dkhmernews

Land grabs in Cambodia push poor out

Rights groups press government to end forced resettlement as parcels sold off `to highest bidder'

Feb 21, 2009
Bill Schiller
Asia Bureau
Toronto Star (Ontario, Canada)


PHNOM PENH–When military police sealed off the ramshackle, inner-city neighbourhood of Dey Krahorm at 2 a.m. one day last month – preparing to forcibly remove its remaining residents to make way for a plush, new commercial development – Lee Robinson, of Victoria, B.C., was inside.

"We knew there was going to be trouble," says Robinson, who runs a small non-governmental organization here called Licadho Canada.
Robinson and a handful of other Canadians, Americans and Germans had come to show their support for the people of Dey Krahorm, many of whom had been fighting for years to cling to what they believed was their rightful property.

Robinson and her foreign colleagues are part of a small but vocal throng of international youth that has converged on Cambodia, to press international donors and their governments to call Cambodia's government to account over its continued seizure of neighbourhoods populated by the poor and to press for civil rights.

But that day last month, they could do little when the neighbourhood of Dey Krahorm was laid to waste by the developer, with the backing of military police, the riot squad, and a band of about 100 "hired hands" clutching crowbars and clubs.

When the sun finally rose over Phnom Penh, the developer's group pushed its way through barricades of wood, metal and vendors' carts mounted by residents, and cleared a path for a massive steam shovel that swung its arm like a baseball bat, crushing every structure in its path.

Tear gas boomed, fires erupted and people were dragged screaming from their homes. Police endured a rain of rocks in retaliation.

"Everything kind of went into a war zone," Robinson recalls. "It was chaos."

By noon it was over. Dey Krahorm, a neighbourhood that began in the mid-1980s and was once home to musicians, actors, comedians and even a few civil servants, was no more.

The defeated were trucked off to a resettlement site some 20 kilometres outside the city, and once again, the development of Cambodia's capital marched on.

International human rights groups here say this is happening with increasing frequency across one of the world's poorest countries.

As international aid floods into Cambodia – aimed at reducing poverty and helping to build infrastructure – the rich elite are growing ever more powerful, while the poor are getting pushed aside.

"Cambodia is basically up for sale," says David Pred, one of the founders of Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, a spinoff of a U.S.-based human rights organization.

"It's being parcelled up and sold to the highest bidder."

He says it's time the international community called a halt to it. And it's in a position to do so, he adds.

"International donors provide half of this government's national budget," he notes. "It's time they demanded accountability."

Pred and a growing number of non-governmental organizations and human rights defenders say aid to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen should be made conditional on its respect for law and human rights.

Once counted among the Dey Krahorm community's staunchest defenders was former Canadian ambassador to Phnom Penh, Donica Pottie.

"People here still remember her," says Naly Pilorge, a French, Canadian and Khmer national who heads Cambodia's largest human rights organization, The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights. "She stood up for the people of Dey Krahorm and for the poor."

While here, Pottie worked to free jailed human rights defenders and pressed the government to end forced removals and halt widespread land expropriation.

But Pottie returned to Ottawa in 2007 and Canada's mission here was downgraded from full-fledged embassy status following cutbacks from Ottawa.

This month, British-based environmental watchdog Global Witness issued a stinging report detailing what it alleges is the parcelling out of the nation's oil, gas and mineral reserves mainly to the family, friends and trusted associates of the government of Hun Sen.

Opposition parties here immediately seized on the report to demand an accounting from the government. But following national elections in July last year, in which Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party took 91 of 123 seats – elections that were criticized by the European Union and the United Nation's Special Representative for Human Rights as seriously flawed – the opposition is weak.

The government has promised to look into the matter, but with no stated timetable.

Meanwhile, as Cambodia's rich elite get richer, the nation continues to do without.

Cambodia has no national electricity grid.

Its highways are in a shambles.

And more than 60 per cent of Cambodians have no access to clean water.

The land on which Dey Krahorm once stood – the words mean "Red Soil" – was actually granted to the community by the government as a so-called Social Land Concession in 2003, one of several under a plan announced by Hun Sen himself to provide secure land tenure and on-site upgrading for Phnom Penh's poor.

But, as is so often the case in the developing world, the developer persuaded a tiny band of community leaders to affix their thumbprints to documents, turning over the entire parcel for their own lucrative private gain and a remote relocation outside the city. The deal was done without any consultation with the Dey Krahorm residents.

Some gave in. But a rump group of more than 150 families took a stand. They fired the leaders, elected their own and refused to move. Some 250 small retailers and renters stayed with them.

