CAMBODIA: Forced eviction of 229 families in Sihanoukville

[NOTICE: The AHRC have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the “button” below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of some of the Cambodian authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the Cambodian authorities are attached below with this appeal. Thank you.]

 

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned that on December 17, 2006, Say Hak, governor of the seaport municipality of Sihanoukville led a mixed police force of about 70 men armed with pistols, assault rifles and electric batons, together with a bulldozer, to evict 229 families from their homes and land of altogether 28 hectares in village No.1, commune No.1, Mittapheap district, Sihanoukville. About 300 villagers resisted the eviction and barred the entrance to their village. Say Hak allegedly ordered the police to forcibly evict the people who were on their way and the police beat many of villagers with electric batons and wooden sticks. It has been reported that there are more than 20 villagers who suffered from injures made by police assaults.

CASE DETAILS:

According to the information we have received, the governor of the seaport municipality of Sihanoukville had ordered police force of about 70 armed men with pistols, assault rifles and electric batons and a bulldozer to evict 229 families who reside in about 28 hectares of land in village No.1, commune No.1, Mittapheap district in Sihanoukville on December 17, 2006. The governor Say Hak allegedly ordered the police to force their way in, exhorting the driver of the bulldozer to crush those who tried to prevent them by saying, “Crush 2 or 3 of those who are in the way”. This comment was heard by a 48-year old woman villager, Khat Thol, who was barred to enter into the village on that day.

The police forged ahead beating villagers who were in their way with electric batons and wooden sticks. One military officer repeatedly beat Hem Narin’s wife on her left arm causing serious injuries when she tried to protect her husband who had already fallen to the ground when shocked by an electric baton and from receiving blows of a wooden stick. Another officer punched a 40-yeard old woman named Meas Neam in the temple three times. Four other officers assaulted a 57-year old woman named Sou Sarin. Three other villagers were also injured due to electric shocks. According to a human rights monitor over 20 villagers suffered various degrees of injuries in the police assault. Three of the injured needed hospital treatment.

Once the resistance had been broken the bulldozer set out to open a path leading to the land. Then on the following days the same bulldozer cleared the land around the villagers’ houses and destroyed their fruit trees while their owners were urged to dismantle their houses. As of December 22, seven houses were demolished and flattened, and the clearance continued while the owners looked on, powerless, facing the armed police guarding the demolition site.

On December 20, 60 of the villagers, among them were 40 women, went to the Parliament in Phnom Penh, over 200 kilometers away from their village, to protest against this forced eviction and seek intervention from MPs, the Prime Minister and  other relevant authorities to stop the eviction and let them live on their land in peace.

As a matter of fact, villagers have asserted that in 1986/87 they went to live on that land then uninhabited and owned by nobody when a communist regime still ruled Cambodia. They started to work their respective land as orchards. In 1988 the Sihanoukville municipality asked them to give their land to it for planting rubber. This plantation project ran into financial difficulties and the municipality could not pay the salaries of workers. In 1991 these workers then sold the respective plots of land they had planted rubber trees on to a private businessman named Sou Chong Hour in 1991. Realising that the land was no longer a public land as agreed upon when they have given it to the municipality, the original owners protested against Sou Chong Hour. This businessman did not take long to give up the ownership of it. The original owners then gave that land once again a public land to the municipality to plant acacia trees in 1993. But in 1995 and 1996 the chief of the commune cleared the young acacia plants and sold the land. The original owners protested against that sale and started to reoccupy their land and build houses on it in 1996 and 1997, despite the commune chief’s objection.

There was then tension between those villagers and the commune chief. In 1998 at the instigation of this chief four of the villagers, Phan Chantha, 48, Pol Pong, 49, Phok Sophea, 24 and Net Marn. 50, were charged with causing damage to other people’s property. The charge was apparently meant to put pressure on those villagers to vacate the land as the court offered to drop the charge against the four men if they agreed to leave the contested land. Two yielded to this coercion, but the other two defied the court and, thanks to their fellow villagers’ protection, escaped the arrest and went into hiding.

In the same year those villagers took their case to the Parliament. They then secured a promise from the ministry of justice to look into their case. It took that ministry until 2000 before it could send a letter urging the court in Sihanoukville to hear their case. However, since then, their case has never been heard by that court.

The AHRC has learned that Sihanoukville governor Say Hak had neither had recourse to any due process of law and secured any eviction order from the court, nor served any eviction notice to those 229 families although he had previously had several meetings with them. He simply issued an administrative order since, he has claim, those families are living on public land. The AHRC has further learned that he took that land to give to 560 families who had been previously evicted from a land claimed by Tycoon Senator Kong Triv in the same city. He reportedly offered each of the 229 families an 8 meter X 20 meter plot of land which is simply a fraction of their respective current holdings and which is unacceptable to them.

The AHRC therefore urges the Cambodian government and Sihanoukville governor Say Hak to immediately stop the forced eviction of the 229 families and give them back their land. It is utterly unjust to force these families to bear the burden of housing the families who have been forcibly evicted to liberate land for Tycoon Senator Kong Triv.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

The AHRC had reported numbers of cases of forced land eviction by state and local authorities occurring in throughout the whole country of Cambodia (for more details, please see UA-409-2006; UA-411-2006; UA-001-2007). In some of the cases, several villagers had been falsely charged by courts. And in the others, many of the villagers had been injured and not received any compensation for justice. The AHRC is deeply concerning about such practices conducted by state officials and urge that the cases should be resolved in accordance with law and justice.

SUGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the authorities listed below to immediately stop that forced eviction and return the land to those 229 families.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear____________

CAMBODIA:  Forced eviction of 229 families in Sihanoukville

Name of the victims: 229 families from village No.1, commune No.1, Mittapheap district, Sihanoukville, Cambodia
Alleged perpetrators: Say Hak, the governor of the seaport municipality Sihanoukville, and 70 armed police force mixed with ordinary people
Date of incident: at the land of 229 families which is about 28 hectares located in village No.1, commune No.1, Mittapheap district, Sihanoukville
Place of incident:  17 December 2006

I am writing to you to ask your immediate intervention to the forced eviction of 229 families live in a village of Sihanoukville municipality which was conducted by the governor of Sihanoukville. I have learned that on December 17, 2006 Say Hak, governor of the seaport municipality Sihanoukville led a mixed police force of about 70 men armed with pistols, assault rifles and electric batons, together with a bulldozer, to evict 229 families from their homes and land of altogether 28 hectares in village No.1, commune No.1, Mittapheap district, Sihanoukville. About 300 villagers resisted the eviction and barred the entrance to their village.

Say Hak is reported to have ordered the police to force their way to enter, exhorting the driver of the bulldozer to crush those who stopped their entrance: “Crush 2 or 3 of those who are in the way”, he said. The police forged ahead assaulting villagers using their fists, their electric batons and wooden sticks. In this assault over 20 villagers are reported to have been injured, three of whom needed hospital treatment.

Once the resistance had been broken, the bulldozer set out to open a path leading to the land. Then on the following days the same bulldozer cleared the land around the villagers’ houses and destroyed their fruit trees while their owners were urged to dismantle their houses. As of December 22 seven houses were demolished and flattened, and the clearance continued while the owners looked on, powerless, facing the armed police guarding this clearance. On December 20, 60 of those powerless villagers traveled a long journey to the Parliament in Phnom Penh to protest against this forced eviction and seek intervention from MPs, the Prime Minister and  other relevant authorities to stop the eviction and let them live on their land in peace.

I have learned that in 1986/87 those villagers went to live on that land then uninhabited and owned by nobody when a communist regime still ruled Cambodia. They started to work their respective land as orchards. They agreed to give their land to the authorities to use as public land to plant rubber and acacia. But that public land was subsequently sold as private property. Sensing a breach of trust, in 1996/97 those villagers reoccupy their land, build houses on it and cultivate it. In 1998 the chief of that commune No.1 resorted to charging four of the villagers for causing damage to other people’s property. But this charge was apparently meant to frighten all those villagers to vacate the land as the court offered not to punish the four men if they were to leave their land. Two of the four men accepted the deal while the other two did not. These two escaped the arrest and went into hiding.

I have learned that Say Hak had neither had recourse to any due process of law and secured any eviction order from the court, nor had served any eviction notice to those 229 families although he had previously had several meetings with them. He simply issued an administrative order and hurriedly executed it himself in order to take the land to give to 560 families who had been previously evicted from a land claimed by Tycoon Senator Kong Triv in the same city. He reportedly offered each of the 229 families an 8 meter X 20 meter plot of land which is simply a fraction of their respective current holdings and which is unacceptable to them. He has sacrificed the wellbeing of these families and forced them to bear the burden of housing the families that that rich and powerful tycoon himself or the state should have borne. By all standards, this is utterly unjust and definitely unacceptable.

I look to your immediate intervention to stop that forced eviction and return the land to those 229 families.

Yours sincerely,

Thank you

……………………………………

PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTER TO:

1. Mr. Samdech Hun Sen
Prime Minister
Cabinet of the Prime Minister
No. 38, Russian Federation Street
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Tel: +855-23-21 98 98
Fax: +855-23-36 06 66
E-mail: cabinet1b@camnet.com.kh

2. Mr. Sar Kheng
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister of Interior
275 Norodom Blvd.
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax/phone : +855 23 72 19 05/72 60 52/72 11 90
E-mail: info@interior.gov.kh or moi@interior.gov.kh

3. Mr. Ang Vong Vathna
Minster of Justice
No 240, Sothearos Blvd.
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Fax: + 855 23 36 41 19/21 66 22
E-mail: moj@cambodia.gov.kh

4. Mr. Henro Raken
Prosecutor General
Court of Appeal
No. 14, Boulevard Sothearos
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Tel: +855 23 21 84 60

5. Mr. Touch Marim
Kompong Chnang provincial
Governor
Kompong Chnang Municipality Hall
Kompong Chnang province,
CAMBODIA

6. Mr. Ath Them
Kompong Chnang
Police Commissioner
Kompong Chnang Province,
CAMBODIA

7. Mr. Sun Soung
Kompong Chnang province justice
Kompong Chnang province,
CAMBODIA

8. Ms Margo Picken
Director
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – Cambodia
N¢X 10, Street 302
Sangkat Boeng Keng Kang I
Khan Chamcar Mon
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA
Tel: +855-23-987 671 / 987 672, 993 590 / 993 591 or +855 23 216 342
Fax: +855-23-212 579, 213 587

9. Prof. Yash Ghai
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia
Attn: Ms. Afarin Shahidzadeh
Room 3-080
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 22 91 79214
Fax: +41 22 91 79018 (ATTENTION: SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE CAMBODIA)

Thank you.
Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ahrchk@ahrchk.org)