Brief description

At 04:00 a.m. on 6 June 2006, about 700 armed police, armed with rifles, batons, shields and teargas, evicted more than one thousand families living near Group 78 in the Bassac area. The police trucked families to a barren field more than 20 km from the center of Phnom Penh. Municipal officials claimed these families were living on land owned by Sour Srun Company, but assured Group 78 members that they would be spared eviction. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) reports that police refused NGOs, media and UN human rights officers access to the village.[1] The police prohibited cameras and confiscated notebooks.

On 7 June: Reneging on earlier promises, City Hall and district officials threatened to remove Group 78 residents, offering them one plot of land at another resettlement site more than 20 km away. Most families refused, and asked to be compensated for the market value of their land.

On 9 June: Officials accompanied by military personnel measured houses at Group 78 and asked community members to sign away their land. The people refused to sign.

On 13 June: A Sour Srun Company bulldozer demolished two houses at the Group 78 site.

On 22 June: Group 78 residents received an eviction notice from municipal authorities. The notice did not specify an eviction date, but declared that Group 78 residents would have to leave the site in order to contribute to the beauty and development of Phnom Penh.

On 7 July: City Hall again offered each family a 5-by-12-meter resettlement plot and, as added enticement, offered each family USD 500. After community representatives refused the offer, City Hall officials angrily stormed out of the meeting.

On 13 July: Some ten families agreed to leave Group 78 for an unknown settlement offer. Reportedly, all were relatives of a village sub-chief cooperating with the authorities.

On 14 July: Before dawn, 30 uniformed police officers armed with guns, rifles and electric batons went to the Group 78 community, reportedly as an intimidation tactic. Several more Group 78 families agreed to move to the resettlement site, bringing the total to around 15. Each family received USD 600 and a plot of land measuring 5 by 12 meters.

On 16 July: City Hall distributed to each Group 78 family an eviction notice with a deadline of 21 July, citing beautification and tourism as a justification for the eviction. The notice stated: When the deadline is over, the Municipality will take strict measures and will not be responsible for loss, damage or other incidents.

The Victims

Nearly 150 families living on a plot of land known as Group 78 near the Bassac River in Phnom Penh are facing an eviction deadline of Friday, July 21. This community has lived in Group 78 since the early 1980s. Since then, they have cultivated the land, built structures on the land, and used the land as collateral for loans. The families have good documents demonstrating their firm right to possess and occupy the land. In the early 1990s, commune and local authorities issued some families receipts recognizing their occupation of the land. If evicted, these families will be removed to barren fields more than 20 kilometers from the city center, with no basic sanitation services, no sources of food or potable water, and no access to schools, hospitals or jobs.

Background

These recent evictions were the latest round that began on 3 May 2006 committed by the Sour Srun Enterprise Company, Ltd. and authorized by the Phnom Penh municipality. On 31 May, a large number of families, left homeless by the evictions, returned and erected tents on lands they previously owned. Workers, under local authority directives, were sent to dismantle the tents. Clashes ensued between residents and village guards, resulting in the death of a pregnant woman and an 11-year-old child. Shortly thereafter, evictions escalated and culminated in the forced eviction of a 1,000 families to date.

The Group 78 eviction is just one example of an eviction crisis sweeping Cambodia. In the weeks and months ahead, authorities plan to evict citizens from their land throughout the country. In Phnom Penh, families in Dayee Krahowm and Happy Community, two large areas near Group 78, are threatened with eviction as well. On June 29, police forces were deployed at 05:00 a.m. to evict over 150 families in central Phnom Penhs Monivong community. In the provinces, the situation is arguably worse. On June 27, police officials razed 71 homes in Sihanoukville in what the governor claimed was an effort to further poverty reduction. Eviction notices have been issued in, inter alia, Kampong Cham, Kratie, Mondulkiri, Pursat, Stung Treng, Siem Reap, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear, and Kompong Thom.

The accelerating pace of evictions in Cambodia suggests a coordinated government strategy of facilitating private appropriation of land at the expense of the poor. In fact, government officials admit as much. In reference to the Group 78 eviction, Mea Sopheap, Tonle Bassac commune chief, stated: “[Sour Srun Company] will remove one community every three months until finished. The sheer number of people threatened with internal displacement raises the specter of instability for Cambodia.

Critique of the official reasons

Officials claim that Group 78 land is government property illegally occupied by the community. However, the City has produced no documentation to support this claim. To the contrary, publicly available evidence suggests that the land is not government property. First, the parcels of land immediately adjacent to Group 78 are privately owned by the Australian Embassy and corporate mogul Kit Meng. In addition, district officials wrote to Village 78 residents in 2001 to request permission to hold Water Festival ceremonies near their land; this implies that the land is private property. Finally, the land does not fit any of the categories of government property (including roads, rivers, public parks, etc.) laid out in the 2001 Cambodian Land Law. Sour Srun Company, which has already evicted one thousand families from the land adjacent to Group 78, also claims it owns some of Group 78s land. It has, however, produced no documents demonstrating the existence, or extent, of its acclaimed title.

