Don't discriminate at Dey Krahorm

Monday, 12 January 2009
Written by David Pred
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor,

We were dismayed to read about the blatant discrimination exhibited by municipal authorities in the article "Artists' relocation prioritised" [January 8, 2009]. The article reported that recent moves to evict Dey Krahorm residents are being "sweetened" by offering the "most celebrated residents" of the community more expensive city-centre relocation housing. According to the article, the non-famous residents will have to settle for a compensation package worth around US$10,000 or distant alternative housing at Damnak Trayoeng.

The article neglected to include the views of these other residents of the community, who have roundly rejected the 7NG company's offer to them as unacceptable.

It is clear that Dey Krahorm's artist community, which includes popular musicians and comedians, presents a big problem for municipal authorities and 7NG, who seek to clear the residents out of the area to make way for commercial development. Needless to say, the image of forcibly removing the likes of Kong Nai from his Dey Krahorm home would not be a public relations score for the municipality.

After all, the Royal Government of Cambodia reported to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on December 2, 2008, that "in Cambodia, people have the rights to live in their home with law protecting them from eviction." The Government's State Party Report continues:

If eviction is required, the government pays just and equitable compensation for that as stated in Article 44, paragraph 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Cambodia. "The right to confiscate possessions from any person shall be exercised only in the public interest as provided for under law and shall require fair and just compensation in advance" [Para 528].

These legal protections must apply indiscriminately to all Dey Krahorm homeowners, not just the artists. The current residents of Dey Krahorm lawfully possess their property. They have either lived there for many years or they purchased their land from previous residents, and thus have valid claims of ownership under the Land Law.

Moreover, Dey Krahorm land was granted to the community as a Social Land Concession in 2003, following Prime Minister Hun Sen's welcome announcement to provide secure land tenure and to assist in the onsite upgrading of 100 inner-city poor communities each year until all of Phnom Penh's urban poor communities have secure land tenure and full basic services. Dey Krahorm was to be among the first urban poor communities to become beneficiaries of this plan. The intention to provide secure land tenure and onsite upgrading to the Dey Krahorm community was reiterated just last month in the government's report to the UN Committee. The report identified Dey Krahorm as a land-sharing project intended to "help the communities to build houses on their legally owned land" [Para 537].

Despite the strong support of the community and the 2003 endorsement of the prime minister, the onsite development plan has yet to come to pass.

While the community has demonstrated unambiguous claims to their land, the 7NG company has not. In light of the community's clear rights, 7NG's alleged lease could not have been lawfully granted without the express permission of all the homeowners. It is important to clarify that this is not a case of the government taking land in the public interest. It is a case of a private company seeking to acquire prime city-centre real estate, valued a year ago at more than $44 million, by coercing the poor people who own that land to swap it for flats they have built outside the city. Therefore, any eviction of Dey Krahorm residents, as opposed to a good-faith purchase offer, would be illegal.

It is a welcome development that the 7NG company and the municipality have offered the artists of Dey Krahorm a fairer deal including alternative city-center housing where they "can work as usual", but this must be extended to all residents regardless of their profession, talents or social status.

The "few hundred holdouts" of Dey Krahorm are hard working citizens of Cambodia. Like the artists, their jobs and small businesses are also based in central Phnom Penh, making relocation to distant Damnak Trayoeng unfeasible. They are entitled to be treated with the same respect and concern as their celebrity neighbors. This means offering them a price for their house that they can accept.

David Pred
Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia

Natalie Bugalski
Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions

Kong Nai performance samples (Cambodia, 2006)

In Cambodia, Preserving a Musical Tradition

Kong Nai is one the last living masters of the traditional Cambodian guitar, known as the chapei dong veng. (Photo: Matt Ozug, NPR)

Kong was forced to play only Khmer Rouge anthems during that regime's reign. (Photo: Matt Ozug, NPR)

Morning Edition, May 14, 2007
by Matt Ozug
National Public Radio, Morning Edition (USA)

Click here to listen "The Wind Blows"
Click here to listen "Liberation Song"

Officials in Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh are preparing for the long-awaited trial of the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the regime that carried out the genocide of nearly 2 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.

In addition to destroying lives, the Khmer Rouge nearly obliterated Cambodian arts and culture. But at least one man is helping to keep those traditions alive.

Kong Nai is one of only two or three living masters of the Cambodian guitar, known as the chapei dong veng, to have survived the Khmer Rouge.

A childhood illness left Kong blind at the age of 4, around the time he began asking his mother to take him to hear the chapei.

He learned to play the chapei from his uncle.

"Well, it'll be difficult for me to teach you because you're blind," his uncle told him.

But Kong persisted. Whenever one of the old chapei masters was playing, Kong would beg his mother to take him to listen. And when Kong went home, he would practice humming the melodies over and over.

Chapei music is an oral tradition. The melodies are passed down from one generation to the next, while the lyrics are often composed or improvised on the spot.

When the Khmer Rouge took over his country in 1975, Kong was spared hard labor and was even allowed to keep his instrument. But he was forced to play only Khmer Rouge anthems, extolling the greatness of the regime.

Without warning, Kong's instrument was taken away. He was separated from his family and sent to work making palm rope.

"[I've] never been fit enough," he says. "They beat us up and we had to eat the potato leaves, and we had to eat the cassava leaves in order to survive. This is so painful, but we had to live through the regime."

Then one day, Kong was taken to the woods, and left there overnight. He still doesn't know why he wasn't killed. But the next day, when the Vietnamese army overtook the camp, Kong was freed. He was reunited with his wife, his children and his music.

"I didn't really expect I'd have this day," he says. "Because before the liberation day I thought everything turned black. I can tell you after the liberation day I feel totally changed that I had freedom to play the chapei again …"

When asked if he had a favorite song, or one he is proudest of, Kong plays one about liberation from the Khmer Rouge.

"Liberation Song" (listen) says in part:

For 3 years we suffered unforgettable hardship; everything was destroyed.
Blood was spilled and children orphaned.
Cambodia became a place of killing.
They forced the people to dig and plow the fields.
Exhausted they fell down to the ground;
bodies swollen, tired, hopeless.
Husbands and Wives, brothers and sisters, were separated.
We were forced to forget each other.
Until January 7th, when the Cambodian people were freed of the sorrow.
Kong still performs regularly and also teaches chapei to a new generation. He hopes that one of his sons who plays the instrument can "take over from me."

"I am the oldest one now and when I pass away I hope that the music will carry on to the young generation," Kong says.

Matt Ozug traveled to Cambodia as part of the International Reporting Project.