"In our view it (the land grab) was completely illegal," says German lawyer Manfred Hornung, who works for Pilorge's human rights organization and is now defending the leaders of the remaining residents who have been taken to court by the developers.

He warns, too, that forced removals like Dey Krahorm come with significant social costs, costs that may simmer now – and come to a boil later.

"Resettling people so far outside the city disrupts families, forces people to abandon jobs and takes children out of school."

And it's part of a pattern in recent years, he notes.

The forced removal of other Phnom Penh neighbourhoods like Sambok Chap, Mitheapheap and Russy Keo have all forced the poor from the city. And yet another target is Boeung Kak – a lake in the city's north end that developers plan to backfill and build on, pushing as many as 4,000 families in the surrounding area out of the city.

The plans for Boeung Kak constitute a social and environmental disaster in the making, says Pred of Bridges Across Borders.

"International aid is supposed to be about poverty reduction. But this epidemic of land theft is undermining the international community's best efforts.

"We're absolutely not anti-development," he says.

"But what we're seeing here is exclusive development for the super-rich, while the poor get pushed ever deeper into poverty. It's creating conditions for instability."

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Thailand on Friday sent a letter to Cambodia to apologize for the wrong shooting of mortar shell into Cambodian land on Feb. 17, according to a press release from the Cambodian foreign ministry.

"I am writing to express to you my sincerest apology for the unfortunate incident that took place on Feb. 17, 2009," said Anupong Paojinda, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Army, in the letter."The mortar shell that landed in the Kingdom of Cambodia was a result of the miscalculation during one of our training exercises. We have since launched a full investigation into the incident," he said.

"Please be assured that the Royal Thai Army has been strictly following the Kingdom of Thailand's policy to maintain peaceful and cordial relationship with all our neighbors. I would like to reassure you that we will use all means to prevent such an incident from happening again in the future," he added.

According to the press release from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the letter was addressed to Meas Sophea, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF).

Also on Friday, English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post quoted a RCAF military commander based in the border region as saying that in this week's incident the shells landed two kilometers inside the Cambodian territory.

The 81mm and 106mm shells came down near the Ta Krabey temple and the Bos Thom village, 6 shells exploded in the forest, another2 failed to go off, no one was injured, and no property was damaged, the commander said in condition of anonymity.

Tension between Thailand and Cambodia ratcheted higher in 2008 when troops from both countries clashed at the Preah Vihear temple and soldiers on both sides died in fighting in October, before an uneasy peace was restored.

Cambodians soldiers patrolling the borders.

Koh Santepheap newspaper
19th February, 2009
Reported in English by Khmerization

The Cambodian Foreign Ministry said that it will lodge a diplomatic complaint to the shelling of Cambodian territories by Thai troops on 17th February, even if Thailand has apologised.Mr. Koy Kuong, Foreign Ministry’s Secretary of State, said on the 18th February that the Foreign Ministry has sent military personnel to investigate the shelling to find out of where and how many shells were fired into Cambodian territories.

Mr. Koy Kuong said that he does not know the reasons why the Thai troops fired those artillery shells into Cambodia. The Thai commanders based in the areas has apologised to the Khmer commanders, but Mr. Koy Kuong said that diplomatic protest will still be lodged.

Speaking in an interview with Radio Free Asia, Mr. Koy Kuong said: “We will lodge a diplomatic protest with Thailand in the not too distant future. We only need to wait for enough information first.”

On 17th February, 10 artillery shells fired from Kap Cherng district of Sisaket province landed a few kilometres inside Cambodian territories. The shells landed a near Boss Thmor Daun village and Chup Angkanh village of Kork Kposs commune, Banteay Ampil district in Ouddor Meanchey province. Seven shells exploded and 3 shells did not explode.

Cambodian military sources said that the Thai said that they were doing a military exercise in Andet Mut commune of Kap Cherng district in Sisaket province. The Cambodian military sources said that the artillery shells were probably fired from artillery guns mounted on military tanks.

Mr. Var Kim Hong, chairman of Cambodian Border Committee, said that the Thai shelling are in violation of international laws and Cambodian sovereignty. He added that Thailand has every right to stage a military exercise, but to fire artillery shells into Cambodian territories is a violation of Cambodian sovereignty.

Villagers living in the border areas said that up until now they still hear the sounds of artillery fires on the Thai side of the borders which caused the Cambodian villagers to live in fears.

Sources close to the Cambodian government said that the Cambodian side has been very patient in regard to past border violations from Thailand because Cambodia wants a good neighbourly relationship with Thailand. Cambodia has agreed to engage in many bilateral talks with Thailand in good faith, but it seems that the Thai side has not reciprocated in the same manners as it has repeatedly caused problems by violating Cambodian sovereignty again and again.

