Land right advocate, turned back by corrupted police
Posted on Monday, May 14, 2007 (EST)
Tieng Khov has only enough food to feed his family for the next few weeks -- leftovers from last year's harvest that were brought in before the bulldozers came to plough under his crops.
CHHOUK VILLAGE, Cambodia (AFP) - The 46-year-old says he is tired, but the anger has not gone out of him; like hundreds of families in this farming community in southwestern Cambodia, he suddenly lost everything to the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company land concession that overtook his rice fields and orchard.
"We still have a surplus of crops from last year, but when that runs out, we will die," says Tieng Khov, who lost 17 hectares (42 acres) of land.
"They've killed the animals, they've threatened the people and they've stolen the land," he said.
Behind him the 9,700-hectare (24,000-acre) Koh Kong Sugar concession, one of the largest in Cambodia, stretches in an arc along the foot of some low hills, a vast gash of bare earth and smoking brush cuttings.
A moat has been dug around the border, and armed police stand guard, turning away the curious.
Koh Kong Sugar, one of at least 57 ventures awarded "economic land concessions" since 1992 under a plan to turn fallow fields into export crop plantations, is a glaring example of how Cambodia is being parcelled out to politically connected companies, land rights advocates said.
This "land grab," as the activists call it, has dispossessed tens of thousands and fuelled a growing anger at the government's disregard for its most vulnerable people, they said.
Most of those left homeless by land seizures are poor farmers or urban slum dwellers with little or no political leverage.
Only some are compensated for their losses and of those who do get money, few are paid anywhere near fair market value for land that is often re-sold for hundreds of dollars a square metre (yard).
"Almost no economic land concessions in Cambodia involve consultations with the residents in the communities," says one lawyer with the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC).
"We can see that land grabbing has increased every day -- evictions, conflicts between the poor and the rich taking their land," said the lawyer, who asked that his name not be used.
Land right lawyer Seng Sokhim(L) talked with poor victims
Land records were largely destroyed by the communist Khmer Rouge, which forced most of Cambodia's population onto vast collective farms during their rule in the late 1970s.
In the chaos that followed the regime's overthrow in 1979, people simply occupied whatever land was available, and many remain where they settled at that time.
While Cambodia's 2001 land law allows people to keep land that they have worked for five years without dispute, few have obtained full title.
As land values rise sharply, they are falling prey to those with the money to buy up as much property as possible and the power to flout land rights legislation.
"The government created many institutions to resolve these problems. But none of these institutions work," CLEC's lawyer says.
Some have tried to fight these seizures in court, but few have any trust in Cambodia's notoriously inept judiciary.
"We filed papers already to sue the company, but frankly there is no action. The courts are very corrupt -- I have no idea what the outcome will be," said Tieng Khov.
More often, farmers and villagers are forced to directly confront those taking away their farms, sometimes with disastrous results.
When the Koh Kong Sugar bulldozers came to tear up their farms, all the villagers here could do was shout, said Sim Men
"It did no good. We stood and yelled but then armed police came down," the 25-year-old says. "I was visited by armed men and told to sell my land."
Since then, any cattle or buffalo caught wandering onto company land have been shot and their owners fined as much as 100 dollars for the "infraction," she said.
"I used to hear the sound of guns and I was very scared," she said, explaining that her family of six used to be able to survive on the 250 dollars they earned each year from their cashew and mango farms.
"I hear the company is coming to take my home -- right now I am in limbo," she said as she sat near the deep ditch that now keeps her from her old farm.
Guards working for Koh Kong Sugar had also opened fire last year on a crowd of villagers trying to stop the bulldozers, wounding several in the legs, said Tieng Khov.
Cambodian senator Ly Yong Phat, who owns Koh Kong Sugar, conceded that guards had acted too forcibly.
"I do not know why they opened fire," he told AFP. "We told the company to avoid this kind of problem again."
While he said "we cannot give the land back," Ly Yong Phat explained the company had set up a committee to try and deal with the farmers' complaints.
"But I don't know how much progress they have made so far," he said.
Land disputes elsewhere have been worse. The eviction of thousands of Cambodians from a slum in the capital Phnom Penh last June sparked riots, and a standoff in the northwestern border town of Poipet ended in the deaths of at least six people in 2005.
Rights groups say they received more than 100 land rights complaints last year alone.
The rising violence has alarmed international observers and the government alike.
UN envoys have repeatedly said that land disputes would destabilise the fragile country, while Hun Sen, who earlier warned of a "farmers' revolution" over land grabbing, has vowed to punish officials involved in illegal land deals.
But critics say the prime minister is merely paying lip service to the issue -- only two officials so far have been forced to relinquish land -- and that more concrete steps are needed before the government's steps against land grabbing are taken seriously.
"The government itself has recognised the ill effects of concessions, so they need to take immediate action to stop granting them," said CLEC's lawyer.
But even a suspension of concessions would do little for people like those in Chhouk and surrounding villages who have been left destitute by Koh Kong Sugar.
"Hun Sen does not know the real situation -- I'd like to ask him to come down and see the true situation for himself," said Tieng Khov.
