CAMBODGE INFORMATION

Villagers Want Compensation for Lower Sesan 2 Dam Construction

BY KUCH NAREN | FEBRUARY 14, 2014

A group of eight villagers from Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces facing displacement by the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam lodged a petition Thursday with the Chinese Embassy and three ministries demanding that the developer negotiate with them.

“The affected families have never been consulted about the dam construction, even though we are going to lose everything,” said Puth Khoeun, a representative from Sesan district’s Srekor commune, after villagers handed petitions to the ministries of industry, mines and energy, finance, and environment, as well as the Chinese ambassador, asking for a public forum with the developer to discuss project details.

The 400-MW Lower Sesan 2 dam, which is being built by Hydropower Lower Sesan 2, a joint venture of local conglomerate Royal Group and Chinese firm Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd., is expected to displace about 5,000 people living in the  area.

Thursday’s action followed the distribution of two documents detailing compensation and relocation plans, “Mechanism and Procedures of Compensation,” and “Resettlement Policy of Lower Sesan 2 Dam” in Stung Treng, dated January 17 and signed by Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem.

A copy of the document on compensation states that the dam developers had agreed to compensate villagers for their fruit trees—with compensation ranging from $2 to $44 depending on the species of tree. The developer had also agreed to pay compensation for three Buddhist pagodas in the area should they need to be completely demolished.

But villagers who took part in Thursday’s event said they were concerned the planned resettlement site was in an unfertile area and that ancestral burial grounds might be destroyed without compensation.

“The resettlement site is only about 3 kilometers across the Sesan River where the land is very rocky and not fertile for farming,” said Mr. Khoeun.

He said that local villagers were particularly upset that they will not be compensated for burial grounds that will be flooded by the dam.

Tuon Taing, Phluk commune chief, said 16 families have accepted an offer of between $8,000 to $20,000 in compensation for their houses and land to avoid living in a resettlement site.

“Affected families have been offered compensation, I think that’s enough for them, he said.  “The dam’s a good thing that will help develop the community and create more jobs.”

Work on the dam would start soon he added, noting that construction workers’ housing had already been erected and construction machinery sent to the site.

Japanese Architect Who Worked at Angkor Dies

BY MICHELLE VACHON | FEBRUARY 14, 2014

Architect Hiroyuki Suzuki, who passed away on February 3 in Tokyo, was one of a handful of independent experts who work in the background in the Angkor Archeological Park so that the highest standards are maintained in monument restoration.

“Professor Suzuki was passionate about research in architecture and we had with him numerous intellectual debates on the notion of authenticity in architectural conservation,” said Anne Lemaistre, country representative for Unesco in Cambodia.

“He was always in favor of minimum interventions to preserve as much as possible the architectural authenticity of the Angkor temples,” she said.

Hiroyuki Suzuki died aged 68 in a Tokyo hospital due to pneumonia. He had taught for more than three decades at the University of Tokyo, and then served as professor of architecture history at Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan.

In 1996, Hiroyuki Suzuki became one of three conservation experts who formed the Ad Hoc Group of Experts at the Coordinating Committee of Angkor (ICC)—the international committee overseeing Angkor park with the Apsara Authority, the Cambodian-government agency in charge of Angkor.

“It should be stressed that the ad hoc experts are entirely independent,” said Kerya Chau Sun, Apsara Authority’s spokesperson. Working as unpaid volunteers, these experts visit conservation sites at Angkor, analyzing the approach and techniques that restoration teams are planning to use or are already using, and making recommendations to the ICC as to their soundness, she said.

At times, these experts will not mince words when they feel that a team’s approach may damage a monument. Still, this was a task that Hiroyuki Suzuki managed well, Ms. Lemaistre said. “He was a hard worker, humble and very kind with everyone while remaining faithful to his commitment to safeguarding Angkor,” she said.

After serving 12 years on the ICC expert committee, Hiroyuki Suzuki stepped down for health reasons in 2008.

Among other accolades, he received the Japan Prize of the Society of Architecture Historians and Japan’s Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon for his service to scholarship.

Clarification Sought on Government’s Fraught NGO Law

BY PHORN BOPHA AND LAUREN CROTHERS | FEBRUARY 14, 2014

A request has been sent to the government’s Human Rights Committee and the interior and foreign affairs ministries seeking clarification on the status and whereabouts of a draft law that will govern associations and non-governmental organizations, asking to see the latest version of the law before it is sent to the National Assembly for ratification.

Explaining the request, Soeung Saroeun, executive director of the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC), referred to a speech given in Geneva last month by Mak Sambath, deputy chairman of the rights committee, during which he told the U.N. meeting that the legislation had been “approved unanimously” by the Council of Ministers.

“We have tried to contact different sources including calling to the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others, but the information is still not clear,” Mr. Saroeun said, referring to Mr. Sambath’s statement in Geneva.

“Some of them said that yes, it is at the Council of Ministers, but the majority said that they were not aware or didn’t know where [the draft law] is now,” he said.

In a letter sent to Mr. Sambath, Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, the CCC referred to a December 24, 2011 speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen, in which he promised to make promulgation of the draft law an inclusive one, with the input of NGOs.

“We would like to ask for a meeting…and would like your excellencies to coordinate and please give us the current draft…to study ahead [of its being ratified] and to discuss, comment, and give advice for the Cambodian government,” states the letter, which was co-signed by two other umbrella groups: NGO Forum and Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee said.

Asked to clarify his comments in Geneva regarding the NGO law, Mr. Sambath declined to comment and referred questions to Meas Sarim, deputy director general of the local administration department at the Ministry of Interior.

“A date of a possible meeting with NGOs, or sending [the draft law] to the National Assembly has yet to be set,” Mr. Sarim said.

“We’re waiting for the order on what to do next,” he said, adding that the law will likely come into force within the first half of this year.

