Thursday, September 11, 2014

Cambodia: "If you take away land, you take away life"

Sixty-six-year-old farmer Nil Rath had never been to Phnom Penh until he came to petition the government to keep his land. "I feel so nervous; I just want this problem solved," he said one recent afternoon, nervously fingering the threadbare collar of his jacket. Along with 124 people from his small village in Banteay Meanchey province, Nil had made the daylong journey by rented car to Cambodia's capital. The villagers -- who fear they will soon lose their farms to a new rubber plantation project -- were sleeping on reed mats unfurled on the tiled floors of Wat Chas, a Buddhist temple in Phnom Penh.

For almost a year since Cambodia's national election in July 2013, the country's leading opposition party refused to join parliament, demanding a recount of the widely disputed ballot results. The political impasse finally ended in late July, with a compromise agreement keeping long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen in power at least through 2018. But even the 62-year-old Hun Sen, who has led the Southeast Asian nation since 1985, sensed that he needed to sound a note of reform by acknowledging the popular and pent-up frustrations that nearly toppled him -- and perhaps, by the numbers, should have -- at the ballot box last summer.

That was almost certainly the calculation behind his nationally televised speech on Aug. 18. First, the prime minister claimed to be unaware of the extent of existing land conflicts, and blamed his underlings for mismanaging disputes and not keeping him informed (an assertion worth a bit of skepticism). But he also promised to pay greater attention going forward to the explosive national issue of land rights -- to fire local officials unable to resolve clashes and to accept petitions from communities who felt their concerns were ignored. "Any land lived on and farmed by the people must be for people," he said. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. The Cambodian villages destroyed by the sugarcane industry...
  2. Cambodian journalist who investigated illegal logging found murdered...
  3. Cambodian women hit hard by wave of forced evictions...
  4. Some 300 Cambodian Nike workers fired after protests...
  5. Chinese farmers revolting against government land grab...
  6. Vietnam farmer jailed for military-style defense of land...

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