"...let their children, wives, grandchildren and all their lineage die, those who grabbed the Dey Krahorm land": Curse by Dey Krahorm victims

People affected by land disputes have gathered in Dey Krahorm on 08 March 2009 to appeal for an end to forced evictions (Photo: Ouk Savborey, RFA)

Victims of land disputes pray for an end to eviction

08 March 2009
By Ouk Savborey
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

About 150 people coming from communities where land dispute communities are taking place, and who are about to leave or on the verge of leaving their homes, gathered near the large Boddhi tree located in Dey Krahorm commune, Tonle Bassac district, Phnom Penh, during the 99th International Women’s Day celebrated on 08 March 2009. The people gathered to pray for an end to evictions that saw people being chased out of their homes.

A woman representing the Dey Krahorm community said that women and children are hurt by their forced eviction from their homes on the morning of 24 January 2009: “Please, spirits protecting the land and water of Dey Krahorm, prevent those who grabbed the land from the people from being able to do anything, let them vanish to naught soon, immediately, let their children, wives, grandchildren and all their lineage die, those who grabbed the Dey Krahorm land.”

Another woman representing families who are about to leave their homes in Boeung Kak Lake, added that she prayed so that the eviction that took place in Dey Krahorm does not happen in her community: “I say, for all of us women, if there is an eviction like Dey Krahorm taking place, we will suffer, because as women, we have extremely heavy charge, because in the future, our group will also face the same fate as them.”

Another man from Beoung Kak Lake community said: “Our goal is to obtain freedom, and a voice so that we will not be faced with eviction like Dey Krahorm, we don’t want any violence like this anymore.”

A representative from Group 78 (Tonle Bassac) claimed that those who want to take the land under the pretext of development, as well as the city hall, are forcing people to leave their lands without any negotiation, they hurt all the people, young and old: “If they want to take the people out of the city, they must resolve the money issue first, then they can take the people out, they should not do like Dey Krahorm or Sambok Chap. Now, the people can no longer accept that.”

Representatives from communities in various provinces claimed that any development without prior negotiation to provide proper compensation (for the people affected) will lead to an increase in poverty and it will lead to further destructions of forest, animals and the environment.

Van Sophat, a NGO representative who is observing the land dispute situation under the pretext of government development, indicated that the 150 people who came to pray at this ceremony are from the Dey Krahorm community, the Phnom Penh Thmei community, the Boeung Kak community, the Sambok Chap community, as well as other communities in Cambodia who suffer from eviction without proper compensation. They all came to ask the Cambodian government (led by Hun Sen) to respect the 2001 land law which guarantees the home ownership for the people.

Following a blessing by 5 Buddhist monks, balloons bearing slogans were released asking for an end to eviction in order to support women, for the right of women to have access to proper housing, and for supporting women as it also means supporting the country.

The ceremony took place outside the gate of the 7NG company, no company employees or police officers came to disrupt the ceremony held by these victims of land disputes.

In Cambodia, progress for some means eviction for others [-Normal life in Hun Sen's Cambodia

Cambodians forced from their homes to make way for development in the capital, Phnom Penh, have ended up in this squalid camp that lacks the most basic services. (Robert James Elliott for the International Herald Tribune)

Thursday, July 17, 2008
By Seth Mydans
International Herald Tribune (Paris, France)

ANDONG, Cambodia: When the monsoon rain pours through Mao Sein's torn thatch roof, she pulls a straw sleeping mat over herself and her three small children and waits until it stops.

They sit on a low table as floodwater rises, sometimes to shin level, she said, bringing with it the sewage that runs along the mud paths outside her shack.

Mao Sein, 34, is a widow and a scavenger, and as these things go, she could be doing worse. When the government raided a squatter colony in Phnom Penh two years ago to clear it for a new development, it allowed 700 families to resettle to this open field 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, outside the capital.

There is no clean water or electricity here, no paved roads or permanent buildings. But the fact that there is land to live on has drawn scores of new homeless families, now squatting among the former squatters.

