Booming Cambodian economy leads to mass evictions

Cambodians forced from homes by rich 'land grabbers'

3/17/2011
By Catholic Onlin

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Cambodia's strong, new economy has not trickled down to benefit many of the nation's poor but humble laborers. Indeed, many face evictions from wealthy "land grabbers" who gobble up residential areas for commercial purposes. According to Surya P Subedi, the U.N. special reporter on human rights in Cambodia, what is happening is "representative of the problems of this nature that exist in the country. Land grabbing by the rich and powerful is a major problem in Cambodia today."

The Cambodian people have a long history of being evicted from their native land, beginning with the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Cambodian rights group Adhoc says that last year alone, 12,389 families in the country became the victims of forced evictions. Another rights group, housing advocates STT, estimates that around 10 percent of the population of Phnom Penh has faced eviction in the last decade.

The Cambodian Human Rights Foundation (LICADHO) director Naly Pilorge says that in their survey of half the country's provinces "between 2005 and 2009 some 250,000 people were evicted. Last year alone we dealt with 94 new cases of land grabbing involving approximately 49,280 people -- and the problem is escalating," she says.

In just one example the residents of Boeung Kak, a lake in the heart of Phnom Penh were forcibly moved as developers filled in the lake with sand and silt scooped out of a nearby river in order to make way for a new, residential, commercial and entertainment complex is due to be constructed.

As Cambodia's economy booms, land is becoming more valuable, particularly in the capital, Phnom Penh.

The economy grew by 5.5 per cent last year. A law introduced last year allows foreign ownership of property. Another new law allows the government to expropriate land for developments it deems to be in the public interest.

The Cambodian ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries says that the government granted more than 1.38 million hectares of land in concessions to 142 different private companies between 1993 and June 2010.

Cambodia has some very unique issues when it comes to land and the people who live on it. In 1975, the notorious Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, after years of fighting and U.S. bombing.

One of their first acts was to evacuate the entire population of Phnom Penh, the populace forced into the countryside; this became the horror that came to be known as the Killing Fields.

Around 20 percent of the country's population died in that carnage, while the Khmer Rouge also abolished private property, destroying land titles and records.

In 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia. Many Cambodians fled to neighboring Thailand, with conflict then continuing into the 1990s. This left an enormous displaced population, with many survivors moving to areas because they were safe and offered a chance of survival.

Many of those there now were born in refugee camps in Thailand, or remember all too well the horrors of that era.

"In 1979, the Khmer Rouge shot my husband in front of me, by the roadside, as we tried to get back into Phnom Penh," says 67-year-old Ngin Savoeun. Her house was flooded with sand and water last November. "I've lost everything now," she says. "I had no time to take anything away when they started flooding my home. I survived the Khmer Rouge and now this."