Mr. Khieu Kanharith, the government spokesman, cannot be contacted to make any comments, but he has said yesterday that a team of military personnel has been sent to the areas to investigate the Thai shelling. He said that Cambodia will send a diplomatic aide-memoire through the Thai embassy.

A Cambodian military source based near Ta Krabey and Ta Moan Thom temples said that on the afternoon of 18th February, Gen. Kun Kim, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), has led a team of military personnel to investigate the matter on the spots.

A Cambodian military officer said that the shells landed approximately 1-2 kilometres northeast of Ta Krabey temple inside Cambodian territories.

Thursday, 19 February 2009
Richard S. Ehrlich
Scoop.co.nz (New Zealand)
Tortured Americans Also Buried in Cambodia's "Killing Fields"

BANGKOK, Thailand -- An estimated 1.7 million corpses are rotting in Cambodia's "killing fields," including two Americans from California and Minneapolis, whose blank-faced alleged torturer appeared in court on Tuesday (February 17) at the start of a U.N.- backed international tribunal.
"One Cambodian government document found in the National Archives of Cambodia revealed that an American, Michael Deeds, was taken to the notorious Tuol Sleng S-21 prison, tortured, and then executed during the last days of the Khmer Rouge government regime in Cambodia in 1979," wrote American investigators connected to the U.S. Defense Department.

"He was then buried behind Tuol Sleng," said the Defense POW/ Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), which searched among dusty files in 2000, unable to find further leads to determine what happened to the Americans.

Mr. Deeds, who went to high school in Long Beach, California, was seized by the Khmer Rouge along with others on a boat near Cambodia's coast.

He was travelling with James William Clark of Minneapolis, who was also interrogated in Tuol Sleng and died.

The burial ground for Tuol Sleng's victims includes 100 mass graves and skeleton-packed pits on the outskirts of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.

Nearby, the U.N. tribunal began its long-awaited hearings by displaying the elderly former Khmer Rouge torturer and interrogator, Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch (pronounced "Doyk").

Facing judges, lawyers, survivors, investigators and others, Duch stared wide-eyed and mostly expressionless while the court went through dry preparations to hear Duch's testimony, expected in March.

Duch operated Tuol Sleng where victims suffered water boarding, beatings, throat slitting, extraction of body parts with pliers, hanging, and other horrific abuse, according to former prisoner Vann Nath, who later documented the acts in gruesome paintings.

Duch has partially confessed, and his testimony would provide valuable details about what went on when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975-79.

The Khmer Rouge's victory came when they toppled Cambodia's U.S.- backed Lon Nol regime in 1975, at the end of Southeast Asia's regional Vietnam War, which America lost in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished under the Khmer Rouge's reign, which crumbled when a newly united Vietnam invaded impoverished Cambodia.

Duch, however, may not be able to offer much help in locating the remains of the Americans, or anyone else, because when Tuol Sleng's 16,000 tortured victims were dragged away, they were shoved by other Khmer Rouge cadres into unmarked graves.

The document about Mr. Deeds was described by the DPMO team as requesting "the disposition of Deeds, while in Tuol Sleng prison in late 1978, before the Pol Pot regime had him executed.

"Deeds was one of four Americans allegedly killed while possibly smuggling marijuana from Thailand, when their ship went off course and ended up in Cambodian waters, where they were boarded by Khmer Rouge and captured," said the U.S. team.

"Michael Scott Deeds, 29 years old, male, spy of Americans," reads a brief identification tag dated November 26, 1978, according to a separate Tuol Sleng Catalogue of Confessions compiled by Cornell University.

Tuol Sleng's interrogators extracted confessions from people who were tortured until they spouted the names of relatives, friends, associates, officials, strangers, and anyone else they could think of.

In agony, victims told whatever incriminating stories they thought would please their tormentors -- apparently hoping to end the pain or escape execution.

To prove their rapid, conveyor belt system of interrogations was efficient, Tuol Sleng's officials presented them as fact.

As a result, other Khmer Rouge believed the confessions, and brought in more and more innocent victims.

They, in turn, incriminated others in an increasingly absurd and vicious spiral which quickly decimated the government and its supporters.

Khmer Rouge loyalists, patriots and enthusiastic cadres soon found themselves scheduled for execution, based on Tuol Sleng's hand- written and typed dossiers.

America was castigated as Cambodia's worst enemy, and frequently appeared in confession statements.

