During his speech last week at the swearing-in ceremony of Phnom Penh’s new governor, Pa Socheatvong, Interior Minister Sar Kheng noted that managing Cambodia’s capital is by no means an easy task. …
While critics of [former Phnom Penh governor] Mr. [Kep] Chuktema note his failure to settle high-profile land disputes and struggle to deal with the city’s expanding population, it is impossible not to notice some of Mr. Chuktema’s accomplishments. …
“[O]verall, in the last decade [Mr. Chuktema’s] tenure has overseen modest but uncoordinated infrastructure improvements set against increased isolation and forcible displacement of the urban poor,” [NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut] Ms. [Nora] Lindstorm said, noting that since 2003, about 100,000 Phnom Penh residents have been displaced to relocation sites in and around Phnom Penh where access to employment, education healthcare and clean water is often limited.
“In sum, we have seen unregulated urbanization that has benefited a small strata of society and has increased spatial inequality. Phnom Penh today is more gridlocked, less green and less equitable than ten years ago,” she added.
In 2007, City Hall announced that it had leased 133 hectares of land surrounding and including Boeng Kak for almost $80 million to Shukaku Inc., a company owned by CPP senator Lao Meng Khin. The forced evictions that followed have given rise to the most high-profile land dispute in the country, as landless protesters from the Boeng Kak community have taken to the streets on an almost daily basis to demonstrate against what they say is a collusion between City Hall and Shukaku in illegally usurping their land without proper compensation. …
Still, Mr. Chutema’s focus on major construction projects and the beautification of Phnom Penh has attracted much needed investment, according to Nuon Rithy, the managing director of Bonna Realty, one of the city’s largest real estate firms. …
Others, however say the municipality over the past ten years has failed to tackle the rate at which the population is growing. According to Khem Ley, a socioeconomic researcher at the Advanced Research Consultant Team, an independent consultancy, Phnom Penh’s population is growing at a rate of almost 7.5 percent a year. …
In March, Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed concern for the failing state of Phnom Penh’s infrastructure during a meeting with the visiting mayor of Paris. He said the city’s expansion had led to electricity shortages, traffic jams, trash problems and an inadequate water supply system. …
Phnom Penh’s new governor used his swearing in ceremony to Friday to boldly vow to solve some of the municipality’s longest-running and most high-emotive land disputes.
Pa Socheatvong officially took over on Friday from outgoing governor Kep Chuktema, who served as the city’s chief for 10 years and whose administration will likely be best remembered for the widely unpopular filling in of Boeng Kak lake and the violent land evictions there and at the Borei Keila community, whose landless residents continue to protest regularly in Phnom Penh.
“We all vow to continue to solve the remaining problems such as public order and traffic problems, environment and green city problems, infrastructure – especially roads, drainage and clean water problems and some remaining land disputes such as the Boeng Kak lake area, the Borei Keila area and the Thmar Kaul communities and reservoirs,” said Mr. Socheatvong, who was previously the city’s deputy governor. …
Sia Phearum, director of the land rights NGO Housing Rights Task Force, said he feared the new governors promise was mere electioneering ahead of the July 28 national election. …
Phnom Penh, a city once fabled for its stately colonial buildings and boulevards, and its serene riverside setting, is becoming a city of glaring contrasts.
An economy left in ruins by the years of war and violent revolution in the 1970s and 80s grew at a rate of almost 10% a year from 1998 to 2008. Cheap land, cheap labour and rich natural resources have attracted big inflows of foreign investment, especially from Asian neighbours like China, Vietnam and Thailand. That has ignited a property boom.
For the first time in its history Phnom Penh’s skyline is being pierced by modern high-rise towers, offering new office space and luxury apartments. Land prices are soaring, and developers are constantly seeking out new possibilities for construction.
One area they targeted was the city’s largest lake, Boeng Kak. A company owned by a senator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, Shukaku, was given a 99-year lease to drain and build on the lake in 2007.
Another was the centre city neighbourhood of Borei Keila, which another politically-connected company, Phanimex, was given the right to develop in 2003. …
The Cambodian Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a jailed land rights activist’s appeal to be released on bail, drawing criticism from rights groups who said the whole case smacked of political interference and should be thrown out. …
“I am having heart, respiratory, and stomach issues,” she said. “I have many responsibilities, defending my family and land. If the court wants to see real justice, I believe that I should be released.”
“But the Boeung Kak community and I will continue to struggle forever and we will not be defeated,” [Yorm Bopha] said. …
“The Supreme Court’s ruling comes as no surprise,” they said, adding that just over a week before Yorm Bopha’s appearance at the court, Prime Minister Hun Sen had publicly stated in a televised speech that her case had nothing to do with land issues and that she instead had acted “violently and unjustly in the eyes of the government.”
