Organizers of an $80-a-head, nationally-televised New Year’s Eve bash on the site of the former Boeng Kak lake are “dancing on Boeng Kak people’s tears,” an evictee from the neighborhood said on Tuesday.
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Ny Sophannak, a 42-year-old mother of three, lives in a small house on a tiny alley behind Wat Thann just off Sothearos Boulevard. Ten years ago, she was among 800 families violently evicted from the nearby Dey Krahorm community on what she says were false pretenses.
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Source: phnompenhpost.com
Cambodia’s rampant land grabs have had a devastating impact on the psychological health of women and have led to a sharp increase in the rates of domestic violence they suffer, according to a new report.
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In the morning of August 31, 2016, around 10 people representing of 17 families, who live in a Preak Tasek village, Khan Chroy Changvar, submitted the petition the German Embassy, European Union, and Ministry of land management urban planning and construction seeking for the intervention. They wishes the embassy, EU and the ministry of land management to provide them the land title and that OCIC Company should stop violating them. Read More
Phnom Penh, January 25, 2016
Dear Secretary Kerry,
We, the undersigned Cambodian civil society groups, urge you to call on the Royal Government of Cambodia to commit to upholding human rights and democratic obligations as a condition of strong and prosperous relations with the United States of America. During your visit to Phnom Penh ahead of the US-ASEAN special summit at Sunnylands we request you to consider the numerous actions of the Cambodian government that clash with the fundamental values of the United States of America and are harmful to the rights of Cambodian citizens and the economic growth of Cambodia.
On August 07th, 2015, Urban Settlement Officers and Project Coordinator of Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) distributed legal advice sheet and factsheets to 100 households where located in Village 3, Sangkat Chrang Chamres1 , Khan Russey Keo, Phnom Penh.
This distribution is part of Human Right Based Spatial Planning project which founded by Europe Union and Czech Republic and implemented by People In Need (PIN) and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) in purpose to strengthen land tenure security through promotion of tenure security for the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in Cambodia.
Mr Nhim Kim Eang, project coordinator of Samakume Teangtnaut said this legal advice sheet and factsheet was the results we had done for more than a year before. He added that this information in this legal advice sheet and factsheets got from three main sources: 1) Demographic information got from the answers of local authorities and local people in the communities. 2) legal tenure and household information got from household survey data collected by staff and interns of STT. And 3) Legal documents which related to land law got from local and international experts of NGO partners who worked on legal aid. He added the document was only just information and legal aid for benefitting to people living in that location in relation to land occupation and it was not legally bounded because there was only authority that can make an official decision on your tenure status or offer land titling is the cadastral department of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction (MoLMUPC).
Furthermore, all of those houses were located next to the National Road 5, which would be further expanded in the future and it was also next to the Tongle Sap Lake which was regarded as the state owned- land. These areas would be planned to have reconstruction or on-site redevelopment in the future. As a result, it was really important for the people to understand the information as it was for their benefits both citizens and authorities for discussing and finding solution together.
Be informed that, Chrang Chamres Community is an urban poor community where has not yet had the orderly construction and the majority of them is Khmer- Cham (Islam).
The Satrei Samaki Meanchey community is one of many in the Phnom Penh area were the residents are being forced to leave their homes and relocate to another area by the municipal authorities. Established in 1982, community members have been living in the area until the present day. Starting out with 32 families, the Satrei Samki Meanchey community now includes 46 since the beginning of 2014.
As with many cases of urban poor communities under current threat of eviction, the land Satrei Samaki Meanchey settled on was bought by the current residents with letters of ownership existing between the previous owner and the current community leader as well as signed witnesses. All of the houses in the community were built from scratch from the money of early residents. Today, these letters are proving difficult to be recognized as legitimate legal documents and so the land is officially part of the state.
As municipal authorities are looking to develop the back part of Boeung Kak Lake, where Satrei Samaki Meanchey is located, eviction notices have been given out to all the residents in order to clear the land. On the house of the community leader, and a majority of the other residents, codes have been spray painted above doors as notice of eviction.
