Cambodia carve-up under the
spotlight By Sebastian Strangio
PHNOM PENH -There were scenes of
jubilation in Cambodia's capital last month when a
group of 13 imprisoned women - including a
72-year-old grandmother - was set free by an
appeal court. The women were arrested in May
during peaceful demonstrations against the forced
eviction of thousands of families living around
Boeung Kak Lake, an area in central Phnom Penh
earmarked for a glitzy housing and commercial
development.
The company behind the
controversial development is known as Shukaku Inc,
an obscure firm known to be a front for the
interests of Lao Meng Khin, a leading tycoon and
senator for the ruling Cambodian People's Party
(CPP). Two Chinese companies are also reported to
be investing in the project, which has seen the
lake - once ringed by a
bustling community of more than 4,000 families -
reduced to a massive sand bank in the center of
the city. Most families have already left the site
in exchange for resettlement or small cash
hand-outs, but a robust protest movement continues
to resist eviction.
After their arrest on
May 22, the 13 Boeung Kak women were charged with
illegally occupying private land, and in a swift
trial held just two days later - an unprecedented
turnaround for Cambodia's poorly resourced court
system - were each sentenced to two-and-a-half
years in jail. One land rights activist told
Agence France-Presse at the time that the
proceedings were "a show trial - a complete
charade".
The plight of the "Boeung Kak
13", as they widely became known, immediately
attracted sympathy at home and internationally:
the band of working mothers and grassroots
activists even received support from US Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, who called for their
release during Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor
Namhong's recent visit to Washington DC. Though
the appeal court failed to overturn their
convictions - it merely reduced their sentences -
the band of hardy women and their supporters have
vowed to fight on.
"The land that belongs
to the company is the villagers' land, so we will
keep protesting," said Khek Chanrasmey, 31, who
has lived at the lake since 1980.
The
release of the Boeung Kak 13 is Prime Minister Hun
Sen's government's latest reaction to rising
concern about mass evictions triggered by the sale
of Cambodian land to foreign firms. Since the late
1990s, when the disintegration of the feared Khmer
Rouge brought long-awaited political stability,
the CPP-dominated government has put the country
up for sale. Millions of hectares of land have
been leased to foreign development companies
working in cahoots with local tycoons, turning the
wild landscape of rural Cambodia into a patchwork
of rubber, cashew, sugar and cassava plantations.
According to the local human-rights group
Licadho, which monitors land disputes and rights
abuses, foreign mining and agriculture firms now
control a total of 3.9 million hectares in
Cambodia, or 22% of the country's surface area.
Industrial agri-business deals, known as economic
land concessions (ELCs), now account for 53% of
Cambodia's total arable land. Last year alone, the
government approved 2 million hectares in
concessions for 227 plantation firms.
These new ELCs have also been blamed for
the evictions of thousands of farmers from their
land, and have led to an escalating number of
protests, arrests and violent clashes in all
corners of the country. To give just a few recent
examples: on May 16, a week before the Boeung Kak
arrests, a 14-year-old girl was shot dead by
security forces during a violent land altercation
in Kratie province. The authorities recently
detained Loun Savath, a Buddhist monk who has
supported the Boeung Kak protestors and other
victims of land-grabs, and threatened to disrobe
him. Both these events came a month after the
fatal shooting of the prominent forestry activist
Chut Wutty by military police in a remote part of
Koh Kong province.
Local activists have
also launched a boycott against Cambodian "blood
sugar". According to the Cambodia Clean Sugar
Campaign, villagers have been forcibly cleared
from thousands of hectares of sugar plantations -
including ten tracts of land owned by Ly Yong
Phat, another CPP senator-tycoon - during which
their crops were destroyed, homes burnt down and
animals shot by hired thugs and state security
forces.
Lands for allies Hun Sen
has responded to the upsurge of bad publicity by
announcing a moratorium on the granting of new
economic land concessions. The May 7 order stated
that officials should "temporarily postpone
providing economic land concessions" and "ensure
there is no impact to community land and people's
livelihoods". The order also stated, however, that
all previously earmarked ELCs would be able to
proceed.
So far these have included three
rubber plantations totaling 21,624 hectares, which
the premier approved on May 18, and four further
ELCs encompassing 35,000 hectares-all in protected
areas and wildlife sanctuaries-granted on June 7.
Licadho's director Naly Pilorge said the loophole
in the moratorium was "so big it swallows the ban
itself" and that it was unclear how many more
pre-mortatorium concessions were in the
government's pipeline. Her group said in a
statement that it had documented new concessions
totaling over 80,000 hectares, "an area larger
than the size of Singapore", since the moratorium
was imposed.
Other government critics were
quick to point out that the ban came a month
before important local elections, which the CPP
won convincingly. "The ruling party tried to gain
support from the people before the election. They
try to make a show a little bit, but after that
the people will suffer again," said Yim Sovann, a
spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party. "If
you want to solve the problem, you must stop
giving land concessions to private companies. The
priority is our farmers. If our farmers don't have
enough land, there will be social turmoil."
Hun Sen has also appointed his second son
Hun Manith - a colonel in the armed forces, with
no known experience in land administration - as
deputy secretary-general of the government's land
dispute authority. In this role, Manith will be
responsible for leading a new land titling drive
that will give displaced villagers parcels of land
within ELCs and state forests. Im Chhun Lim, the
Minister of Land Management, has said that the
titling program, announced by Hun Sen last month,
will "bring the safety of land occupation, leaving
the owners free of concerns and confusion".
Independent observers, however, argue
these changes are merely a cosmetic fix, and have
pointed out that past "bans" have had little
effect. In May 2009, for instance, Hun Sen
announced a ban on sand exports amid concerns that
industrial-scale dredging in coastal areas
threatened long-term environmental damage. Within
months, however, dredgers had restarted
operations. The United Kingdom-based watchdog
group Global Witness claimed that up to 796,000
tonnes of sand were being removed from Koh Kong
province each month as of mid-2010, mostly for
export to Singapore. Past bans on illegal logging
have met a similar fate.
"I see the same
thing with the logging. It's still going on," said
Son Soubert, an independent political analyst.
In fact, the problem may lie with the very
systems of patronage that have kept Hun Sen in
power in Cambodia for nearly three decades. Under
this system, preferential access to Cambodia's
rich natural resources is granted to tycoons,
military commanders and politicians as a reward
for political loyalty, in return for their
financial support of the CPP. Ou Virak, president
of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said
this has led to a burgeoning of economic interests
to which Hun Sen parcels out spoils but lacks the
power to control.
"He's succeeded to rule
for many years with that style of leadership,"
Virak said, but "the pie is getting smaller, and
more and more people are getting interested in
it." With an upsurge in popular discontent tied to
land issues, the stability of this finely-balanced
system is something that can no longer be taken
for granted, he believes.
"If more and
more people are beginning to think Hun Sen does
not have the power he would like them to believe,
it will be interesting to see if he can continue
to hold power the way he has," Virak said. "I
don't know if it's going to work beyond the next
five years."
Sebastian Strangio
is a journalist based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He
may be reached at sebastian.strangio@gmail.com
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