Faced with widespread evictions and opaque private sector deals, activists in Cambodia are calling on the government to be more open and transparent about land concessions, beef up mechanisms for resolving land disputes, and abide by the rule of law. …
It is estimated that at least two thirds of Cambodians, many of them poverty-stricken farmers, lack proper deeds to the property they live on. Over the past decade thousands have been forcibly evicted from their homes, while others have fallen victim to land-grabbing. During this time of rapid economic growth, and with more growth forecast, there has been increasing demand for land in this largely agricultural country of about 15mn people, and rising land tenure insecurity, experts say. …
Rights groups have largely welcomed a moratorium on the granting of new ELCs, a review of existing concessions, and a nationwide land-titling programme announced by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in June 2012 to stem the number of disputes. According to ADHOC, official data states that by the end of 2012, more than 71,000 land titles had been issued through the programme. …
Cambodian government spokesperson Phay Siphan said allegations of government complicity in land-grabbing were “baseless” and, if necessary, people could take disputes to court. …
At least six people were seriously injured Wednesday in clashes between about 100 villagers demanding land compensation and 300 security personnel in front of the home of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, activists said.
According to villager representative Tep Vanny, the evictees from Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak lake community had earlier protested in front of the Ministry of Justice over the dispute and called for the release of a jailed fellow activist. …
When the mostly-female villagers tried to enter Hun Sen’s residence to confront the prime minister, “around 300 [security personnel] surrounded the villagers and detained at least three of them,” she said.
The action by Phnom Penh municipal police and Daun Penh district security guards, who were armed with riot shields and batons, led to a confrontation between the two sides that quickly escalated into violence, activists said. …
Protests over Boeung Kak Lake evictions have been ongoing since 2008, when the Chinese-Cambodian Shukaku Inc. began draining the lake to make way for a luxury residential development, drawing international attention to the country’s land development policies. …
According to Licadho, the government has given away nearly 4 million hectares (15,000 square miles), or 22 percent of the country’s land area, in mining or economic land concessions, in some cases pitting residents against developers and sparking protests. …
Four families who were violently evicted from Borei Keila in January last year built shelters yesterday in the rubbish where their houses once stood, claiming the land still belonged to them.
The evictees erected small frames on the land, in the capital’s Prampi Makara district, irritating Suy Sophan, the owner of Borei Keila developer Phan Imex, who accused them of trespassing. …
Phan Imex, backed by municipal authorities, evicted about 300 families from Borei Keila on January 3 last year, ordering them to remote housing sites out of the city.
As part of a land swap deal inked in 2004, the company was contracted to build 10 high-rise apartment blocks for 1,776 families at Borei Keila, in exchange for their adjacent land, but finished only eight, leaving hundreds homeless. …
Dy Sokdeoun, a commune security official, said the villagers should leave the land if they did not want to deal with authorities and another “company crackdown”.
“They should be patient and wait for a solution to avoid being charged for building shelter on the company’s land,” he said. …
The Phnom Penh Municipality and delegates from Cleveland, Tennessee, yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to establish sister-city status, officials said. …
“While we are welcoming [the delegates], there are people outside who are demanding that we solve their housing problems,” said Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema, referring to the group of about 50 Boeng Kak evictees who are staging a protest to ask for land titles. …
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday convicted 64-year-old Borei Keila resident Tim Sakmony for making a false declaration, but released the anti-eviction activist owing to time already served in prison.
Ms. Sakmony’s day in court came, without explanation, at precisely the same time as the trial of a fellow anti-eviction protester Yorm Bopha, who was charged in an entirely different case. Their appearance in court drew crowds of supporters. …
As Barack Obama was declared president of the United States for a second term yesterday, about 50 anti-eviction protesters for the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities camped out in front of the U.S. Embassy and appealed for the president’s help in addressing land rights when he visits Phnom Penh later this month.
But hours after the camp was established, roughly 100 riot police with batons and shields moved in under the cover of darkness and removed the peaceful protesters.
“We have come here to congratulate President Obama on his win, and we ask him to intervene and release our activists who are in prison,” said Boeng Kok resident Bouv Sophea, as she and other evictees knelt and prayed outside the embassy holding a large picture of Mr. Obama. …
About 100 residents embroiled in land disputes in Phnom Penh submitted a petition to the U.S. Embassy yesterday requesting that President Barack Obama raise the issue of evictions and reform of the country’s land concession policy when he visits Cambodia later this month.
The plea comes on the heels of a resolution passed by the European Parliament last month, which blamed economic land concessions licensed to agro-business companies for driving some 400,000 families off their land in the past 10 years. …
After the group submitted the petition to the embassy, they marched toward the Royal Palace only to be blocked by a line of police on Norodom Boulevard.
As they stood in front of the authorities the protesters shouted, “We are living under the pressure of this government. Please, President Obama, help us.”
Mr. Obama is scheduled to visit Phnom Penh for the Asean and East Asia summits, which run concurrently between November 18 and 21. …
Evictees wearing small model houses on their heads to symbolize their struggles marched to the National Assembly yesterday to ask authorities to intervene to stop more forced evictions.