Like tens of thousands around the country, the people here are victims of what experts say has become the most serious human rights abuse in the country - land seizures, forced evictions and homelessness.

"Expropriation of the land of Cambodia's poor is reaching a disastrous level," Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, said earlier this year. "The courts are politicized and corrupt, and impunity for human rights violators remains the norm."

With the economy on the rise, land is being seized for logging, agriculture, mining, tourism and fisheries, and in Phnom Penh, soaring land prices have touched off what one official called a frenzy of land grabs by the rich and powerful.

The seizures can be violent, including late-night raids by the police and military and sometimes apparent arson as shanty neighborhoods burn down.

"They came at 2 a.m.," said Ku Srey, 37, who was evicted along with most of her neighbors here in June 2006. "They were vicious. They had electric batons - chk chk chk chk. They pushed us into trucks, they threw all our stuff into trucks and they brought us here."

In a recent report, Amnesty International estimated that 150,000 people around the country were now at risk of forcible eviction as a result of land disputes, land seizures and new development projects.

These include 4,000 families who live around a lake in the center of Phnom Penh - Boeung Kak Lake - that is the city's main catchment for monsoon rains and is now being filled in for upscale development.

"If these communities are forced to move, it would be the most large-scale displacement of Cambodians since the times of the Khmer Rouge," said Brittis Edman, a researcher with Amnesty International, which is based in London.

That, in a way, would bring history full circle.

Like other ailments of society - political and social violence, poverty, and a culture of impunity for those with power - the land issues have roots in the country's tormented past of slaughter, civil war and social disruptions.

The brutal rule of the Communist Khmer Rouge, during which 1.7 million people are estimated to have died, began in 1975 with a mass evacuation of Phnom Penh, forcing millions of people into the countryside and emptying the city.

It ended in 1979 when the Khmer Rouge were driven from power by a Vietnamese invasion, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees across the border into Thailand.

The refugees returned in the 1990s, joining a floating population of people displaced by the Khmer Rouge and a decade of civil war. Many ended their journeys in Phnom Penh, creating huge squatter colonies.

Now many of these people are being forced to move again, from Phnom Penh and from around the country, victims of the latest scourge of the poor: prosperity.

The Cambodian economy has begun to percolate, with growth estimated as high as 9 percent last year. Phnom Penh is beginning to transform itself with modern buildings, modest malls and plans for skyscrapers - one of the last capital cities in Asia to begin to pave over its past.

Andong, with its shacks, its sewage and its displaced people, is the other face of development. It looks very much like the refugee camps that were home to those who fled the Khmer Rouge three decades ago.

Whichever way the winds of history blow, some people here say, life only gets worse for the poor. If it is not "pakdivat" (revolution) that is buffeting them, they say, it is "akdivat" (development).

Between 1993 and 1999, Amnesty International said in its report, the government granted concessions for around one-third of the country's most productive lands for commercial development by private companies.

In Phnom Penh, between 1998 and 2003, the city government forcibly evicted 11,000 families, the World Bank said. Since then, Amnesty International said, forced evictions have reportedly displaced at least 30,000 more families.

"One thing that is important to note is that the government is not only failing to protect the population but we are also seeing that it is complicit in many of the forced evictions," said Edman of Amnesty International.

The government responded to the report in February through a statement issued by its embassy in London.

"Just to point out that Cambodia is not Zimbabwe," the statement read, setting the bar fairly low. "Your researcher should also spend more time to examine cases of land and housing rights violations in this country, if she dares."

Little by little, the people here in Andong have made it home, some of them decorating their shacks with small flower pots. A few have gathered enough money to buy bricks and cement to pave their floors and reinforce their walls.

But this home, like the ones they have known in the past, may only be temporary. The outskirts of Phnom Penh are only a few kilometers away. In a few years, as the city continues to expand, aid workers say, the people here will probably be forced to move again.

