Cambodian ventures as credit conditions tighten. It's still unclear how much South Korea's own softening economy has served as a push factor in outward investments into Cambodian property.

The South Korean won has depreciated around 10% against the US dollar this year and foreign capital outflows from Seoul are gathering pace. Some analysts estimate South Korea became a net borrower as of July, witnessed in the country's narrowing foreign reserve stock. If the won-dollar depreciation continues, as some analysts predict, it will create new burdens to South Korean companies through higher external lending rates.

Add to that mix fast rising prices for building materials and it seems possible the more ambitious of the South Korean property projects could become financially unviable before they are completed. To fill all the high end space now scheduled to be built - assuming it's actually completed - Cambodians will eventually need to occupy a substantial percentage of many developments, some property analysts say.

Yet with a national GDP per capita of $1,800, it's not clear yet that locals, apart perhaps from government-linked elites, can afford the prices South Korean developers and their financial backers still expect to fetch. There are also potential cultural barriers: middle class and elite Cambodians' have long favored to live in stand-alone, colonial-style villas rather than cement and glass skyscrapers.

While South Korean developers continue to ramp up their building spree, the sky may yet be the limit to their Cambodian designs.

Geoffrey Cain is based in Phnom Penh and a contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review and Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), a United Nations-run news wire service. He may be reached at geoffrey.cain@gmail.com.

Development evicts 4,000 in Cambodia [-Khmer Rouge-style eviction in Boeung Kak Lake by Hun Sen's crony]

Opposition MP Son Chhay says the Hun Sen Government must make public reports into the Boeung Kak Lake development site. [AFP]

Monday, September 15, 2008
ABC Radio Australia

Developers have forced more than 4,000 residents around Boeung Kak Lake in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, to leave their homes.

Radio Australia's Connect Asia program reports the lake is being filled with sand to make way for development, forcing water into surrounding homes.

A $US79 million contract gave the green light for Shukaku Inc to develop a 133 hectare commercial property on the lake and its surrounds in February 2007.

International non-government organisation, Bridges Across Borders, says if the development goes continues without the agreement of Boeung Kak residents, it will cause the largest forced eviction in Cambodia since 1975.

David Pred, Cambodian country director of Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, told Radio Australia work began two weeks ago and has already had a dramatic impact.

"The waters of the lake are rising as the sand is going in and this is starting to flood people's homes," Mr Pred said.

"So the people who are living in and around the area where the sand is being pumped are basically being forced out, drowned out, of their homes.

"Almost all of them in that vicinity have accepted the compensation that's been offered to them basically under extreme force and intimidation," he said.

Opposition Sam Rainsy Party MP Son Chhay says it's not just the flooding that is causing immediate grief for residents.

He says people are also concerned about a shocking smell coming from the water.

"The families who live nearby have come together and complained to the governor's office for a few days now, but have no solution to the problem," he said.

Need for transparency

Son Chhay says the government must make public any documents that assess the potential impact of filling the lake.

"We have tried to question the officials from the ministry of environment and according to our regulations any kind of lake filling must have some approval from the ministry of environment but so far we have not seen any document or report," Mr Son said.

David Pred maintains the lease agreement between the the Municipality of Phnom Penh and Shukaku Inc. is illegal under Cambodian law.

He says there's currently a court case underway, filed by community plaintiffs, requesting the court to issue an injunction to stop the filling of the lake.

Mr Pred says there's widespread anger at the development.

"This is wholesale theft, grand theft what's happening in Phnom Penh today.

"The rich and the powerful seem to think they can get away with this type of massive injustice because there's no rule of law in Cambodia.

"But the people who are living in Boeung Kak and many of us who live in Phnom Penh and support them are standing together in solidarity and saying no, you can't get away with this, we're not going to let this happen."

Son Chhay agrees and says the compensation plan has fundamental flaws.

He says some families who agreed to the compensation offer, which involves being resettled to the outskirts of Phnom Penh, have now changed their minds.

