Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia. Some wetland communities have been threatened with removal for the ING City development project. Image: Eric Baran/WorldFish, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by By Sam Rainsy
Aug. 17, 2020

Cambodia urgently needs a proper civil registration system and a modern land registry.

State capture has turned the Cambodian government into an agent of private industrial interests, rather than a defender of citizens' interests. The country urgently needs a proper civil registration system and a modern land registry.

Where there are no property rights, the law of the jungle prevails. And now vulnerable groups, and the capital’s population as a whole, are facing a new danger – the ING City project, which has the makings of an environmental and human disaster.

Satellite imagery suggests that about a third of the wetlands has already been filled with sand. By the time the development is completed, it is expected to have used more sand than any other project in Cambodia’s history. This could undermine the stability of the Mekong and Bassac riverbanks, where the sand is dredged.

In August 2008, the government changed the land’s status from “state public” to “state private,” allowing it to evict the residents. Soon after, Shukaku began filling the lake, and state security forces responded to a series of protests with violence.

Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law only pretended to solve the problem, and offered the Boeung Kak residents no protection. According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s 2020 Country Report on Cambodia, the titling system remains “cumbersome, expensive, and subject to corruption. The majority of property owners lack documentation proving ownership.”

To protect those at permanent risk of displacement, Cambodia urgently needs a proper civil registration system and a modern land registry. If India, with more than a billion people, can do it, then Cambodia, with 16 million, has no excuse.

full article https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/st ... velopment/

Sad reality... nothing much could be done...

Well if he ever became lord of the manner Vietnamese better watch out.

Cambodia’s biggest enemy is.. Cambodia.