Many Evictees Can't Vote: Monitors

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
11 June 2008

"I will go to vote, to choose the prime minister, so that he sees all kinds of people and knows someone who has difficulty or lives under suppression" - Chim Rem, evictee from Sambok Chap

[Editor's note: In the weeks leading into national polls, VOA Khmer will explore a wide number of election issues. The "Election Issues 2008" series will air stories on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a related "Hello VOA" guest on Thursday. This is the second in a two-part series examining the worries of the urban displaced.]

Although politicians and officials say they are seeking votes from the urban displaced, they may face one problem: many displaced are no longer eligible to vote.

As many as 150,000 residents of Phnom Penh could face eviction in the path of development in Phnom Penh. But many of them will not be among the 720,000 voters registered in Phnom Penh.

But the Committee for Free and Fair Elections and the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections both say the displacement has put voting out of reach this year for many.

Some who were registered at their old neighborhoods in Phnom Penh have not been able to register in their new locations, officials from both organizations said.

Nevertheless, parties hope they can convince those who do vote that they will act to solve many of the problems the evictees face.

Cambodian People's Party lawmaker Chiem Yeap said his party's candidates will seek to explain to resettled residents reasons they were moved.

"Some people say the rich put pressure on the poor," he told VOA Khmer. "It is not like that. The CPP always wants achievement and winning in a valuable manner, and we want our citizens to understand that and vote for us."

Many forced evictions have led to displaced communities far from the capital and its jobs, schools and infrastructure. Critics say eviction plans rarely compensate people fairly, but city officials maintain the evictees are squatters on state land.

CPP candidates for Phnom Penh will seek to inform potential voters of the party's future measures, to help build houses, roads, schools and hospitals, and provide them with clean water and electricity, Chiem Yeap said.

The displaced could receive help from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, which seeks to raise the living conditions in these settlements to the standards enjoyed by city dwellers, Phnom Penh candidate Yim Sovann said.

Lu Laysreng, first deputy president of Funcinpec and Minister of Rural Development, called the urban displaced the patient in the hospital that needed treatment soonest.

No matter the policies, the urban displaced are looking for leadership to bring them out of poverty, voters like Chim Rem, who was ousted from his Sparrow's Nest home on the Tonle Bassac and now lives in a resettlement village 20 kilometers from the capital.

"I will go to vote, to choose the prime minister, so that he sees all kinds of people and knows someone who has difficulty or lives under suppression," he said.

Cambodia: collecting donations to help the poor and needy is a No No

Makeshift living conditions in Andoung Thmei village (Photo: SMD)

SMD students conducting a survey on people evicted from Sambok Chap (Photo: SMD)

SMD students collecting donations in Phnom Penh (Photo: SMD)

Students collection donations to help people evicted from Sambok Chap

02 July 2007
By Uk Sav Bory
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

A group of students who went into Phnom Penh markets to collect donations to help poor people evicted from Sambok Chap, were prevented to do so by the market authorities.

Ken Sara, the vice-president of the Students’ Movement for Democracy (SMD), said that about 30 volunteer students coming from various high schools and universities went into Phnom Penh markets on Monday 02 July morning, to collect donations to help several hundreds of poor families evicted from Sambok Chap area who currently lack shelters, lost their jobs, lack foods, lack clean waters, lack electricity, and who need urgent help since they were evicted from Phnom Penh and sent to live in Andoung Thmei and Trapeang Krasaing villages, Dankao district.

Ken Sara said that prior to entering the markets, SMD sent letter asking for authorizations from the market authorities and the Phnom Penh municipal authority, nevertheless, in some markets, they were still prevented to get in. “They said that the entry to each market must receive the authorization from the district office first, then they will allow us to enter,” Ken Sara said of the local market authority prevention.

Freshman students from the Phnom Penh Royal University said that the students divide themselves into four groups, and went into four different Phnom Penh markets: Phsar Thmei, Olympic, O’Russei, and Kab Ko, to ask for donations to help poor needy people evicted from Sambok Chap area. The collection of donations were stopped by the Phsar Thmei an Olympic markets security officers. Nevertheless, some generous donors still hand in their donations.