"The place that they moved to has no electricity, no water, no school and when it rains there's water all over the place," Mr Son said.

"The families in the area are very unhappy, they didn't get a good deal from the government.

"More and more people are willing to join in and fight this project," he said.

Tycoon-Senator Ly Yong Phat (aka Thai citizen Phat Suphapha) is not stranger to controversy ... thanks to Hun Sen's CPP

CPP Tycoon-Senator-cum-land-grabber Ly Yong Phat also known as Thai citizen Phat Suphapha

Cambodian senator is no stranger to controversy

Sunday September 14, 2008
Bangkok Post STAFF REPORTERS

Ly Yong Phat, the businessman behind the major developments planned on Koh Kong, is no stranger to controversy having been criticised by several human rights agencies for forcibly removing villagers from their land in 2006.

Also known as Phat Suphapha, he is a senator in the ruling Cambodian People's Party and one of the wealthiest men in Cambodia who counts many of the country's most powerful people as his close associates.

Mr Phat came under fire from the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) for the forced eviction of 250 families in the Chi Khor Leu commune in Sre Ambel district of Koh Kong province on Sept 19, 2006.

According to the AHRC report, military police were involved in the eviction, destroying the villagers' crops and bulldozing houses. Seven people were injured in the confrontations, including two villagers who suffered bullet wounds.

The Cambodian government granted Mr Phat's Agriculture Duty Free-Shop Development Company two 10,000-hectare concessions in the commune, which the villagers had been living in since 1979, the report said.

Human Rights Watch, Global Witness, FORUM-ASIA, the Asian Human Rights Commission and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) issued a joint statement in Oct 2006 condemning the evictions.

He offered compensation of $50 per hectare when human rights lawyers were asking for a fair market value of $500-$1,000 per hectare, human rights workers later discovered.

Illegal Evictions a Continued Threat: Experts

Sek Sovanna, a lawyer from the Community Legal Education Center, left, and Chan Saveth, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
12 September 2008

Forced evictions are seriously impacting the daily lives of many Cambodians, requiring an "advanced solution" as displacement persists, a rights official said Thursday.

"Development should be a benefit for people, but if it makes thousands of people lose their interests, how can we call it development?" said Chan Saveth, of the rights group Adhoc, as a guest on "Hello VOA."

Forced evictions of residents in the Sambok Chab neighborhood of Phnom Penh and a community living along Monivong Boulevard highlighted the problem, where people were removed to distant locales outside the city, far from work, school and services.

Residents of the Boeung Kak lake area, the city's latest development project, are continuing to protest their impending eviction, saying an $8,000 buyout option from the government is too low.

Sek Sovanna, a lawyer from the Community Legal Education Center, said the $79 million lease the city has made with Shukaku, Inc., to develop the area was illegal.

"They violated the law, the land law," she said.

Cambodia’s ‘phantom citizens’

Andong (Photo: Carole Vann)

Human Rights Tribune

12 September 08 - With cheap manpower and generalized corruption, Cambodia is a Garden of Eden for Asian companies. Several thousand citizens have been forcibly expelled to make room for gigantic commercial centers or casinos.

Carole Vann/Human Rights Tribune – In front of the shed lies an old metal bedframe, completely rusted. On top, a hodgepodge of pots and pans, clothes, plastic cups and plates, some knives and spoons. Further on, a hammock has been nailed to a wall. ‘We must take the essentials if they set fire to the neighborhood,’ explains Malai, a lovely woman in a sarong, who lives nearby with her husband and three children. ‘They’ are the Cambodian authorities.

On the banks of Boeng Kak lake, in the suburbs of Phnom Penh, the neighborhood is poor, there is no sanitation, everything flows into the lake.

Homes are wooden huts attached to each other with beaten earth for floors. Here 4,250 families have lived for years in a sort of eviction repreive. They know that one day, very soon, they will be expelled by force. An improvement project will fill in the lake and transformer the place into a gigantic commercial zone with deluxe appartments. One and a half years ago, the municipality of Phnom Penh granted a 99 year least to a South Korean company (Shukaku) for the entire lake and its banks.