The community leader, Pu Kun, met up with residents after the eviction announcement to discuss options and possible solutions. Over the past months he has contacted authorities such as the Ministry of Water, Transportation, and NGOs dealing with land rights to ask for help. Some of these organizations include STT, which was contacted in order to advocate for the residents, and CLEC, who provide lawyers to inform them about their legal rights and advise residents if illegal actions are happening.
Phnom Penh’s municipal authorities have recently come into Satrei Samaki Meanchey to take measurements of the land they are planning to claim and in the future give information on what areas exactly will be evicted. Community members, lacking trust in the legitimacy of the authorities’ claims, have asked Equitable Cambodia and World Vision to take additional measurements to make sure the numbers are correct. No announcement has been made so far on how much of the area will be taken.
In addition, District Authorities in the area have been contacted by residents. They have told community members that they are working towards a solution where once the lake is developed they can have the land that is left over. If a formal immediate eviction announcement is made, Pu Kun will make a new offer: residents will move to a new area as long as proper compensation is made. Unfortunately residents are all too aware of the tendency of the Cambodian authorities to send evicted communities to areas that are far from the city centre and lacking in basic infrastructure and services. The current community has access to state water and electricity, schools nearby, , and is deemed by residents to have an adequate level of safety.
It is easy to see why community members are reluctant to move from the land that they have purchased and built their lives around. Currently residents are fighting the eviction notice through the options made available to them.
Nick Jones (February 5th, 2015)
Last month, Surya Subedi ended his six-year mandate as the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia. During his final news conference, he stressed that Prime Minister Hun Sen must make a more concerted effort to make government institutions—such as the judicial courts—more independent. “Many of the state institutions responsible for upholding people’s rights are unfortunately still lacking accountability and transparency needed to command the trust and confidence of the people”. However, he has seen progress in regard to the growing public demand for their rights. “People have woken up… and they are ready to fight for their rights…so far, the courts of Cambodia have not delivered justice in the way demanded by all Cambodians” (Reuters, Jan 23rd).
Human Rights Watch (HRW), recently released its annual World Report. They found that “2014 was one of Cambodia’s worst years in recent history in terms of human rights violations, citing ‘killings by security forces, arrests of activists and opposition politicians, summary trials and crackdowns on peaceful protest’” (Phnom Penh Post, Jan 30th).
In November of last year, 19 land rights activists were controversially arrested and sentenced to prison by a court the following day. These activists (including residents of the Boeung Kak, Thmor Kol, and Toul Kork communities; monks; and CNRP members) recently had their appeal denied by a court whose proceedings were notable for their lack of due process.
Skip forward to this year, on February 4th, the Phnom Penh Post reported that the authorities in Battambang town have notified 600 families living in Prek Preah Sdech commune that they need to relocate to make way for the construction of a large public garden. The villagers’ have been told that they live there illegally and are expect to leave as soon as possible. Some families have lived there for over 20 years and have very little hope of receiving adequate compensation to relocate.
On the same day, “more than 100 families in Rattanakkiri’s O’Chum district are demanding a solution after a Chinese company allegedly bulldozed their land and [about 300] nearby family graves to create a rubber plantation” (Phnom Penh Post, Feb 4th). The clearing began on Sunday, February 1st, and only stopped when villagers protested in front of the vehicles. A representative of the company stated that they had already received permission from the government to clear the land. He even made the extraordinary claim that “[the villagers] want to grab the state [land] and control it privately”.
Despite clear warnings from the UN envoy for Cambodia and unflattering reports from internationally recognized organizations, the government remains indifferent to the basic human rights of the people it is supposed to protect. In Cambodia, ‘strong government’ is not synonymous with ‘good governance’. Expect a similarly scathing evaluation in next year’s report from Human Rights Watch.
At 8:00 am, May 20, 2014, over 300 peoples from land and housing affected communities, farmers and monks were gathering in front of Phnom Penh Municipal Court to call for justice and release Mr. Vorn Poa, Mr. Chan Puthisak, Mr. Teng Savouen, and others 18 victims who were arrested since early January 2014, while a number of Human Right observers from different NGOs monitored the case very closely.
While the hearing is ongoing at municipal court, the violence occurred outside the courthouse where the barricades and riots police blocked the rallied from moving forward to the courthouse. The security guards of the City Hall tried to push the protesters back and far from the barricades, with kicking the monks and protesters caused the situation tension between the protesters and polices. However, there were no serious violence after the protesters moved up together to protect the monks from being beaten from the security guards.
