Mr. Ny Chakriya: The Provision of Land to Companies Is Pushing Citizens to Face Serious Problems

Mr. Ny Chakriya: The Provision of Land to Companies Is Pushing Citizens to Face Serious Problems

The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 643

“Citizens from eight provincial and city associations met at the Sunway Hotel, to express their opinions about the loss of their land to businesspeople and to some powerful officials, including to private companies that have received concession land from the government.

“Representatives of citizens came to protest, and to express their concerns about land grabbing committed by businesspeople and by some powerful officials.

“The head of the investigating unit of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), Mr. Ny Chakriya, said that in view of the provision of only small economic land concessions to citizens, it is found that in 2008, the government provided tens of thousands of hectares of land to private companies as economic concessions, where 225,090 hectares were provided to 71 private companies as economic concession land. The provision of many hectares of land by the government every year might lead to a lack of land for citizens in the future. Moreover, the provision of economic concession land to different companies, without caring about the impact on citizens, is a big problem, resulting in a situation where citizens, who own little land for cultivation, to have no land, because 80% of the citizens are farmers in rural areas.

“Mr. Ny Chakriya added that forced evictions, where citizens lose ownership of land, victimize them easily. In 2008, there were 25 evictions involving 526 families or 66,095 citizens, who were evicted by force and did not receive any care or solution from state institutions that just use the words that there it is development. Tens of thousands of poor citizens live with fear with the development policy of the government, that frequently issues notifications to evict citizens from a district, a villages, or from a whole area, where they live legally, according to the land law, to leave their houses and land, accusing those citizens of setting up illegal settlements on state land, claiming that the land was taken for development through concessions, sale, or by leasing it to private companies. When such things happened, they ordered hundreds of armed forces and workers to help protect those companies, by shooting and using machinery to remove the houses of citizens, and to hit and to jail them, offering them little compensation, and vacating them to live in new locations that are remote and insecure and lack infrastructure.

“In the meantime, ADHOC has released a statement about land issues, in regions where the citizens were accused and arrested, because the courts serve the interests of businesspeople and of companies. ADHOC voiced regret and concerns over land disputes, that are not solved in some provinces and cities by the authorities, making thousands of citizens to encounter problems, and resulting in family separations, as their representatives were continually accused and arrested over land disputes in Cambodia.

“The statement of ADHOC says that according to its note about unsolved land disputes, there are not less than 200 cases each year, and not less than 250 citizens were accused by provincial and city courts, which produced fake evidence to sentence them to go to jail for years. At least there are 150 representatives of citizens and land activists imprisoned each year. The accusations and arrests of those citizens result from the incompetence to solve land disputes by the authorities at all levels who are biased, and did not provide justice to citizens. They did this to serve the interests of businesspeople and of companies, where some officials back them in each case.

“It should be noted that land disputes have occurred continually in Cambodia relating to poor citizens facing businesspeople and some powerful officials, so that citizens were evicted by force, and evacuated from their houses, to grab their land for businesspeople and for companies.” Sereypheap Thmey, Vol.17, #1834, 16.12.2009

This article was first published by The Mirror, [3] Vol. 13, No. 643 - Wednesday, 16.12.2009
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Norbert Klein is the Editor of The Mirror [4] – The Mirror is a daily comprehensive summary and translation of the major Khmer language press - More about The Mirror [5]