via The Diplomat, 19 December 2023: A recent Amnesty International report highlights the forced eviction of up to 10,000 families from the Angkor temples in Cambodia. The evictions reflect Cambodia’s long-standing issues with land rights and the influence of political connections.
A recent report by Amnesty International, detailing the forced evictions of up to 10,000 families at the Angkor temples in Cambodia, shows that the country’s post-Khmer Rouge tradition of land grabs at the expense of the poor is alive and well.
According to the report, which was published last month, Cambodian authorities in the second half of 2022 began evicting large numbers of people from Angkor, ostensibly to protect the location’s UNESCO World Heritage status. Many of these people have lived in the Angkor area for generations.
The authorities characterize the evictions as “voluntary,” but Amnesty interviewed over 100 evictees who say they were given small empty plots of land at a relocation site and told to build their own homes with sheets of corrugated iron.
A small cash payment of a few hundred dollars allowed the authorities to misrepresent their departures as voluntary. Many families ended up living under tarpaulin sheets for months and the relocation area was found to lack adequate sanitation. The area also lacks a proper drainage system and heavy rains led to makeshift homes being destroyed in June.
Source: UNESCO Has Failed to Prevent Forced Evictions at Angkor Wat – The Diplomat