Interior Ministry secretary of state Pol Lim said the Council of Ministers had signed off on the NGO draft law last year “before the election” in July.

“We are still open to comments,” he claimed, declining to say when the law will be made available for that comment.

The draft law, which has 11 chapters and 58 articles, will place new conditions on the establishment and registration of NGOs and also require them to file standardized financial and activity reports on an annual basis.

NGOs, which have a long history of involvement in the development of social, health, education and infrastructure sectors in Cambodia, fear the law will be used to target groups that the government perceives to be critical of the ruling CPP.

Kratie Villagers Block Road After Officials Torch Homes

BY AUN PHEAP AND BEN SOKHEAN | FEBRUARY 14, 2014

Police and military police in Kratie province’s Snuol district on Wednesday burned to the ground 56 homes they said were on protected land, causing displaced villagers to block National Road 76 in protest for four hours, officials said.

Snuol district Governor Kong Kimny said Thursday that the villagers had illegally cleared more than 5,000 hectares of protected land in Khsim commune, which borders Mondolkiri’s Keo Seima district.

“We decided to burn the houses to force those families to move from the land,” Mr Kimny said, adding that the villagers had received four prior warnings.

“I have told the people to get a letter from local authorities to say that they do not own land and we will offer a social land concession.”

Many of the villagers, however, had moved to the area from other provinces to clear and farm the land and would not be eligible for a concession, Mr. Kimny said.

Sam Phin, one of the evicted villagers, said that he had moved to the area from Svay Rieng province in 2010 and that he had cleared protected forest in order to farm cashews, banana and cassava.

“Those people cleared the land and were selling it for around 300,000 riel [about $75] per hectare,” Mr. Kimny said.

After the police and military police razed the village at around 1 p.m., some 300 villagers moved to National Road 76 and blocked the road, as about 100 military police stood by.

At 5 p.m., and with no interference from the military police, the villagers left after Mr. Kimny promised to find a solution for them.

In a separate incident in Pursat province Thursday, 47-year-old Sen Sien was charged with illegal encroachment of protected forest land and placed in pre-trial detention, according to Eng Chhun Han, provincial coordinator for rights group Licadho.

Ms. Sien was detained Wednesday after protesting another fiery eviction of a community that had moved onto land in Veal Veng district’s Krapoeu Pi commune, which they were evicted from in 2012 but re-inhabited early last year.

Kheang Leng, district police chief, said that the villagers were offered, and accepted, compensation the first time they were evicted.

“In 2012, authorities provided them with a 50-by-200 meter plot of land but in the beginning of 2013 they returned to take over the land they had left,” Mr. Leng said.

Phuong Sothea, coordinator for Adhoc in Pursat, said that 28 villagers had signed and filed a complaint with Adhoc over the arrest of Ms. Sien.

CPP Holds Mock Ballot Before Council Elections

BY HUL REAKSMEY | FEBRUARY 14, 2014

The ruling CPP may have been caught by surprise when it lost 22 National Assembly seats to the opposition CNRP in July’s national election, but it is getting an early start on shoring up support for district and city councilor elections scheduled for May.

About 570 CPP commune councilors from across Phnom Penh on Monday gathered at the CPP’s headquarters on Norodom Boulevard to take part in a mock election for district and city councilors in preparation for the real poll, which is expected to be dominated by the ruling party.

“We voted to survey the nominations for candidates who will stand for the city and provincial council,” said Sam Phon, the CPP chief of Niroth commune in Stung Meanchey district.

The commune councilors who attended the trial run were asked to write their choices for district and city councilors on a mock ballot and drop it into a ballot box, all under the watchful eye of senior party leaders.

Mr. Phon added that the results of the poll were not binding, and the CPP would still make the official nomination of the council election candidates sometime before May’s election.

The commune councilors who took part in the mock vote were also addressed at the event by Sim Ka, a CPP senator and senior figure in the ruling party hierarchy, and Deputy Prime Minister and former finance minister Keat Chhon, according to a report in Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper.

Mr. Ka told the participants that their very survival, not just party positions, were on the line in May.

“[The CNRP] doesn’t think that it’s enough to win and take power, but they have ambitions to destroy us, to uproot the CPP as well as all members and individuals in the party after they take over power,” Rasmei Kampuchea reported Mr. Ka as saying.

“Thus, we have to remain united and continue cooperating to protect our achievement, including our lives and the lives of our children,” Mr. Ka said according to the report.

Mr. Ka also told the CPP commune councilors not to schedule any wedding parties for their children on election day, according to the Rasmei Kampuchea report.

CNRP chief whip Son Chhay said Thursday that the CPP can no longer assume election support, even among their own local party leaders, which is why they needed a mock ballot.

“I think the CPP cannot afford to be as relaxed as they used to be, since the result of the July election really hit them so hard,” he said.

Hang Puthea, director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said that the CPP was taking a more hands-on approach to electoral politics after its humbling at the national election.

“If the result from the previous election strayed from what they wanted, the politicians must find a new strategy for success,” Mr. Puthea said. “I think the [pre-election survey] is to try to conduct research to see who supports [the ruling party] and who doesn’t.”

However, Seng Saran, CPP chief of Toek La’ak II commune in Tuol Kok district, said that Monday’s meeting was perfectly normal.

“This is the implementation of democracy,” Mr. Saran said. “If the candidates nominated are good, they will rank at the top.”

Assuming that commune councilors vote along party lines for their district and city council leaders, the CPP is set to win 155 of the 216 district council positions across Phnom Penh. The remaining 61 seats would go to the CNRP on the back of votes from commune councilors from the Sam Rainsy Party and Human Rights Party.

District councilors serve a largely administrative role and are charged with implementing five-year development plans in their constituencies.

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