Thursday, 31 May 2012
By May Titthara
Phnom Penh Post
A cart passes
yesterday through a relocation site established in January for people
evicted from the Borei Keila community. The relocation site is in Kandal
province, about 40 kilometres outside Phnom Penh. Photograph: Heng
Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post
Borei Keila evictees will have a chance to revisit the area they were
forcibly evicted from this Sunday when authorities truck them back from
the makeshift tents of their relocation site for a special purpose – to
vote.
Touch Khorn, a representative of the Borei Keila community
villagers who were evicted from their homes in Phnom Penh in January,
said yesterday that their one-time Veal Vong commune chief, ruling party
member Keo Sakal, had agreed to provide two trucks for the ballot.
“On June 3 at 6:00am, the trucks will go to take us to Phnom Penh,” he said.
The
133 families that were evicted by private security forces hired by
development firm Phan Imex will have to travel some 50 kilometres from
their Srah Po village relocation site in Kandal province’s Punhea Ley
district.
Most are reluctant to divulge their political
preferences, but despite the experience of seeing their homes bulldozed,
some maintain they will stick with the Cambodian People’s Party.
San Sarom, 28, said he was willing to give Keo Sakal one more chance, but with a condition.
“I will try one more time to vote for the CPP, because I want to know if
they will construct a brick house for me as they promised or not,” he
said.
Keo Vuthy, 52, said on Monday that although he had been
forced out of the village, Keo Sakal had been good to him, often giving
him sarongs.
“I will go to vote for her, because she always helped me,” he said.
But
not everyone will be voting on Sunday: many are unregistered voters and
either never had the necessary documents required to vote, such as
identity cards and family books, or lost them in the upheaval of the
eviction.
Sitting in a narrow shack covered by blue tarp,
70-year-old Sin Vanny said she had lost her election card when she was
forced to evacuate her house immediately during the eviction and could
not get a new one because she had forgotten the code.
“I want to vote for a commune chief, but I have no right,” she said.
More pressing than elections for people here is the promise of land as compensation for their lost property.
Sin
Vanny said the municipality told her they would not do this until after
the election because they did not want to be accused of trying to
attract votes.
Providing free transport to constituencies,
however, was perfectly above board unless the CPP gave the villagers
money, National Election Committee secretary-general Tep Nytha said,
adding that no one could be forced to vote.
“In 2011, NEC didn’t deny any villagers [from] voting – they could not vote if they were not registered,” he said.
Sitting
on a bamboo bed in a zinc-roofed house without any walls other than
some blue tarpaulins, Ban Thuon, 37, said she had been promised a voting
card after losing her old one, but not before these elections.
“I
used to register at Veal Vong commune hall, but they did not do it for
me, as they said that I did not have any documents, and they asked me to
wait to do on September 1, 2012,” she said.
“On behalf of Cambodia, I want to have my right to go to vote for a good leader, but now I have lost my right,” she said.
In
2003, the government granted the company Phan Imex the right to develop
2.6 hectares of land at Borei Keila in exchange for building 10
buildings on two hectares of land.
But the company constructed
only eight of the promised buildings and built a motorcycle shop on the
land set aside for one of the final two, causing great outrage amongst
those now set to be displaced.
On January 3, Borei Keila
residents violently clashed with about 100 police, military police,
security guards and Phan Imex employees as bulldozers moved into to
destroy their homes.
The following day, those who had lost their homes were packed into trucks and driven to two relocation sites.
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