MekongEye/TheDiplomat-July 31, 2024
Land grabbing has been a hot-button issue in Cambodia ever since the first United Nations peacekeepers arrived in the early 1990s and initiated their first de-mining programs, in a country where quality real estate was in short supply and arguments over ownership were many and heated. nBarely a week passes in which a land dispute – big or small – is not reported. The latest concern is people with livelihoods around the planned Funan Techo Canal, to be dug from Phnom Penh to Kep, while lingering disputes remain at Angkor Wat where up to 40,000 people have been displaced. Since 1992, the famed temples of Angkor Wat have enjoyed all the rights and privileges that came with their listing by the World Heritage Committee from the U.N.’s Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, more commonly known as UNESCO. For years the temples stood at the top of the world’s most desired travel destinations and a tourism boom provided a much-needed cash cow in a country struggling with post-war reconstruction – and as one would expect, Cambodians hoping to scratch out a living moved into the site. That’s where the biggest problems emerged. UNESCO does make allowances for people who maintain a traditional lifestyle around its monuments to live onsite; however, that might not include local vendors selling cans of coke, cigarettes, and tourist trinkets. UNESCO has said as much. When naming Angkor as a World Heritage site UNESCO was clear in stating that people living around core areas of the 162-hectare site “was inappropriate to the preservation and presentation of major archaeological sites.” A UNESCO report later found that some people living in traditional villages had the right to stay inside the Angkor complex while new settlers did not. That enabled Cambodian authorities to resettle in a relocation site known as Run Ta Ek. Read more at: https://thediplomat.com/2024/07/unesco-to-investigate-alleged-rights-abuses-at-angkor-wat/