‘They have offered us several thousand dollars if we leave voluntarily, explained Malia. But the price of land is exorbitant. Rents also. It’s not enough to relocate us.’ Malai is a seamstress working at home, her husband unemployed. Like all their neighbors, they are refusing to leave.

Malai, her family and the inhabitants of Bang Kak are among 70,000 Cambodians – of 150,000 across the country acording to Amnesty International – threatened with forced eviction. ‘If they refuse to leave, the authorities come and set fire to their homes, beat the inhabitants and arrest those who protest,’ said Kek Galabru, founder of LICADHO, one of two main organizations (along with ADHOC ) defending human rights in Cambodia. Last year, in Sihanoukvile (a southern port city), the military police arrived at dawn with automatic rifles, electric prods and bulldozers. They set fire to the houses and brutalized the inhabitants.’

The events in Sihanoukville shocked the Cambodian press [?], so violent was the repression. ‘The men were detained and forced to sign release papers before being freed’ added Kek Galabru.

This Khmer, married to a Frenchman, is a figurehead in the Cambodian human rights movement. She is one of the rare persons who has dated, at the risk of her life, to denounce the disfunctions in her country.

According to her, the problem with forced evictions is that it is a delayed bomb for the country. The problem is linked to the modern history of the country. At the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, people returned to their villages. They settled on their small plots of land and refused to budge. In 2001 a tax law came into force that stipulated that anyone living on a piece of land, uncontested by others, for five years, would become a landowner. But to get a deed to the property proved an unending battle. A multitude of officials had to be appeased, something most people could not afford.

The tax law also stated that the state could requisition land for ‘community development’. But the government plays with these terms. Luxury commercial centers, unaffordable to the majority of Kmers, are thus labeled in the public interest, to the point that the public wants to hear no more about ‘development’.

Kek Galabru and Thoun Saray, the President of ADHOC, were in Geneva last week to bring their story to the 9th session of the Human Rights Council. Amnesty International and the Geneva based NGO, COHRE (Center on Housing Rights and Evictions) consider that forcing evictions and confiscating land is high on the list of current problems in Cambodia.

More than 100,000 people were dislodged in the capital over the past ten years. The conditions in which they were rehoused are also tragic. Families find themselves parachuted miles from their villages onto vast open spaces. In February, 100 families were transferred by force from Sabok Tchap, a quarter in Phnbom Penh, to Andong, a no-man’s land located 30 kilometers from the capital. Each family received a 12x5 meter parcel of land, no water, no electricity, no sewers. When it rained the terrain was transformed into mud and filth.

No work, no schools, no medical centers and no transport. And no property deed either. The state can retake this land at any moment. Isolated from everything, the relocated people have become ‘phantom citizens’, deprived of all elementary rights, according to Thoun Saray.

Translated from French by Pamela Taylor
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UN complaints, government denials

There has been no love lost between Cambodia and the Secretary General’s human rights representatives for a long time. Whether the current Rapporteur, Yash Ghai, or his predecessors, the government of Hun Sen has always reluctantly received this arm of the UN that was negotiated during the Paris accords of 1991.

During the current session of the Human Rights Council, at the demand of Cambodia, the mandate of the UN expert will replaced by that of a Special Rapporteur for Cambodia. The difference ? The first is nominated by the Secretary General who submits his report to the General Assembly in New York while the second is appointed by member states of the Human Rights Council and reported to Geneva.

This change increases concerns among human rights defenders who fear that reports delivered in Geneva don’t have the same impact as those destined for New York.

The main Khmer NGOs have come in force to Geneva to demand support from member states that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur not be modified. Japan (a main supporter) is shuttling between the Khmer Mission and the militants to reach a resolution acceptable to both sides.

‘We want the resolution to mention the necessity for strict cooperation between the Special Rapporteur and the government and that the government agrees to implement the recommendations of the Rapporteur’, said Kek Galabru.

Carole Vann/HRT