China to Gamblers: Come to Cambodia

Chinese development at Botum Sakor National  Park

3/21/2012
Forbes

Pity the poor Chinese gambler. Barred from making legal bets in his own officially straight-laced country, he undergoes much trouble and expense to indulge his habit anywhere he can, from the new casinos of Macau and Singapore to Las Vegas, where a tiny band of baccarat players from the Mainland accounted for 42 percent of all table betting last year.

But if developers have their way, gamblers from China could soon enjoy a new East Asian haven where controls are few, the regime’s entirely on their side, and they have a free hand to displace locals and even bulldoze government nature preserves: Cambodia.

In the most recent deal, the Cambodian government sold off more than 130 square miles of a national park to a Chinese developer, Tianjin Union Development Group, which promises “extravagant feasting and revelry” and has already cut a 40-mile road through virgin forest that’s habitat to endangered tigers and elephants, and sent the people who lived in these lands for generations off packing.

Cambodia sells off national park for city-sized pleasure resorts

(Google Map)

March 19, 2012
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com

The Cambodian government has handed over nearly 20 percent of Botum Sakor National Park to a Chinese real-estate firm building a massive casino and resorts in the middle of pristine rainforest, reports Reuters. The city-sized resorts, costing $3.8 billion, will include a 64 kilometers highway, an airport, hotels, and golf courses. Botum Sakur is home to a number of endangered species including the pileated gibbon (Hylobates pileatus) and Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).

"Cambodia is giving away 36,000 hectares to a foreign entity with little if any oversight or obvious benefit to the people," Mathieu Pellerin, a researcher with Cambodian human rights group Licadho, told Reuters. Construction of the pleasure cities by Union Group is displacing local Cambodians, some who have lived there for generations.

Researchers have recorded 44 mammal species and 533 birds in the park. Other imperiled species include the white winged duck (Asarcornis scutulata), Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica), Asian slow loris (Nycticebus bengalensis), Indochinese silvered langur (Trachypithecus germaini), hog deer (Axis porcinus), dhole (Cuon alpinus), the elongated tortoise (Indotestudo elongate), the Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis), and the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus).

Koh Kong intervention sought [-Maybe it's time to burn down the Chinese development?]

A man stands near a construction base for a Chinese company at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province last month. (Reuters)

Friday, 09 March 2012
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

The provincial office of rights group Licadho has called on Koh Kong provincial politicians to help more than 1,000 families being forcibly evicted to make way for a sprawling gambling resort and other development, representative said yesterday.

More than 130 families, from three villages in Kiri Sakor and Botum Sakor districts in Koh Kong province, had filed complaints to Licadho between April and December last year, asking for intervention after staff from Chinese company Tianjin Union Development Group and military police allegedly tried to force them off their land.

“We would like to ask the company to stop taking military police to burn down villagers’ homes, to stop forcing and threatening villagers – let them live on their land,” the letter says.

Insight: China gambles on Cambodia's shrinking forests (Repost by request from Pissed Off)

Schoolboys ride a motorcycle through Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

Construction work takes place at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

March 6, 2012

Andrew R.C. Marshall and Prak Chan Thul

For activist Chut Wutty, Union Group's activities smack of colonisation. "You think after 99 years that this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they'll kick the Chinese out? No way. It's forever."

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

"This was all forest once," says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

"But then the government sold the land to rich men."

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km (130 sq miles) of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for "extravagant feasting and revelry," its website says. A 64-km (40-mile) highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Cambodia, an impoverished country known for its ancient temples and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

Chinese Company Displaces Locals to Build Casino in Cambodia

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/asiabrief/2012-03-07/chinese-company-displaces-locals-to-build-casino-in-cambodia.html

Insight: China gambles on Cambodia's shrinking forests [-China creating anti-Chinese conditions in Cambodia similar to Indonesia in the 60s?]

Schoolboys ride a motorcycle through Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

Construction work takes place at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

March 6, 2012

Andrew R.C. Marshall and Prak Chan Thul

For activist Chut Wutty, Union Group's activities smack of colonisation. "You think after 99 years that this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they'll kick the Chinese out? No way. It's forever."

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

"This was all forest once," says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

"But then the government sold the land to rich men."

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km (130 sq miles) of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for "extravagant feasting and revelry," its website says. A 64-km (40-mile) highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Cambodia, an impoverished country known for its ancient temples and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

Payoff time for Thaksin? Thaksin set to invest big time in Cambodia, and it's not just in Koh Kong alone

Thaksin (2nd left) and his Khmer golf buddies and business partners? (Photo: Reuters)

Thaksin set to invest big time in Cambodia

Khmer minister: Koh Kong just his first step

Thursday June 19, 2008
WASSANA NANUAM
Bangkok Post

Thaksin Shinawatra is planning large-scale investments in Cambodia with Koh Kong province serving only as his first step in his business ventures in the country, Cambodian Defence Minister Gen Teah Banh said yesterday.

Lauding Mr Thaksin as ''a capable person with a sharp vision'', the general said Mr Thaksin would not only lead foreign businessmen to invest in Koh Kong, but they would also take part in tourism and energy ventures both inland and in maritime areas.

''We welcome all investors who will help develop Cambodia,'' Gen Teah Banh said.

Koh Kong, which is opposite Trat, has been eyed by Mr Thaksin as a prime location for his casino and entertainment complex development.

According to former deputy army chief Gen Vichit Yathip, Mr Thaksin would co-invest in the project with businessmen from the Middle East. A prospective investor would be Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, he said.

Both Gen Vichit and Gen Teah Banh denied any link between Koh Kong and other development projects initiated by Mr Thaksin and Phnom Penh's move to nominate the Preah Vihear temple as a new World Heritage site.

Besides the Koh Kong project, according to Gen Teah Banh, Mr Thaksin plans to develop new tourist attractions in Phnom Penh and other major cities. He also wants to work with Cambodia to make use of natural gas deposits in the overlapping maritime area between Thailand and Cambodia.

The general admitted Mr Thaksin wanted to invest in joint natural gas development, but said that the project required further talks.

''I insist we've never talked about a trade-off between Preah Vihear and natural gas with Mr Thaksin,'' Gen Teah Banh said. ''How could we make such an agreement?''

Gen Teah Banh, also deputy prime minister, said the Preah Vihear issue has been used as a political tool to attack both the Thai and Cambodian governments. In Phnom Penh, he said, his government is also under heavy criticism by the opposition ahead of the general election on July 27.