There were many polices with 3 Fire Trucks, blocking the road in front of the Municipal Court while the trial of the 23 was in the process.
The trial has started again at 2:00 pm and ended up at 4 pm. It will be continued to tomorrow at 8 am, as promised by the court.
Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) has released its newest report, The Phnom Penh Survey, to update and add new data to previous research on urban poor settlements in the city, produce current, accurate maps of all of the settlement locations and provide findings that will help lead to positive outcomes for the urban poor. The report develops findings on various issues pertinent to urban poor settlements including issues related to tenure security; eviction threats, land tenure and titling and the implementation of Circular 03. It also looks at infrastructure and service provision finding a limited drainage systems, trash collection and access to reasonably priced utilities. It shows a divide exists between inner and outer Khan settlements, with those in the outer Khans falling behind in many of the infrastructure and service categories that the survey explored. It concludes with recommendations for key stakeholders including the Municipality of Phnom Penh (MPP), the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning, and Construction (MLMUPC) and development partners.
Download report in PDF: STT _201402_Phnom Penh Survey
Contact:
Ee Sarom (Kh, Eng)
sarom@teangtnaut.org
+855 89 666 036
Phnom Penh’s urban poor are under threat. Over the past two decades, 11% of the city’s current population has been displaced, often forcibly evicted, to poorer futures. A key government argument – when such arguments have been provided – has been that many of those affected have been illegal squatters, living on state public land. Habitually, however, there is no assessment of whether or not the occupants have rights to the land as legal possessors.
In May 2010, the Royal Government of Cambodia approved Circular 03 on Resolution of Temporary Settlement on Land Which Has Been Illegally Occupied in the Capital, Municipal, and Urban Areas (C03). In the context of on-going tenure insecurity among Cambodia’s urban poor, the Circular lays down a process through which the issue of occupation of state public land is to be ‘resolved’. With support from Germany through its development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), C03 implementation has taken place in Battambang provincial town since late 2010. Implementation has commenced in Phnom Penh too, though seemingly conducted unilaterally by the Municipality of Phnom Penh.
While implementation continues, fundamental questions remain regarding the content of the Circular itself and the impacts of its implementation. The aim of Policy for the Poor? Phnom Penh, Tenure Security, and Circular 03 is to highlight some of the issues arising from the Circular as a policy document, and draw attention to the opportunities and risks arising from its implementation. It also aims to provide stakeholders in urban development in Phnom Penh with a better understanding of the extent to which Circular 03 meets the required legal standards to genuinely protect the rights of the urban poor through increasing their tenure security, and how practicable a tool it is for that purpose.
You can download the report, produced by STT’s research arm The Urban Initiative, here: Policy for the Poor?:
”A WHITER BUILDING”
workshop at The White Building, Phnom Penh, 20-21-22 September
Giorgio Talocci, in collaboration with:
STT – Sahmakum Teang Tnaut
This workshop will take place at the White Building (Tonle Bassac, Phnom Penh), where a group of young practitioners and students will work in close contact with the community inhabiting it.
The White Building, commonly called simply ‘The Building’ by the people inhabiting it or living nearby, is an about 350meters not-so-white slab of masonry and concrete, originally built in the 1960s as housing for civil servants. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge’s regime, The Building has been re-appropriated by some of the original inhabitants and by newcomers: from that moment on it underwent a series of informal transformation through which its community has adapted the building’s original modernist structure to the needs of every household’s everyday life.
The workshop will start taking the entire first day to get acquainted with the community and its space, mapping the complex narratives populating The Building, understanding its functioning and its role in the wider urban dynamics of Tonle Bassac and of Phnom Penh as a whole. In the second day, drawing on the previous findings, we will start – working directly on site and in a constant interaction with the community – a process of participatory design, projecting the inhabitants’ aspirations toward a possible future scenario where a community-driven upgrading of the building could occur, and imagining a process to make this happen. Finally, on the last day, the workshop will finish in a collective presentation of the ideas we developed, sharing the outcomes with the community and learning from the feedback we will receive. At the end, the process will be left ‘open’ for future debate and possible actions that the community might be willing to undertake.
