Cambodia’s Displaced: Can Canada Make a Difference?

3 October 2009

As farmers and city dwellers are uprooted by developments, advocates call on CIDA to rise to their defence.

By Jared Ferrie, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

(Post by CAAI News Media)

As far back as their history goes, the Bunong lived semi-nomadic lives, cultivating small plots of land for a couple years at a time before moving on to allow the soil to regenerate. That came to an end when the United States began carrying out its secret bombing of Cambodia in 1969.

"We fled to Vietnam and we lived in camps there," recalled Prap Tuch, an elderly member of the Bunong ethnic minority.

His people stayed and escaped the horror that was to follow -- the Khmer Rouge regime, which killed as many as two million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. The Bunong finally returned to their mountainous homeland in 1986.
But they now face a new threat to their way of life.

Cambodia's government has been granting concessions to companies eager to extract the country's natural resources. Land occupied by the Bunong is being cleared to make way for rubber plantations run by Socfin, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Bollore Group, in partnership with a Cambodian company, KCD.

Prap is just one of an estimated 150,000 Cambodians threatened with forced eviction throughout the country, according to Amnesty International. A real estate boom in the capital, Phnom Penh, has seen thousands displaced -- illegally, say land law experts -- to make way for property developments. The government recently pulled out of a World Bank financed program that aimed to halt forced evictions by sorting out land title in rural areas.

Advocates for the Bunong and other displaced groups say Canada could be an influential voice on their behalf because the Canadian International Development Agency is donor and technical advisor to the Cambodian government's land reform program.

But as more and more Cambodians are forced from their homes, Canada's response so far has been official silence.

'Three unacceptable options'

The Bunong have been offered three options: compensation, relocation or the opportunity to produce rubber on small, family-run plantations.

Prap said none of them were particularly attractive. He would prefer to produce some rubber to sell to the company while still maintaining land that would allow him to farm his traditional crops of rice, fruits and vegetables.

"I don't refuse development. We need to live as other people," he said. "But if we lose the fields, we lose our culture."

Furthermore, he said, his land has not been measured in order to assess compensation, even though he has been forced out to make way for a rubber plantation.

"Allowing people to choose between three unacceptable options for compensation is not meaningful consultation," said David Pred, country director of Bridges Across Borders, which advocates on land rights issues. "The company should start by listening to the affected communities and understanding what their needs and development aspirations are."

Phillip Monnin, who heads Socfin's operations here, did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

'Maybe... some errors'

Eric Beugnot, Cambodia director of the French Development Agency (AFD), said Socfin has launched a study to determine the social and environmental impacts of the plantation.

"They recognized maybe they have made some errors, some mistakes," he said. "They included in the study what has been done and eventually corrective action."

AFD is evaluating a $2.5 million plan to help "smallholders." The project would encourage the company to integrate more family-run rubber plantations into its overall operation.

"That could serve as a model for economic concessions," said Beugnot, adding that the company has no obligation to pursue such a model; it could just as easily develop its concession as a private rubber plantation.

'Laws ignored'

Daniel King, a lawyer with the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), said the Socfin-KCD deal is murky, and information provided to the community is often conflicting.

"The actual clearing of land by Socfin-KCD has not always corresponded to this information," he said.

In fact, he said, the deal may be illegal under Cambodian law, which requires an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment prior to granting an economic land concession (ELC). Copies of those assessments have been requested from the relevant ministries, but have not been provided.

"They may not have been conducted prior to the granting of the ELC or the clearing of land," he said.

King was also skeptical of the French Development Agency's role, suggesting the danger of French taxpayer dollars being used to fund the "social aspects" of an illegal land deal.

"Its partnership with Socfin-KCD in that endeavour could be seen as supporting an ELC that is likely to be illegal under national and international human rights law," he said.

Beugnot said the feasibility study, which AFD requires if it is to provide funding to Socfin-KCD, began weeks ago and will take three months to complete.

In the meantime, those affected by the land concession have few options. On June 19, members of the Bunong held traditional ceremonies to appease ancestral spirits for the loss of forest they consider sacred, and to curse the rubber companies.

Recently, out of desperation, Prap travelled to Phnom Penh with other members of his community to raise awareness of their plight.

"I don't know how to get the land back. Now I just stay and wait and maybe my family will starve," he said.

Decades of displacement

Cambodia has seen years of massive displacement beginning with Richard Nixon's bombing campaign, which he authorized in secret without consent of Congress. In an attempt to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines along the border with Vietnam, the U.S. dropped an estimated 540,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia in four years, which strengthened support for Khmer Rouge rebels. The bombs killed as many as 500,000 people and displaced about 30 per cent of the population.

