And Cambodia's 'out of control' evictions
 |
The fate of Cambodia shocked the world when the radical communist Khmer Rouge under their leader Pol Pot seized power in 1975 after years of guerrilla warfare.
An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died during the next three years, many from exhaustion or starvation. Others were tortured and executed.
Today, Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world and relies heavily on aid. Foreign donors have urged the government to clamp down on pervasive corruption.
Overview
Cambodia is burdened with the legacy of decades of conflict; unexploded munitions - thought to number in the millions - continue to kill and maim civilians, despite an ongoing de-mining drive.
Only now is the country beginning to put the mechanism in place to bring those responsible for the "killing fields" to justice. Cambodia and the UN have agreed to set up a tribunal to try the surviving leaders of the genocide years.
The tribunal held its first public hearing - a bail request by one of the defendants - in November 2007.
 Boats race past the Royal Palace during the annual water festival |
Trials are expected to start in 2008 and last for three years.
In pursuit of a rural utopia, the Khmer Rouge abolished money and private property and ordered city dwellers into the countryside to cultivate the fields.
The effects can still be seen today, with around 70% of Cambodia's workforce employed in subsistence farming.
The Mekong River provides fertile, irrigated fields for rice production.
Exports of clothing generate most of Cambodia's foreign exchange and tourism is also important.
The imposing temple complex at Angkor, built between the ninth and 13th centuries by Khmer kings, is a UN heritage site and a big draw for visitors.
Well over half of Cambodia is forested, but illegal logging is robbing the country of millions of dollars of badly-needed revenue.
International watchdog Global Witness claims top officials are involved in the trade. The environment is also suffering, with topsoil erosion and flooding becoming prevalent.
The spread of HIV/Aids is another threat; however, public health campaigns have reduced the rate of infection.
Facts
- Full name: Kingdom of Cambodia
- Population: 14.4 million (UN, 2007)
- Capital and largest city: Phnom Penh
- Area: 181,035 sq km (69,898 sq miles)
- Major language: Khmer
- Major religion: Buddhism
- Life expectancy: 57 years (men), 62 years (women) (UN)
- Monetary unit: 1 riel = 100 sen
- Main exports: Clothing, timber, rubber
- GNI per capita: US $380 (World Bank, 2006)
- Internet domain: .kh
- International dialling code: +855
Leaders
Head of state: King Norodom Sihamoni
 The king's role is mainly ceremonial |
The son of former king Norodom Sihanouk, King Sihamoni was sworn in as monarch on 29 October 2004. The former king had abdicated because of poor health.
Born in 1953, he studied in Czechoslovakia. He left Cambodia for France after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He is a trained classical ballet dancer.
Cambodia's kings once enjoyed a semi-divine status; today, the monarch's role is mainly ceremonial.
Prime minister: Hun Sen
Hun Sen, one of the world's longest-serving prime ministers, has been in power in various coalitions since 1985.
He was re-elected by parliament in July 2004 after nearly a year of political stalemate. His Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won general elections in 2003, but without enough seats for it to rule alone.
 Cambodia's veteran premier Hun Sen |
It finally struck a deal with the royalist Funcinpec party, which at the time was led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in June 2004.
Hun Sen is no stranger to controversy. He seized power from his then co-prime minister, Prince Ranariddh, in 1997. More recently, some Western countries have said his rule has become increasingly authoritarian.
Born in 1952, Hun Sen joined the Communist Party in the late 1960s and, for a time, was a member of the Khmer Rouge. He has denied accusations that he was once a top official within the movement, saying he was only an ordinary soldier.
During the Pol Pot regime in the late 1970s he joined anti-Khmer Rouge forces based in Vietnam.
Media
Many Cambodian newspapers and private radio and TV stations depend on support from political parties. Prime Minister Hun Sen and his allies control several broadcasters.
Although press freedom is not guaranteed, Hun Sen has declared his support for press freedom, publicly praising the benefits to society of an unfettered media.
There are no restrictions on satellite dish ownership and foreign radio broadcasts can be received easily from neighbouring countries. BBC World Service broadcasts via BBC 100 FM in Phnom Penh and BBC 99.25 FM in Siem Reap. Radio France Internationale is available in the capital.
Travellers in Cambodia have to deal with one of the world's worst train networks. 
There is only one passenger service a week, and it often travels at not much more than walking pace.
So people in the north west of the country, near Cambodia's second city of Battambang, have taken matters into their own hands.
They have created their own rail service using little more than pieces of bamboo. The locals call the vehicles "noris", or "lorries", but overseas visitors know them as "bamboo trains".
A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury.
It would be a white-knuckle ride - if there were actually anything to hold on to.
The bamboo trains reach about 40km/h (25mph), with the track just a couple of inches below the passengers. Warped and broken rails make for a bone-shaking journey.
But the drivers insist it is a safe form of transport.
"We're very careful," said 18-year-old Sok Kimhor, a 10-year veteran of the bamboo trains. "We look out for children and animals running across the lines, and we have to slow down when other trains come along."
Unofficial role
Low fares add to the appeal, but the service is not without its quirks. There is only one track - so if two trains meet, the one with the lightest load has to be taken off the rails so the other can pass.
The bamboo trains have been an unofficial part of the Cambodian transport network for years. The official railways survived decades of civil war and sabotage by the Khmer Rouge, but all those years without maintenance have taken their toll.