A female student said: “We cannot get inside the market, but our group was able to collect 640,000 riels (~$160).”

A psychology-major student from the Phnom Penh Royal University said that a group of students went to study the living conditions of the people evicted from Sambok Chap, they noted that these people lack everything, and the government should provide help to them. But, to the contrary, the government ignored these people, left them to live on unsanitary waters, without proper shelters, that were the reasons why the students decided to collect donations from markets to help these needy people.

The same psychology-major student said: “I visited the area myself with 10 other students. We observed that they have a lot of difficulties, they lack everything, no food, no water, no electricity, and even their tents are all torn up, and their shelters are very small.”

A security official from Phsar Thmei said that these students did not have an authorization letter to collect donations in the market.

Dr Pung Chiv Kek, President of Licadho human rights organization, said that the prevention by the market authority is a violation of the students’ rights, as these students want to show their solidarity in helping the poor people of their country.

1,367 families were evicted from Phnom Penh Sambok Chap area, and they were sent to live in Andoung Thmei and Trapeang Krasaing villages in Dangkao district, on 06 June 2006. Besides these families, another 488 families of renters are currently living in makeshift tents and no lands were provided to them. In the Andoung Thmei village, more than 1,000 families are living in mud during this rainy season, and several children and adults died of disease they contracted in this new area.

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Opposition Leader Appeals to Hun Sen for 'Sparrow's Nest' (Sambok Chab) Displaced

Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
12/06/2007

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has appealed to Prime Minister Hun Sen to aid the 1,500 families evicted by a recent development project in Phnom Penh.

The families were kicked out of the 'Sparrow's Nest' neighborhood, a tangle of shanties and makeshift homes along the Tonle Sap River in Phnom Penh, and removed to a remote site outside the capital, far from work, clean water and schools.

Phnom Penh authorities said Sam Rainsy was circumventing them for political gain by going to the prime minister.

Bassac Blues Snapshots [- The Sambok Chap Eviction case]

Bassac Blues Snapshots - STOP EVICTIONS
Courtesy of Nana Yuriko (nanajapana)

Sambok Chab village: A Sad Anniversary

On June 6, 2007, Member of Parliament Sam Rainsy visited thousands of victims of land grabbing from Sambok Chap village in downtown Phnom Penh, who were dumped on June 6, 2006 on the outskirts of the capital city. Those who were brutally evicted from their homes exactly one year ago are now surviving in extremely precarious conditions in Andaung village, Kauk Roka commune, Dangkao district, Phnom Penh municipality.

Sam Rainsy brought a medical team with him and promised his continuous support for the victims of this cruel injustice.

Groups Mark Anniversary of 'Sparrow nest' [Sambok Chap] Eviction

Living condition of people evicted from Sambok Chap district, in their new dilapidated and precarious relocation in Andoung village, Kauk Roka commune, Dangkao district. This photo was taken on 06 June 2007, exactly one year after the Sambok Chap eviction (Photo: SRP)

Seng Ratana, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
07/06/2007

Nearly 100 rights advocates held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night to mark the first anniversary of the eviction of more than 1,000 families from a Phnom Penh neighborhood slated for development.

The families were pushed to a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital, far from schools, jobs and other necessities, in the kind of displacement rights workers say is increasing as Cambodia rushes to develop.

Kek Galabru, founder of the rights group Licadho, said the vigil was organized to convey a message to the government: that the evicted families were still suffering a year after their forced relocation from the Sambok Chab, or Sparrow Nest, neighborhood.

Some families had separated, with wives staying home to guard a plot of land while husbands heading into the city for work, she said.

"I hope that the government will have compassion and help the people," she said. "It has already been a year. Please help them as relatives. The situation they are living in is very serious."

Cambodia Center for Human Rights Director Ou Vireak said the vigil was a "reminder" to the government that "the eviction of people to suburban areas is not a proper solution."