CCHR MEDIA COMMENT – Phnom Penh, 13 December 2012
CCHR highlights
new legislation in China to prohibit land grabs and calls for Cambodia to do
the same
Cambodia’s longstanding ally, China, is to press
ahead with legislation aimed at preventing controversial and abusive land
seizures in a bid to quell growing social unrest, reported The Cambodia Daily (‘China Tackles Land Grabs, a Key Source of
Rural Anger’, p.22 The Cambodia Daily,
7 December 2012). In the same week that a report was released by three Swedish
NGOs that used Cambodia as one of two case studies on the negative impacts of
land grabbing, China’s outgoing Premier, Wen Jiabao, is prioritizing amendments
to the land management law that will make it more difficult for local officials
to requisition land and will also increase the levels of compensation that
farmers receive in cases where land is taken in the public interest.[1] The move is widely seen as
a response to growing civil unrest regarding land seizures in rural China where
65% of social disturbances are said to be in direct response to disputes over
land.[2]
The social disturbances in China echo the growing
civil unrest that has unfolded in Cambodia in response to land grabs and forced
evictions. Commenting on the report, The
Race for Land (“the Report”), published last week by a consortium of
Swedish NGOs, Karin Gregow of the NGO Forum Syd, stated that Cambodia “gives
one very concrete example of the serious negative impacts of land grabbing” and
of the worldwide cases of land grabs monitored by the organization, she
described Cambodia as “one of the worst in terms of human rights violations”.[3]
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”)
urges the Royal Government of Cambodia (the “RGC”) to take seriously the
concerns highlighted in the Report and to adopt similar legislation to the new
laws currently being considered by China’s State Council. Without such
legislation, the fundamental rights of those affected by land issues remain
insufficiently protected and incidents of civil unrest are likely to continue
to increase. Despite a purported moratorium on Economic Land Concessions
(“ELCs”), the RGC continues to grant them and the authorities have arrested a
number of people in connection with protests against ELCs this year. CCHR calls
on the RGC for greater transparency regarding the number of ELCs granted before
the moratorium was put into effect and to amend and update existing legislation
in order to protect the rights and interests of Cambodian citizens.
CCHR’s Land Reform Project Coordinator, Vann Sopath, comments:
“The fact that the Chinese government is prioritizing
the passing of this new legislation in order to protect the rights of its citizens
and to ensure that they are properly compensated if their land is taken demonstrates
the seriousness of the issue of land grabbing and the impact that it can have
on social cohesion and civil unrest. In the wake of the Report released by the
group of Swedish NGOs, CCHR hopes that the RGC will take similar steps to
ensure that its citizens who are affected by ELCs are treated fairly.”
For more information, please contact Vann Sopath via telephone at +855
(0) 1294 1206 or e-mail at vann.sopath@cchrcambodia.org or Senior Consultant
Robert Finch via telephone at +855 (0) 7880 9960 or e-mail at robert.finch@cchrcambodia.org.
Please find this Media Comment attached in PDF format in both Khmer and English.
Kind regards,
CCHR
1 comment:
What a joke.
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