Millions more fled the countryside in the following years as a civil war raged between U.S.-backed government troops and the Khmer Rouge. When the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, they emptied Phnom Penh of almost all of its inhabitants, forcing them and millions of others throughout the country into labour camps. After Vietnamese and Cambodian forces ousted the regime in 1979, refugees flooded back into the capital seeking shelter wherever they could find it.

Still more Cambodians languished in camps in Thailand as Cambodian and Vietnamese troops battled the remnants of the Khmer Rouge and other armed groups. The remaining Khmer Rouge were finally defeated in 1998 and refugees returned.

New era, same problem

Decades of forced migration have resulted in a tangled web of land ownership claims. In an attempt to address the issue, the government passed a law in 2001 stating that those who had occupied a piece of land continuously for at least five years could claim legal title. But Cambodian courts, which critics say are notoriously corrupt, have rarely enforced that law.

Instead of bombs, bullets and landmines, Cambodians are now forced from their homes by powerful economic interests.

In Phnom Penh, property prices shot up 100 per cent in 2007, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund. Government officials and other elites have cashed in on the boom, along with international investors, pushing people from their homes in order to develop the land. A local organization, STT, estimates that 11 per cent of the capital's population has been forcibly relocated since 1991, with major evictions still planned. In rural areas, corrupt officials also partner with international investors to exploit natural resources, often forcing people off land that they have a strong legal claim to.

Land reform program scrapped

On Sept. 4, the Cambodian government terminated World Bank financing for the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which has issued 1.1 million land titles in rural areas since 2002.

During a speech on Sept. 7, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, said cooperating with the World Bank on the program "was difficult because it was complicated and had too many conditions."

The move came after the World Bank, under pressure from advocacy groups, issued critical statements about LMAP and forced evictions.

A July 13 World Bank review of LMAP stated: "procedures for state land classification... were only partly implemented." The bank also noted "a particular disconnect between institutional, legal and policy achievements and insecurity of land tenure for the poor, especially in urban areas, and indigenous peoples."

In plain language, the bank meant that working with government officials to devise elaborate systems for assigning land ownership has not prevented land grabbing, despite whatever laws or regulations are put in place.

Or as Pred, of Bridges Across Borders, put it: "Donors to Cambodia's land sector have tried to provide technical solutions to political problems... powerful people are able to grab the land of the poor and vulnerable majority with total impunity"

Yet, a World Bank spokesman in Phnom Penh downplayed the government's decision, noting its promise to continue the process on its own.

"The World Bank welcomes the government's commitments to continue its reforms of the land sector," said Bou Saroeun.

Pred expressed no confidence in the government's promises.

"State land has been totally mismanaged by the Cambodian government even with World Bank and other donor involvement," he said.

Canada's role

Along with the World Bank, LMAP was supported by Canada, Finland and Germany. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is also co-facilitator, along with the Cambodian government, on the Technical Working Group on Land and it holds a seat in the Ministry of Lands.

Critics have been urging Canada to use its leverage as a donor country to do more to stop the illegal expropriation of land.

"CIDA has so far been unwilling to challenge the status quo in order to address the real problems with land in Cambodia," said Pred. "Unless they do so, in a coordinated manner with other donors, there will be little return from the investments of its aid dollars."

Ironically, Pred noted, when donors refuse to stand up to governments that break their own laws, "the aid runs the risk of legitimizing the system."

CIDA's representative in Cambodia said she was not authorized to speak to reporters and directed questions to CIDA's media department in Canada, which did not respond to e-mailed questions.

On July 2, a group of 11 donors and aid agencies issued a statement calling on the government to halt forced evictions "until a fair and transparent mechanism for resolving land disputes is put in place."

The signatories included the World Bank and the United Nations, along with embassies including those of Britain, the U.S. and Australia.

"The Canadian International Development Agency, which has a seat in the Ministry of Lands, was conspicuously absent from that statement," said Daniel King the CLEC lawyer, "If I was a Canadian I'd be asking questions.

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Source: Khmer Love Khmer

Cambodian communities facing forced eviction launch Inspection Panel complaint against World Bank

2 October 2009

Phnom Penh residents facing the largest forced displacement of Cambodians since the Khmer Rouge era have filed a complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel stating that they have suffered serious harm from a Bank-funded land-titling project.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 1, 2009

Phnom Penh, Residents facing the largest forced displacement of Cambodians since the Khmer Rouge era have filed a complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel stating that they have suffered serious harm from a Bank-funded land-titling project. The complaint, submitted by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and registered on 24 September, alleges that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to adequately supervise the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which has denied urban poor and other vulnerable households protection against widespread tenure insecurity and increasing forced evictions in Cambodia.

A major report about the Bank-financed project, “Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian Land Sector,” was also released this week by three international human rights organizations, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) and Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia (BABSEA).

