Eviction pain lingers in Phnom Penh

Traffic passes by the site of the former Group 78 community in Phnom Penh yesterday. The site remains undeveloped. Photograph: Vireak Mai/Phnom Penh Post

Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Shane Worrell
The Phnom Penh Post

Three years after authorities demolished the last houses in Phnom Penh’s Group 78 community, evictees relocated to the outskirts of the capital are still struggling, the Housing Rights Task Force said yesterday.

More than 200 members of the Group 78 community gathered close to the site yesterday, near the Australian Embassy in Chamkarmon district’s Tonle Bassac commune, to commemorate the third anniversary of their eviction.

At dawn on July 17, 2009, police in riot gear cleared the way for workers to demolish the final 46 homes after their occupants refused compensation to vacate.

Former residents of Group 78 commemorate the 3rd anniversary of the violent evictions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6BaR9kmCno

Australian embassy in Cambodia provides diplomatic protection for Hun To? - Op-Ed by Chhaya Khemarak

Phnom Penh land dispute unresolved [-Will the Aussie embassy just sit and watch the eviction taking place?]

May 5, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

The latest deadline for the removal of a group of 70 families resisting eviction in central Phnom Penh appears to have passed without incident.

The city government had offered the residents $US5,000 cash and a plot of land on the outskirts of the city in exchange for their moving out.

But so far, fewer than 10 of the families are reported to have taken up the offer.

Sebastian Strangio, from the Phnom Penh Post, says those that remain appear to be holding out for a better deal.

"They have occupied this land, some of them since the early 1980s. And according to the land laws that Cambodia has, they have a right to claim possession of this land," he said.

The disputed land is adjacent to Australia's new embassy compound.

The Post quotes an embassy spokeswoman as saying that while it's "not appropriate" to comment on specific land disputes, the embassy does encourage local authorities and citizens "to work together to find mutually acceptable, equitable" solutions to such issues.

Political Cartoon: New Australian Embassy on the Land Grabbing

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)