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April 26, 2009
This Land is Your Land? This Land is My Land.
Land rights and forced evictions have become a huge problem in cambodia over the past five years. While Cambodia shares many aspects with squatting and shantytowns around the world, there is one important difference: all titles and claims prior to 1979 were basically eradicated. Families returning home after the end of the Khmer Rouge found themselves in something vaguely reminiscent of the state of nature, albeit one administered by the Vietnamese army. According to Boramy, in the early days you could just move into a house, clean it up, and take possession. (By 1981-82, things had settled enough that while you could still claim open land, houses were pretty much a closed matter). Of course, you couldn't take any house you wanted, because some were specifically reserved for government officials.
And therein lies the biggest problem in Cambodian land issues: if you don't have a clear title to the land (something that seemed like an unnecessary expense in terms of the bribery and fees to make it happen), it probably belongs to the government. And if the government wants to sell off that land to some foreign company or some company run by friends of the government, there's not a lot you can do. The government might make some token effort at restitution, but mostly that involves moving from a central city location you've lived and worked at for 30 years, to some exurb without plumbing, electricity, or decent roads. Too many of the shiny shopping malls and
The land law says that five years of continued possession is enough to grant you a legitimate claim to the land, and that was the law, which was more or less followed until fairly recently. The real estate boom and ensuing rampant speculation (particularly by government and army officials) changed things so that there's a much stronger constellation of private and public forces pushing for unjust evictions, and much less recourse in the face of illegal actions by private companies.
It's a messed up situation, and it's one more reason for you, dear reader, to be grateful that you are not poor and Cambodian.
For more info, check out this report from Amnesty International.
Anyway and on a happier note, Khmer New year was a lot of fun. Hopefully I can put together a quick retelling of all my various adventures soon enough.
Posted by flynn at April 26, 2009 4:42 PM
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Comments
Man, this blog was great. Gotta resurrect it, buddy!
Posted by: John at October 11, 2009 3:11 AM