Cambodia agrees land deal after World Bank halts loans
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia, under pressure by the World Bank, said on Tuesday it had set aside prime land in the capital Phnom Penh for thousands of people forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for a Chinese development project.
The World Bank, which has lent Cambodia up to $70 million annually over the past few years, said last week it had halted loans to the country in protest over land seizures around Boeung Kak Lake, where a Chinese developer is building luxury homes.
About 15,000 people have been evicted from their homes and 3,500 remain in the area.
Land seizures that lead to evictions and homelessness have become one of the most serious human rights issues in Cambodia, where property deeds and other legal documents were destroyed under the Communist Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s.
Land is often seized by the rich and powerful for logging, agriculture, mining, tourism, real-estate and other industries, sometimes in violent raids by the authorities.
"A moment ago, the Japanese ambassador asked me about Boeung Kak and I said that I already signed the order," Prime Minister Hun Sen said during the opening of a new Japanese-funded road.
Hun Sen said 12.4 hectares (31 acres) would be reserved for homeless families, out of the total 115 hectares (284 acres) of land used for the project led by China's Inner Mongolia Erdos Hongjun Investment Corp.
The unlisted Chinese developer has pledged to spend $3 billion in Cambodia on real estate, metal processing and power generation.
The Washington-based lender, which has repeatedly asked for the evictions to stop, said last Tuesday that loans to Cambodia had been halted since December last year and there would be no new lending until an agreement was made with Boeung Kak residents.
World Bank representatives were not immediately available for comment.
An estimated 30,000 people a year are driven from farmland or urban areas to make way for real estate developments or mining and agricultural projects in Cambodia.
Copyright Reuters, 2010
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.