“The principal finding of the report is that, despite a seven-year, multi-million dollar effort to reform the land sector, Cambodia’s land administration institutions have failed to improve tenure security for vulnerable groups, who are routinely and arbitrarily denied access to land titling and dispute resolution mechanisms,” stated Salih Booker, Executive Director of COHRE.

Despite having legitimate rights to the land under Cambodia’s Land Law, thousands of families residing around Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak lake were denied titles when the area was adjudicated by LMAP in January 2007, the same month that a well-connected developer acquired a legally dubious 99-year lease over the area. Residents have since been subjected to intimidation and pressure to leave their homes by the developer and local officials. So far, an estimated 900 families have been evicted from their land to make way for the development, with more than 3000 families due to face the same fate.

The NGO report states that “[t]he fact that these households do not have title is often used against them as a justification for eviction, despite the fact that many have well documented rights under the law.” “Meanwhile,” the report continues, “the wealthy and well-connected have little difficulty in acquiring land title in high value areas in which poor communities reside due to their connections or their ability to pay the high ‘unofficial fees’.”

Both the complaint and the report cite numerous flaws of LMAP, including a failure to issue titles to vulnerable households in accordance with legal procedures, ineffective and corrupt dispute resolution mechanisms, and a failure to conduct essential public awareness campaigns and legal aid programs.

The report identifies the absence of transparent State land management as a key failure of LMAP, which has contributed to the problem of tenure insecurity throughout the country. It states that the lack of transparency and an unimplemented or inadequate legal framework has led to the loss of public spaces in both urban and rural settings, as well as the large-scale depletion of the country’s natural resources, especially forests.

“The mismanagement of State land has negatively impacted the poorest Cambodians most,” said BABSEA Director David Pred. “Rural and indigenous communities have been deprived of the land on which their lives depend in order to make way for Economic Land Concessions, and poor urban households have been denied the opportunity to secure their land tenure despite their legal entitlements, when they are wrongly labelled as squatters on State land.”

Boeung Kak residents who filed the complaint against the World Bank have requested to remain anonymous, citing concerns for their safety amidst increasing intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders and political dissidents in Cambodia.

The Cambodian government abruptly ended its agreement on the project with the World Bank last month after a disagreement about the applicability of World Bank social safeguards in cases like Boeung Kak. Despite the government’s termination of the agreement, human rights groups have demanded that the Cambodian government continue to be held accountable for its contractual obligations to adhere to the project’s policy on involuntary resettlement.

“In light of the serious problems with the design and implementation of LMAP, it is incumbent upon the World Bank to conduct a thorough investigation of this project and its overall assistance strategy in Cambodia,” said Pred. “After seven years of wholly inadequate supervision of LMAP, the Bank has a responsibility to investigate and remedy the harms that have been caused to the Cambodian families who have been unfairly denied recognition of their land rights.”

“The World Bank should reconsider its approach to land titling programmes that it promotes worldwide, especially in countries without strong rule of law and the political will to protect people’s rights against powerful interests,” Booker added. “Through the Inspection Panel’s investigation, the World Bank can and should learn important lessons from LMAP.”

THE NOTICE OF REGISTRATION OF THE COMPLAINT IS AVAILABLE AT:

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTINSPECTIONPANEL/Resources/Notice_of_Registration.pdf

READ THE REPORT:

Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian Land Sector, Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Jesuit Relief Services, October 2009 (Acrobat PDF, 1.38 MB)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, GO TO THE LINK BELOW:
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SOURCE: Bank Information Center

World Bank in talks with Cambodia over evictions

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A senior World Bank official held talks with the Cambodian government over the forced eviction of people from their homes and said the development bank would continue to work with it on land reform to tackle the problem.

Land ownership is a controversial issue in Cambodia, where legal documents were destroyed and state institutions collapsed under the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s and the civil war that followed.

The World Bank joined with other aid donors in July to ask the government to halt forced evictions and the problem was raised again by its vice-president for East Asia and the Pacific Region, James Adams, during a visit last week.
"A major focus of the visit was Cambodia's urban land sector and the increasing numbers of disputes and evictions of poor people in urban settlements," the bank said in a statement.

"The discussions on land reform were constructive and it was agreed to continue these discussions over the coming week to agree next steps," it said.

The bank has provided funding of $24.3 million for a land management and administration project from 2002 to 2009, and an estimated 1.1 million land titles were issued, said Bou Saroeun, a spokesman for the World Bank in Phnom Penh.

Other donors such as Germany, Finland and Canada have together provided more than $14 million to support the land title project, Saroeun added.


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Source: Article from REUTERS posted on Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:07am EDT(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Alan Raybould)