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Boeng Kak Lake is now to be home to... the police.

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 1:42 am
by OrangeDragon
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city- ... ood-62576/
A military police official confirmed Thursday that his unit’s new headquarters were being built in the heart of Phnom Penh’s restive Boeng Kak neighborhood, meters away from the homes of some of the country’s most high-profile anti-eviction activists.

About a half-dozen armed military police officers were standing guard on Wednesday morning over a plot of land being cleared in the neighborhood while construction workers prepared wood planks across the narrow road.

Most of the officers at the scene declined to speak with reporters, though one of them claimed that the land was being prepared for new homes for local families.

On Thursday, however, Daun Penh district military police chief Thorng Piseth said that the land was being prepared for a new headquarters for his officers, to replace their current building located catty-corner from the Buddhist Institute.
Because police buildings make WAY more sense for the city to build than silly things like hospital clinics and schools...

Re: Boeng Kak Lake is now to be home to... the police.

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 1:47 am
by OrangeDragon
Related, some interesting wording in a recent US law change regarding financial institutions who have a hand in the forced evictions/etc.
The 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act, approved by the US House of Representative, requires “the United States executive director of each international financial institution to seek to ensure that each such institution responds to the findings and recommendations of its accountability mechanisms by providing just compensation or other appropriate redress to individuals and communities that suffer violations of human rights, including forced displacement, resulting from any loan, grant, strategy or policy of such institution.”
Meaning (ideally) if any developer wants to take a loan/etc from an international bank for such a project, they're going to face an impact audit and be forced to compensate by the bank regardless of local deals/laws the developer may have with politicians. Could actually be a good step in curbing corruption (though it could easily also curb development/FDI as well).

Re: Boeng Kak Lake is now to be home to... the police.

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:25 am
by vladimir
OrangeDragon wrote:Meaning (ideally) if any developer wants to take a loan/etc from an international bank for such a project, they're going to face an impact audit and be forced to compensate by the bank regardless of local deals/laws the developer may have with politicians. Could actually be a good step in curbing corruption (though it could easily also curb development/FDI as well).
This thinking has been around for ages, and it hasn't impacted loans at all, I seriously doubt it will any time in the near future. The cash cow is both full and selectively blind.

Re: Boeng Kak Lake is now to be home to... the police.

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:53 am
by OrangeDragon
The thinking perhaps, but not mandates... those are new.

Re: Boeng Kak Lake is now to be home to... the police.

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 9:13 am
by vladimir
Yeah, let's hope.

I often wonder what Cambodia would be like sans payoffs...hard to imagine.