©AFP
Tieng Khov has only enough food to feed his family for the next few weeks -- leftovers from last year's harvest that were brought in before the bulldozers came to plough under his crops.
CHHOUK VILLAGE, Cambodia (AFP) - The 46-year-old says he is tired, but the anger has not gone out of him; like hundreds of families in this farming community in southwestern Cambodia, he suddenly lost everything to the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company land concession that overtook his rice fields and orchard.
"We still have a surplus of crops from last year, but when that runs out, we will die," says Tieng Khov, who lost 17 hectares (42 acres) of land.
"They've killed the animals, they've threatened the people and they've stolen the land," he said.
Behind him the 9,700-hectare (24,000-acre) Koh Kong Sugar concession, one of the largest in Cambodia, stretches in an arc along the foot of some low hills, a vast gash of bare earth and smoking brush cuttings.
A moat has been dug around the border, and armed police stand guard, turning away the curious.
Koh Kong Sugar, one of at least 57 ventures awarded "economic land concessions" since 1992 under a plan to turn fallow fields into export crop plantations, is a glaring example of how Cambodia is being parcelled out to politically connected companies, land rights advocates said.
This "land grab," as the activists call it, has dispossessed tens of thousands and fuelled a growing anger at the government's disregard for its most vulnerable people, they said.
Most of those left homeless by land seizures are poor farmers or urban slum dwellers with little or no political leverage.
Only some are compensated for their losses and of those who do get money, few are paid anywhere near fair market value for land that is often re-sold for hundreds of dollars a square metre (yard).
"Almost no economic land concessions in Cambodia involve consultations with the residents in the communities," says one lawyer with the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC).
"We can see that land grabbing has increased every day -- evictions, conflicts between the poor and the rich taking their land," said the lawyer, who asked that his name not be used.
Land right lawyer Seng Sokhim(L) talked with poor victimsLand records were largely destroyed by the communist Khmer Rouge, which forced most of Cambodia's population onto vast collective farms during their rule in the late 1970s.
In the chaos that followed the regime's overthrow in 1979, people simply occupied whatever land was available, and many remain where they settled at that time.
While Cambodia's 2001 land law allows people to keep land that they have worked for five years without dispute, few have obtained full title.
As land values rise sharply, they are falling prey to those with the money to buy up as much property as possible and the power to flout land rights legislation.
"The government created many institutions to resolve these problems. But none of these institutions work," CLEC's lawyer says.
Some have tried to fight these seizures in court, but few have any trust in Cambodia's notoriously inept judiciary.
"We filed papers already to sue the company, but frankly there is no action. The courts are very corrupt -- I have no idea what the outcome will be," said Tieng Khov.
More often, farmers and villagers are forced to directly confront those taking away their farms, sometimes with disastrous results.
When the Koh Kong Sugar bulldozers came to tear up their farms, all the villagers here could do was shout, said Sim Men
"It did no good. We stood and yelled but then armed police came down," the 25-year-old says. "I was visited by armed men and told to sell my land."
Since then, any cattle or buffalo caught wandering onto company land have been shot and their owners fined as much as 100 dollars for the "infraction," she said.
"I used to hear the sound of guns and I was very scared," she said, explaining that her family of six used to be able to survive on the 250 dollars they earned each year from their cashew and mango farms.
"I hear the company is coming to take my home -- right now I am in limbo," she said as she sat near the deep ditch that now keeps her from her old farm.
Guards working for Koh Kong Sugar had also opened fire last year on a crowd of villagers trying to stop the bulldozers, wounding several in the legs, said Tieng Khov.
Cambodian senator Ly Yong Phat, who owns Koh Kong Sugar, conceded that guards had acted too forcibly.
"I do not know why they opened fire," he told AFP. "We told the company to avoid this kind of problem again."
While he said "we cannot give the land back," Ly Yong Phat explained the company had set up a committee to try and deal with the farmers' complaints.
"But I don't know how much progress they have made so far," he said.
Land disputes elsewhere have been worse. The eviction of thousands of Cambodians from a slum in the capital Phnom Penh last June sparked riots, and a standoff in the northwestern border town of Poipet ended in the deaths of at least six people in 2005.
Rights groups say they received more than 100 land rights complaints last year alone.
The rising violence has alarmed international observers and the government alike.
UN envoys have repeatedly said that land disputes would destabilise the fragile country, while Hun Sen, who earlier warned of a "farmers' revolution" over land grabbing, has vowed to punish officials involved in illegal land deals.
But critics say the prime minister is merely paying lip service to the issue -- only two officials so far have been forced to relinquish land -- and that more concrete steps are needed before the government's steps against land grabbing are taken seriously.
"The government itself has recognised the ill effects of concessions, so they need to take immediate action to stop granting them," said CLEC's lawyer.
But even a suspension of concessions would do little for people like those in Chhouk and surrounding villages who have been left destitute by Koh Kong Sugar.
"Hun Sen does not know the real situation -- I'd like to ask him to come down and see the true situation for himself," said Tieng Khov.
©AFP
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