New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report that the program, which began a year ago, was designed to be closely identified with Prime Minister Hun Sen ahead of national elections next month, with extensive coverage in state media but no oversight.
The report urged Cambodia’s aid donors — who provide a major portion
of the country’s national budget — “to insist that the program be
reformed into a professional and apolitical process, or canceled.”
Tith
Sothea, a government spokesman, described the report as “baseless” and
“garbage,” and accused Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams of
“never speaking positively about Cambodia.” He said Cambodians are
benefiting from being given titles to their land because it prevents it
from being stolen.
Virtually all records of land ownership were
destroyed during the late 1970s rule of the Khmer Rouge, who sought to
abolish private property. Their widespread relocation of the population
furthered complicated land rights questions.
The report noted that
Hun Sen recently announced the land titling program would be suspended
until after the July 28 elections, which are certain to be won in a
landslide by his Cambodian People’s Party. The ruling party is
campaigning aggressively, and last week used a legal maneuver to expel
opposition members from parliament.
“It is good news that the
land titling campaign has been suspended until after the elections, but
this demonstrates just how political the effort has been from the
outset,” Adams said.
The report cited Hun Sen as saying the
titling program would provide ownership documents to 478,928 families
covering 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) of land.
“While
some have benefited from the campaign, in other cases the scheme has
amounted to a land grab by powerful interests with no legal protections
or recourse for those who lose out in the process. The campaign is being
conducted in a secretive and bullying manner in which independent
organizations are prevented from monitoring what is happening and local
residents are threatened if they complain,” Adams said in the report.
Adams,
an American lawyer, worked for five years in Cambodia in the office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and as legal
adviser to the Cambodian parliament’s human rights committee.
Land
grabbing has become a volatile social problem nationwide, with backroom
deals and deadly force sometimes employed against those living on
properties. Activists link the deals to corruption and cronyism.
The
issue could give the opposition an opportunity to pick up some
parliamentary seats in the elections. The report says an estimated
700,000 Cambodians have been evicted from land the government has sold
or given away as economic concessions for commercial development.
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