Hundreds hand in petitions to protest Cambodia land grabs (Roundup)

Aug 11, 2009, 11:53 GMT

   Phnom Penh - About 300 Cambodians handed in petitions to government ministries and organizations in Phnom Penh Tuesday to protest the growing national problem of land grabs and forced evictions.

   Organizers of the group action warned that landlessness is deepening poverty, and demanded an immediate end to intimidation and court action against people trying to protect their land.

   Seng Sokheng, a spokesman for the community groups involved, said the petitions represent the concerns of 15,000 villagers in 19 of the kingdom's 24 provinces and municipalities.

   He said the petitions were submitted to the National Assembly, the cabinet of Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Council of Ministers, the National Authority on Land Disputes and three government ministries.

   'Some ministries were happy to receive the petition, and others were not,' Seng Sokheng said of the reaction the villagers had received.

   Organizers said 200,000 hectares of petitioners' land are at risk in this predominantly rural society, where more than 80 per cent of the population live in the countryside. The petitions contained more than 15,000 thumbprints, a standard way of signing in Cambodia, where literacy rates are low.

   A government spokesman said he could not comment on the issue until he had discussed the petitioners' concerns with other government departments.

   The land seizures are carried out by foreign firms, companies with government connections, or by politicians and the military. Development is the standard reason the government gives for granting mining or land concessions.

   The community group gave the example of one military official who took communal farmland in Battambang province, western Cambodia. The group said the official then used the courts to threaten 37 villagers with theft of property for trying to farm the land.

   'There are food shortages. People take loans and cannot pay [them] back,' the group said of the affected villagers. 'Food shortages lead to sickness, and people cannot pay for medical treatment.'

   The group warned that the litany of forced evictions, displacement and landlessness is reaching 'crisis proportions.'

   'Evictions and land confiscation continue in Cambodia, despite calls by the World Bank, the ADB [the Asian Development Bank], the UN and Cambodia's donors for the government to enact a moratorium on forced evictions and land confiscation until it establishes effective conflict resolution mechanisms and relocation procedures meeting international standards,' they wrote.

   The organizers said communities are being driven into poverty, and their efforts to find peaceful solutions are met with intimidation, court action and even violence from the police and military.

   'When we try to protect our legal rights, we receive intimidation,' villager Pol Cheoun from Battambang province said in the statement. 'We want the government and the donors to know what is happening. We are losing our land, forest and fisheries we depend on. We are getting poorer and poorer, and the rich are getting richer.'

   A community activist from the northern province of Oddar Meanchey told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that he is in favour of development, 'but I don't want to see development lead people to tears.'

   Amnesty International wrote last year that 150,000 Cambodians are at risk of losing their land.