About 400 representatives of 40 communities across the capital joined human rights activists at the former Dey Krahorm eviction site on Chamkarmon district’s Tonle Sap commune yesterday as part of a World Habitat Day event.
World Habitat Day was celebrated internationally on October 1, but many of the activists who attended yesterday had spent that day supporting Beehive Radio director Mam Sonando as he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for masterminding a so-called secessionist plot in Kratie province. …
Hundreds of families from more than a dozen communities joined local human rights groups yesterday as they rallied outside the National Assembly for World Habitat Day, calling for an end to forced land evictions in Phnom Penh. …
Among those protesting were residents from the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, who are still embroiled in long-running disputes with powerful property firms after being forcefully evicted from their homes. Protesters from the former Group 78 and Dey Krahorm communities —both of which were violently evicted from prime real estate in Phnom Penh in 2009—were also present at the demonstration.
The latest group to be threatened with eviction came from Pur Senchey district’s Choam Chao commune, where three villages near Phnom Penh International Airport face imminent eviction as part of security preparations for world leaders ahead of next month’s Asean and East Asia summits. …
A motodop at the center of the high-profile case against imprisoned Boeung Kak lake villager Yorm Bopha has returned to work after receiving treatment for head injuries, he said yesterday.
Supporters of Nget Chet, 28, said during demonstrations last month that the motodop had been nearly brain damaged during an axe attack he blames on Bopha, 29, a well-known land activist. …
Bopha was charged with causing intentional violence over the alleged attack on Chet and his cousin Vath Thaiseng, 24, and ordered into pre-trial detention in Prey Sar prison. …
Three of the Cambodia’s most important donors have now condemned the 20-year jail term handed down to independent radio station owner Mam Sonando for alleged insurrection activities-a verdict branded as politically motivated by many local and international human rights groups.
Despite the tough words from the normally very diplomatic donors, none have suggested that aid will be cut nor other sanctions threatened despite what many see as a steady decline in freedom of association, of speech and mounting use of state violence against peaceful protests. …
But foreign donors are not averse to cutting aid in protest. Last year, the World Bank froze all new lending to Cambodia over the forced eviction of thousands of Phnom Penh’s families to make way for a Chinese-funded real estate project at Boeng Kak. Loans from the World Bank currently remain frozen.
Anti-eviction activists from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila neighborhoods, dressed as white doves, protested yesterday in front of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, where the country’s donors were meeting with top government officials to discuss the country’s reform targets.
Donning paper helmets shaped like doves’ heads and draped in white banners reading “Give Liberty” and “The citizens are not your enemies,” the 100 or so protesters attempted to deliver a petition to donors asking for the release of two fellow activists awaiting trial at Prey Sar prison. …
the protesters also wanted to bring donors’ attention to the government’s use of armed force against people during protests and land evictions, said Long Kimheang, communications officer for the NGO Housing Rights Task Force. …
More than 60 people yesterday rallied at the National Assembly, the UN Human Rights Office, the Danish Embassy and the German Embassy as part of a petition campaign to seek the release of two jailed women from the Boeung Kak and Borei Keila communities.
Villagers and their children used yesterday’s Constitution Day holiday to finish submitting petitions calling for several foreign entities in Phnom Penh to intervene on behalf of Borei Keila’s Tim Sakmony and Boeung Kak’s Yorm Bopha, Borei Keila representative Brack Sopha said yesterday. …
The UN Human Rights Office and the Danish and Germany embassies’ representatives yesterday accepted the villagers’ petitions but said they could not promise to find solutions for them.
Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities delivered petitions to the offices of the European Union and World Bank yesterday in their ongoing attempts to enlist Cambodia’s aid donors in their efforts to have jailed anti-eviction activists released from Prey Sar prison. …
About 100 residents from the two communities joined yesterday’s trip to the country offices of the E.U. and World Bank by tuk-tuk, as police have recently prevented them from staging their usual foot marches on the ground that they were disrupting public order. …
International human rights groups added their voices to the chorus of criticism over the detention of two female anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, accusing the court of failing to honor fair trial standards.
In a statement issued late Thursday, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and four other international rights groups condamned what they referred to as “dubious charges” laid separately against the two women: Yorm Bopha and Toem Sakmony. …
Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said he had seen the joint statement, but insisted that the courts must be left to carry out their work. …
More than 200 motorcycle-taxi drivers gathered in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park yesterday, for the third time, to protest against human rights groups who have characterized the recent arrest of two anti-eviction activists as politically motivated.
The little known taxi drivers’ union, Cambodia for Confederation Development Association (CCDA), rallied on Friday for the first in a demonstration against residents of Boeng Kak community who claimed that Yorm Bopha had been jailed for her anti-eviction activism. Supporters of the CCDA say that Ms. Bopha was arrested and jailed for common assault against the son and nephew of one of their members. The CCDA delivered a petition letter to the Justice Ministry on Monday, demanding that Ms. Bopha be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. …
Two of the people taking part in yesterday’s protests by the CCDA said they had no idea what it was about, but had joined in for the promised payment of money. …
