Cambodia's epidemic of land-grabbing - often committed in the name of so-called "development" - is fueling poverty and jeopardizing the government’s claimed development goals, according to a LICADHO report released today.

Entitled Land-grabbing and Poverty in Cambodia: The Myth of Development, the report concludes that: “The Cambodian government’s policies and practices on land management have failed. Rather than contributing positively to the development of the country, they are swelling the ranks of the landless, the unemployed and the poverty-stricken”.

The report notes that government officials often try to justify the evictions of Cambodians from their homes or farmland - for example, when the government grants a land concession to a private company which encroaches on villagers’ land - by saying that it is necessary for the country’s development. The reality, however, is that such “development” rarely benefits ordinary Cambodians.

“This type of ‘development’ only seems to mean that a few rich and powerful individuals and companies benefit by becoming richer and stronger, while the health and welfare of countless Cambodians becomes weaker and weaker,” said LICADHO president Kek Pung. “Evictions and land-grabbing are not helping to develop Cambodia - they are simply causing more poverty and hardship.”

The LICADHO report describes an explosion in land-related human rights violations in recent years. More than a quarter of a million Cambodians have been affected by such violations between 2003 and 2008 - and this is just in the 13 provinces and municipalities where LICADHO has offices.

The report highlights, among other major problems, the loss of rural villagers’ land due to encroaching Economic Land Concessions, and the evictions of Phnom Penh residents because of Social Land Concessions. Both types of concessions are often granted unlawfully, in violation of the Land Law, the report states. Perversely, the concept of Social Land Concessions - which was intended to give land to the landless - has been improperly used to “steal land from the poor rather than provide it to them”.

The Myth of Development report is being released on June 6 to mark the third anniversary of the final eviction of Sambok Chap village on Phnom Penh’s riverside in 2006. In the middle of the rainy season, hundreds of police and military police forcibly evicted more than 1,300 families from the village, dumping them on a barren, flood-prone field 22km away, where many of them remain today.

Sambok Chap is cited in the report as an example of how evictions directly contradict the government’s claimed development objectives, such as its commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals which include eradicating poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, and improving education. Far from helping to achieve these goals, evictions such as Sambok Chap impoverish families and reduce their access to health and education, by moving them away from their jobs, hospitals and schools.

“Government officials talk about developing the country, reducing poverty, improving health and education - but every time that Cambodians are evicted from their homes or farmland, the result is the opposite,” said Kek Pung. “By failing to protect Cambodians’ land and housing rights, the government is blocking real development in this country - development which actually benefits ordinary people.”

The LICADHO report also refers to several Phnom Penh sites as examples of how evictions seem to have occurred for land speculation reasons rather than for “development”. When Sambok Chap was cleared in 2006, it was supposedly in order for the Sour Srun company to commercially develop the site by building a shopping center. Three years later, the site is overgrown and undeveloped. Similarly, the 2006 eviction of 168 families from land nearby Monivong Hospital was said to be necessary to make way for commercial development by the Royal Group; three years on, the land is being used as a yard to park and clean cars.

“Government officials need to stop using the excuse of ‘development’ to justify evictions,” said Kek Pung. “It is long overdue that the government faces up to the reality of Cambodia’s land crisis and takes some real action to prevent and punish land-grabbing and put an end to forced evictions.”

For more information, please contact:
▪ Ms. Naly Pilorge, LICADHO Director, 012-803-650
▪ Mr. Ham Sunrith, LICADHO Deputy Director of Monitoring & Protection, 012-988-959

PDF: Download full statement in English - Download full statement in Khmer