Losing Ground - Human Rights Party.

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Losing Ground Nothing Left Mrs. Dary* has experienced a lot since her husband died from a whack on the head with a hoe during the Khmer Rouge era 30 years ago. But she made her way from her home province to Phnom Penh and with a “small piece of gold” she had saved, she bought a seven by 21 meter plot in Dey Krahom, built a tworoom wooden house with a metal roof, and made her living as a vendor. She raised three children. “I could make enough money to support my family that way,” she said. But she never expected to be forcibly evicted from the home she owned and trucked to a relocation site about 20km from Phnom Penh in the relocation site known as Damnak Trayeung village. “Now my life is very difficult. I have nothing to do at the relocation site. There is no water,” she said. She lives in a one-room garage with a rolling shutter located an hour's drive from central Phnom Penh in a sea of low brick rows of flats and dirt roads. The complex was built by 7NG to house residents evicted from their homes in the capital. Thousands more flats are under construction for an anticipated new flood of evictees from Boeng Kak Lake. Although many of the residents in the barren rows of flats are from Dey Krahom, some of the Boeng Kak Lake families have already arrived. In the three or so years since the site was established, the village has sprouted some of the normal services you’d expect. There is a covered market where vendors sell food, clothing and other necessities, and it has a couple of small open air restaurants under its roof. Several residents who were eating lunch at these restaurants said the site itself – which has clean air and space – would not be that bad except for a few major issues: no water, no jobs, no school and spotty electricity. “It will be worse when more come,” said one man. “They can get by without electricity, but not without water.” He estimated that about a third of the flats have water, but efforts to dig more wells have come up dry and most The entry road to the site is lined with former Dey Krahom residents – some unable to prove property ownership – living on mats beneath tarpaulins. They are hanging on to a fading hope that they may get new homes. “It will be worse when more come,” said one man. “ They can get by without electricity, but not without water.” He estimated that about a third of the flats have water, but efforts to dig more wells have come up dry. “Many people have locked up and returned to Phnom Penh,” he said, pointing to the many “for sale” signs hanging on the shutters. of the residents have to buy water and transport it from 3 km away. “Many people have locked up and returned to Phnom Penh,” he said, pointing to the many “for sale” signs hanging on the shutters. Every day Mrs. Dary gets up at 3 a.m. to ride by motorbike to the city with her son. He needs to get there early enough to drive people to work. She carries a deck of cards and tells fortunes. For herself, she predicts she will go deep into debt and either lose the motorbike or have a lien put on her flat. One of her new neighbors, Suong Vey, 58, wearing a checked krama in the hot sun, pulled out a few stained chairs for visitors, and explained how he and his wife left Dey Krahom in return for a flat at the relocation site two years ago rather than risk eviction with their four young children. The family gets by earning 8,000 to 20,000 riel per day ($2 to $5) by running a tiny one-pot soup restaurant and selling a few sundries from their flat. “The living conditions are getting worse because we don’t have any jobs. We can’t make what we made in Phnom Penh. We do sell some food.” His teenage daughters no longer go to school. With a roof over their heads and a meager income, they appear luckier than some. The entry road to the site is lined with former Dey Krahom residents – some unable to prove property ownership – living on mats beneath tarpaulins. They are hanging on to a fading hope that they may get new homes. According to their lawyers, about 23 families from Dey Krahom who wanted houses at the relocation site prepared a complaint to city hall in hopes of getting houses. Other families gave up and decided to rent rooms in Phnom Penh or stay with relatives because they thought the site would be too far from any possibility of work. The lawyer said the lead activists from Dey Krahom were not offered homes, because “if they were too activist, the company does not want them.” * Name changed to protect the identity of the individual profiled. 36 Forced Evictions and Intimidation in Cambodia
Losing Ground Rubber Plantation Kratie Village residents were surprised in July 2008 when they found their farmland in Snoul district was being cleared for a rubber plantation they knew nothing about. They protested and company workers dismantled the site. The case is now at the provincial criminal court. The Case: Snoul district • Type and purpose of concession: Economic Land Concession for agro-business. • Development plan: Rubber plantation company by CIV Development Company. • Date and size: The 769 hectare concession was signed by Kratie's governor on May 27, 2008. • Area affected: Four villages in two communes of Snoul district, Kratie province. • People affected: About 250 families in four ethnic Stieng villages – Meancheay, Krobai Cholroung, Kbal Lumpov and Dey Krahom – that have indigenous rights to the land. Forced Evictions and Intimidation in Cambodia 37
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