Furthermore, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reports that land grabbing has been a prominent government policy as Cambodia transitioned from collectivization to privatization in the post-Khmer Rouge period.[2] Moreover, AHRC also adds that the legality surrounding government concessions to private business is questionable due to the lack of transparency and the secrecy enshrouding such deals. Finally, the government has been using repression under the pretexts of economic development, beautification of the capital, or social stability and, in so doing, has violated its 1991 Paris Peace Accords commitment and its own constitutional obligations.

Duty Holders

In all circumstances the primary duty holders are those in the central and local authorities of Cambodia. As such, the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Municipality of Phnom Penh are held responsible for the protecting citizens from such forced evictions, committed by both the state agents and by the Sour Srun Company, against the residents of the Groups 78 area of Phnom Penh. The secondary duty holder, but equally responsible, is the Sour Srun Company. It has not only rendered thousands homeless through its actions, but has also made available the tools for demolition. The State also bears a duty to investigate and prosecute Sour Sun Company and its personnel for human rights violations.

Legal Aspects

Local Laws

The government and companys actions stand in flagrant violation of Cambodian law. Article 44 of the Cambodian Constitution states that the government can only deprive someone of property for public interest purposes and requires that the government pay victims fair and just compensation in advance. Article 5 of the 2001 Land Law also prohibits deprivation of ownership without process of law. Article 38 of the 2001 Land Law grants ownership to someone who has possessed property in a nonviolent, continuous, open, obvious, and good-faith manner for five years. Further, Article 7.3.5 of the Cambodian governments own Strategy of Land Policy Framework requires that the government pursue a policy of compensation and relocation if it resettles people for a public purpose. The policy also states clearly that the government should avoid forced evictions if at all possible. Municipality has violated Cambodian law, because the it has issued eviction noticesand evicted some residentswithout offering any public interest justification or compensating the victims for the market value of their loss (which Bonna Realty Company has appraised as USD 550 per square meter).

The authorities actions also stand in flagrant violation of articles 2, 4, 11, and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which the Government of Cambodia acceded in 26 August 1992, and of General Comments 4 and 7 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Furthermore, the eviction process fails to meet United Nations Comprehensive Human Rights Guidelines on Development-based Displacement, first articulated in 1997. Those guidelines urge that governments conduct a social impact assessment and make arrangement for fair compensation and adequate resettlement conditions in advance of any eviction.

In most circumstances, forced evictions are prima facie violations of international law. The current mass evictions in Cambodia indisputably violate the right to adequate housing of the Group 78 residents. In addition, these evictions impact the dwellers congruent rights linked to the right to adequate housing, such as the right to food, the right to water, the right to health, the right to education, and the right to livelihood. Both the Municipality of Phnom Penh and the government of Cambodia, as primary duty-holders, have denied the Group 78 inhabitants, in particular, the following elements of the right to adequate housing: legal security of tenure and freedom from dispossession; the right to information, participation and self-expression; and the right to freedom from discrimination on any basis. Cambodia is obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill the human right to housing as enshrined in ICESCR.

In addition to ICESCR, Cambodia has also ratified both the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDaW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 14 November 1992, which require Cambodia to protect the housing rights of both women (CEDaW Article 14 2.h.) and childrens rights to adequate housing (CRC Article 27, 3). The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Cambodia on 26 August 1992, prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and/or punishment (Article 7) and the arbitrary use of force (Article 17).

Actions Already Taken

At the request of the Group 78 community, Cambodias Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) and Legal Aid of Cambodia (LAC) took the case on 8 June. Since then, attorneys and community members have filed numerous letters to the Ministry of Land, the National Authority on Land Dispute Resolution (NALDR), Phnom Penh City Hall, the Ministry of Interior and the District and National Cadastral Commissions, contesting the eviction. The attorneys are asserting the community members documented right to the land, and requesting compensation for the families and disclosure of a public-purpose justification for the eviction. The attorneys and community members also have filed a complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, requesting that the court cancel the eviction notice. Finally, attorneys have requested a copy of Sour Sruns land title from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.

CLEC, LAC and community representatives also have brought the case to the attention of local and international media. On 16 June, CLEC and LAC held a press conference on the threatened eviction; on 18 July , after receiving notice of the July 21 eviction deadline, community members held an on-site press conference calling for public purpose justification and fair and just compensation. On 29 June, community representatives and CLEC attorneys discussed the Group 78 community members legal rights on a Voice of Democracy (VoD) radio talk show. On 12 July, attorneys drafted letters to the National Assembly, the Senate, and the Ministry of National Assembly and Senate Relations and Inspection (MoNaSRI) in order to publicize the case.