The workshop is open to everybody, with no limits of age nor of academic and professional background. The participants should have a good command of spoken English, although there will be Khmer-speaking staff too. The number of seats is however limited: for more information and to participate, please send your CV (or portfolio, if you prefer) and a brief letter of motivation to the address g.talocci@gmail.com by Thursday 12 September at 11.59pm.
Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) has released two new reports examining the development of Phnom Penh; ‘A Tale of Two Cities; review of the development paradigm in Phnom Penh’ and ‘Resettling Phnom Penh: 54 – And Counting?’. Read More
Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) has released two new reports examining the development of Phnom Penh; A Tale of Two Cities: review of the development paradigm in Phnom Penh and Resettling Phnom Penh: 54 – And Counting?
Phnom Penh as a metropolis and the capital of Cambodia abounds in opportunities and challenges. Amidst a booming economy and rapid urbanization, a sobering addendum is the increasing spatial and economic inequality inherent in the city’s development process. ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and ‘Resettling Phnom Penh’ explore different facets of that inequality and its implications for the long-term liveability of Phnom Penh.
While Phnom Penh continues to consolidate its role as the primary city of Cambodia, the country’s secondary cities are continuing to act and expand as regional centres in their own right. Growing Pains takes a snapshot look at how urbanisation is impacting three of these cities – Sihanoukville, Battambang, and Siem Reap – and, in particular, their urban poor settlements.
Outside the Lines, a new report by local urban NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), proposes a viable and practical solution for the households excluded from the 12.44Ha concession in Boeung Kak. The report shows that the households arbitrarily excluded from the 12.44Ha concession could easily be included in the concession zone, by allowing some households to move inside the area as well as through a small revision of the concession’s boundaries.
Local urban NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) has released a new report entitled Losing the Plot: Rapid Assessment of Household Debt in Trapeang Anhchanh. Based on interviews with 12 households relocated to Trapeang Anhchanh site as part of the ADB and AusAID-funded railways rehabilitation, the report sheds light on one of the most tragic outcomes of what has been presented as an aid project: the unmanageable debts taken on by relocated households.
Outside the Lines, a new report by local urban NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), proposes a viable and practical solution for the households excluded from the 12.44Ha concession in Boeung Kak. The report shows that the households arbitrarily excluded from the 12.44Ha concession could easily be included in the concession zone, by allowing some households to move inside the area as well as through a small revision of the concession’s boundaries. Read More
Local urban NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) has released a new report entitled Losing the Plot: Rapid Assessment of Household Debt in Trapeang Anhchanh. Based on interviews with 12 households relocated to Trapeang Anhchanh site as part
of the ADB and AusAID-funded railways rehabilitation, the report sheds light on one of the most tragic outcomes of what has been presented as an aid project: the unmanageable debts taken on by relocated households.
STT’s latest Facts and Figures publication, entitled Railways Relocation in Phnom Penh: Six Women Tell Their Stories has now been published. The publication features several widows’ direct narratives about how relocation to the project’s Phnom Penh relocation site Trapeang Anchang, some 20-25km outside the city, has affected their lives.
In the meantime, the ADB has claimed that compensation rates – defined in 2006 – reflect current market rates and that “[a]t every relocation site, households are also provided with individual lots equipped with sanitation facilities, as well as electricity and water supply connections.”
You can find Facts and Figures in PDF
Manolis House in collaboration with architect and researcher Shelby Doyle have a symposium entitled Water & the City on Saturday 31st March at 5pm at Reyum (#47, Street 178, north of National Museum,1st Flr). It aims to explore questions such as ‘what water management systems are operating in Phnom Penh and who is responsible for them?’
The project is the third phase of a 1999 plan laid out by city hall to make vast physical improvements to the capital. The Japanese Government will provide US$ 44.2 m for the project, which is being spearheaded by Sumitomo Mitsui construction and is slated for completion October 2015. http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032255192/National-news/project-to-curb-floods.html
More than 30 families living near the Siem Reap River in Siem Reap’s Aranh Sakor village have sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen and member of parliament Seang Nam, asking not to be evicted from their land because of the planned widening of the river. http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012031655068/National-news/river-widening-divides-opinions.html