Recent cuts to the timetable mean the official service to Phnom Penh now departs just once a week, and local people are left little alternative but to use the bamboo trains.
"I use the bamboo trains to go to Battambang from my house in Phnom Teppedey so I can buy medicine," said Sao Nao as she sits on the rails with a small group of people, waiting for a nori to depart.
"They're very safe - a motorbike taxi is too fast, and if I use one of those I sometimes get dizzy and fall off. On a bamboo train I can sit down and go to sleep. You can't do that on a motorbike."
Motorbikes would also struggle to take the loads that bamboo trains happily lug - indeed they often form part of the cargo, alongside freshly-harvested lychees, machine parts and timber for building houses.
Deserted
While there is plenty of bustle around the bamboo trains at their improvised stations outside Battambang, the city's main station lies deserted. Cattle chomp on the grass growing over the rails and children play on the tracks without any fear for their safety.
In Phnom Penh, the story is much the same. The station is beautiful, but three battered carriages are all that is left of Cambodia's passenger rolling stock.
The director of Cambodian Railways, Sokhom Pheakavanmony, admitted that passenger services are currently woeful, but said that improvements were on their way.
"In a plan under discussion with the Asian Development Bank right now, by 2010 we will be able to complete the rehabilitation," he said.
"I think that if the rail condition is good, the passenger trains can run. I hope that in the future, people can use the trains to move from one area to another area, and from one country to another."
The ultimate goal is for Cambodia to be a key part of a railway linking all of South East Asia, but that seems a long way off to the people of Battambang.
Despite official efforts to discourage the service, they will keep the faith with the bamboo railway until they see concrete proof otherwise.
Human rights activists have warned that forced evictions in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh are spiralling out of control.
In recent weeks, thousands of people have been removed from their homes, and thousands more are set to follow. 
As the local authorities make the slum residents leave, property developers are waiting to move in to build luxury apartments and shopping centres.
The official line is that the evictions are necessary for the development of the city.
There are an increasing number of luxury housing projects in various stages of construction in and around Phnom Penh. Prices for each unit run into hundreds of thousands of dollars - well out of the reach of the vast majority of residents.
Estate agents say businessmen and well-connected officials are the main buyers, but at least a quarter of the units on average remain unsold.
By contrast, Phnom Penh's shanty towns have provided refuge for people at the bottom of the economic pile for at least two decades.
For families getting by on a couple of dollars a day, a bamboo and corrugated-iron shack in a slum is all they can afford.
Living in the city, however, provides the hope of a better life. There are employment opportunities for the adults, and children can go to school.
Some people have lived in the same place for more than a decade, giving them a strong legal claim to own their property - but that has had little effect on preventing evictions.
Sit-down protests
Village 14 was one of the city's biggest and longest-established shanty towns.
Hundreds of makeshift dwellings were crammed onto the muddy ground next to the Bassac River. Green sludge collected under the wooden porches of the shacks, and the tang of rotting vegetables mingled with the stench of raw sewage.
Even so, it was still a community. The 1,200 families who lived there had set up an electricity supply, and simple grocery shops operated out of the front of some of the houses. There was even an official neighbourhood office. 
I could make a dollar and a half by selling some vegetables in the city, but it would cost two dollars to get there and back 
Resettled dweller
All that has gone now.
At first, the residents were full of defiance. They staged a sit-down protest to prevent their homes from being dismantled.
The workers from a property development company that had claimed the land backed off, but their trucks still stood outside the shanty town, ready to shift the residents more than 20km away.
They returned with riot police, and the evictions began.
Soon, just a small huddle of people remained, shivering under blue tarpaulins as the rain came down. Within days, the riot police had moved them out as well - and the land where their homes had stood was enclosed with a green, corrugated-iron fence.
Other long-standing slum communities are facing the same fate.
They have been told the reason for their forthcoming eviction is the "beautification of the city."
The municipal authorities say the riverfront land they occupy should be for tourists, government ministries and luxury housing developments.
Continuing row
Meanwhile the former slum dwellers are finding life difficult in resettlement sites outside Phnom Penh which have no running water, mains electricity or sewage.
There are no markets or schools nearby, and the rainy season has caused conditions to deteriorate rapidly.
They use the word development as a pretext for evictions
Community council member
One elderly woman, Ot Sokoeun, wiped away tears as she explained how difficult it was to cope.
"When it rains, my shack is knee-deep in water, because of the poor drainage," she said.
"It is really hard to make a living. I could make a dollar and a half by selling some vegetables in the city, but it would cost two dollars to get there and back."
The municipal authorities insist that conditions will improve at the resettlement sites over time.
"Now people think it's very far from the city," said Phnom Penh's Deputy Governor, Mann Choeun. "But maybe in the near future this new area will be the centre of the city."
The residents of the remaining shanty towns are unconvinced.
They hope that instead of evicting them, the local authorities will work with them to upgrade their communities, but many of them think there is little chance of that happening.
"They use the word development as a pretext for evictions," claimed Phal Sithol, a member of the commune council for another riverside community.
"They say we're living on someone else's land, but we've been here since 1991, and the property developers didn't come until this year so how can that be the case?"
The arguments are likely to continue. The authorities have recently announced plans to fill-in and build on one of Phnom Penh's biggest lakes.
The development will bring more luxury housing as well as a park, but thousands more families will be displaced.
No comments:
Post a Comment