ACTION: How You Can Help

Please join us in calling for a stop to the Cambodian governments flagrant violation of its own laws and international laws to which it has acceded. With your support, we can stop this eviction.

Please see Sample Letter attached below.

Please send letters to:

Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen

Office of the Council of Ministers

No. 41 Russian Federation Boulevard

Phnom Penh, Cambodia 12252

E-mail: ocm@cambodia.gov.kh

Fax: +855 (0)23 880619

H.E. Kep Chuktema

Governor, Phnom Penh Municipality

No. 69 Boulevard Preah Monivong

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

E-mail: phnompenh@citybigpond.com.kh

Fax: +855 (0)23 211081, +855 (0)23 724156

Sour Srun Enterprise Co., Ltd.

No. 108112 Samdech Sothearos (St. 3)

3rd Floor, Hong Kong Center

12207 Phnom Penh, Cambodia 12207

Fax: +855 (0)23 211999

***************************************************************************************************************

Please see the attached Sample Letter.

Kindly inform HLRN of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply to: urgentactions@hlrn.org and sarah@clec.org.kh ***************************************************************************************************************

[Sample letter for Cambodian officials]

19 July 2006

Excellency,

We are deeply concerned to learn that the Cambodian government plans to evict nearly 150 families living in the community known as Group 78 near the Bassac River in Phnom Penh. This eviction has been planned without any transparency or provision for fair and just compensation, in flagrant violation of Cambodian and international law. We urge you to put an immediate stop to this eviction and take steps to bring the governments actions in line with Cambodian and international norms.

The families living in Group 78 possess documents demonstrating their firm right to possess and occupy the land. The community has lived in Group 78 since the early 1980s; since then, they have farmed the land, built structures on the land, and used the land as collateral for loans. In the early 1990s, commune and local authorities issued some families receipts recognizing their occupation of plots on the site. These citizens have satisfied the requirements of Article 38 of the 2001 Land Law, which grants ownership to someone who has possessed property in a nonviolent, continuous, open, obvious and good-faith manner for five years.

Though the Municipality of Phnom Penh claims that Group 78 land is illegally occupied government property, officials have produced no documentation to support this claim. To the contrary, publicly available evidence suggests that the land is not government property. First, the parcels of land immediately adjacent to Group 78 are privately owned by the Australian Embassy and corporate mogul Kit Meng. In addition, district officials wrote to Village 78 residents in 2001 to request permission to hold Water Festival ceremonies near their land; this request implies that the land is the private property of Group 78 community members. Finally, the land does not fit any of the categories of government state public property (including roads, rivers, public parks, etc.) laid out in the 2001 Cambodian Land Law. Sour Srun Company, which has already evicted one thousand families from the land adjacent to Group 78, also claims it owns some of Group 78s land. It has, however, failed to produce documents demonstrating the existence, or extent, of its title.

The Municipalitys eviction of the residents without transparency or compensation stands in flagrant violation of Cambodian law. Article 44 of the Cambodian Constitution states that the government can only deprive someone of property for public interest purposes and requires that the government pay victims fair and just compensation in advance of any eviction. Article 5 of the 2001 Land Law also prohibits deprivation of ownership without process of law. Further, Article 7.3.5 of the Cambodian governments own Strategy of Land Policy Framework requires that the government pursue a policy of compensation and relocation if it resettles people for a public interest purpose. The policy also states clearly that the government should avoid forced evictions if at all possible. Because the Municipality has issued an eviction noticeand evicted some residentswithout offering market value compensation or giving any public interest justification, the government has violated Cambodian law and its own policy.

The authorities actions also stand in flagrant violation of articles 2, 4, 11, and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which the Government of Cambodia acceded in 26 August 1992, and of General Comments 4 and 7 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Furthermore, the eviction process fails to meet United Nations Comprehensive Human Rights Guidelines on Development-based Displacement, first articulated in 1997. These guidelines urge that governments conduct a social impact assessment and make arrangement for fair compensation and adequate resettlement conditions in advance of any eviction.

The devastating human consequences of recent evictions in Cambodia lend further urgency to our appeal. Recent evictions in the Bassac and Monivong communities have left thousands of displaced residents in barren fields more than 20 kilometers from the city center, with no basic sanitation services, no sources of food or potable water, and no access to schools, hospitals or jobs. If evicted, Group 78 community members will face the same bleak conditions.

In light of the above, we urge you to take steps to:

• Stop the eviction at Group 78 immediately;
• Publicly disclose the governments public purpose justification for the eviction, or, in the alternative the land title of Sour Srun Company;
• Guarantee Group 78 families fair and just compensation for their land at the market rate of USD 550 per square meter, as estimated by Bonna Realty Company, before proceeding with any further eviction;
• Respect and implement the national and international laws and standards mentioned above.

Respectfully,

[signed]

[organization name]