But Washington was secretly covering up, and trying to improve, America's relations with Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.

"You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them," U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Thailand's political and military officials in Washington on November 26, 1975, seven months after Pol Pot seized power.

"They are murderous thugs, but we won't let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them," Mr. Kissinger said according to a recently declassified U.S. State Department transcript.

"Tell them the latter part, but don't tell them what I said before," Mr. Kissinger told Thailand's U.S.-backed Foreign Minister Chatichai Choonhavan and his delegation -- three years before the confessions were extracted from Mr. Deeds and Mr. Clark at Tuol Sleng.

In 1989, Mr. Deeds's brother traveled to Tuol Sleng, but was unable to find his remains.

*************
Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism, and his web page is http://www.geocities.com/asia_correspondent

2009/02/19
By Annie Freeda Cruezannie
fc@nst.com.my
New Straits Times (Malaysia)

KUALA LUMPUR: The World Health Organisation has warned that the HIV/AIDS epidemic may take a turn for the worse in Asia unless countries urgently expand access to health services for men who have sex with men.

WHO regional adviser on HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infection Dr Massimo Ghidinelli said evidence showed that unprotected male-to-male sex was again fuelling the spread of the disease.

"Studies show that at present, the proportion of HIV infections being transmitted among men who have sex with men is larger and more significant than we had originally believed," he said in a statement.
This re-emerging mode of transmission has prompted WHO's Regional Office for the Western Pacific, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, and the Hong Kong Department of Health, to call for swift action to address this growing health crisis.

The organisers have started meeting with HIV/AIDS specialists from Asian governments, regional experts and representatives from non-governmental organisations since yesterday to discuss strategies to deliver better services to MSM communities.

Countries participating in the conference in Hong Kong are Australia, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Hong Kong, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

Dr Ghidinelli said strengthening surveillance and implementing effective interventions for HIV prevention and care among men having sex with men should be prioritised to prevent the further spread of the virus.

A review in December 2007 showed that in Cambodia and Vietnam, men who have sex with men are more likely to contract HIV compared with the general population.

In China , the risk of infection by men who have sex with men is 45 times higher than for men in general. Asia is believed to have the world's largest number of men having sex with men, estimated at 10 million.

Dr Ghidinelli said the lack of better access to HIV/AIDS services can be traced to the stigma and discrimination associated with male-to-male sex, which is frowned upon in some societies, and to breaches of human rights, including the right to better health.

Khmer soldiers on patrol near Phnom Trop.

Radio Free Asia
By Sav Yuth
17th Feb, 2009
Reported in English by Khmerization

Khmer villagers living along the borders in Boss Thom village of Kork Kposs commune in Banteay Ampil district, Ouddor Meanchey province claimed that Thai soldiers based on top of Phnom Thmor Roy (Mount Hundred Rocks) about 2 kilometres east of Ta Krabey temple have shot many artillery rounds into Khmer territories near Ta Krabey temple on the morning of 17th February, 2009.

The villagers said that they heard many rounds of artillery shot by Thai troops based on top of Phnom Thmor Roy at 11 o'clock in the morning.The villagers said that one shell landed inside Khmer territories about 3 kilometres from their village causing panic among the villagers. One village said: "The Thai soldiers based on top of Phnom Thmor Roy fired the artillery... The villagers here all heard the sounds..... they are the sounds of artillery fires. Some shells landed on the mountain and about 10 shells landed on the foot of the mountain causing the people to gather their children in a safe place."

The Thai soldiers cannot be contacted for any comments regarding the allegations.

Khmer military officers from Battalion 42 said that at around 12 midday on Tuesday (17th) they heard many rounds of artillery shelling but they don't know of the reasons why the Thai side shelled the Khmer territories. Now, the Cambodian border troops have been sent to investigate. The same officer said: "Yes, there are shelling..artillery shelling. I cannot tell you in details because I don't know yet. My troops have been sent to investigate the matters."

Brig-Gen. Pov Heng, Deputy Commander of the Northern Region, said through telephone that there were shelling but he did not know of the reasons. He said: "We are sending our troops to investigate the matters."

Until 2 o'clock in the afternoon there is no news of the reasons for the Thai shellings but no one was injured by the shelling.

News from the Preah Vihear frontline said that about 30 Thai soldiers have entered Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak pagoda and stayed there many hours. They came to forbid the Cambodian monks residing in the temple not to build a new bathroom and extend the dining hall.

The news said that from 1 pm the same day, all Cambodian soldiers in the areas were ordered to remain in their positions on high alert, after news that the Thai shelled the Cambodian territories.