As a citizen attached to a certain number of values, I cannot support that criteria regarding democracy and human rights are used for certain countries and not for others. For a long time, since 1979, Cambodia has been almost systematically the victim of this policy of double standard. I could cite a very large number of examples during the past 45 years. This is the policy of governments and even international organizations. This is also the practice of some human rights NGOs. I stand with the Cambodian government whenever it is the victim of such a policy of condemning Cambodia while turning a blind eye on other countries. We cannot support the sanctioning of breaches of principles presented as universal if the sanction does not apply in the same way everywhere. I wanted to clarify this by way of presentation.
As adviser to the Cambodian Government and today to the Ministry of information, my duty is to alert about information that harms the image of a country that has become mine and whose authors are gr
eat practitioners of the policy of double standards. This is why, when I read the Amnesty International report on the relocation of squatters living in the Angkor protected park, I offered to analyze it. It is this work, which is published today, in Khmer, English and French in a brochure entitled ‘Resettlement of the Squatters from Angkor Park. Amnesty International Lies and Deceives Global Public Opinion’ (available at the Ministry of Information).
Cambodians have known for a long time that the NGO called Amnesty International which defends human rights according to circumstances and countries is far from neutral and does not deserve the credit given to it.
Cambodians remember that on December 10, 1987, the representative of Amnesty France explained that his organization had remained silent during the genocidal regime of Pol Pot ‘for ideological reasons’. In 1989, this NGO devoted a very critical report of more than 70 pages to the People’s Republic of Kampuchea and only a few lines to the massive violati
ons of the most fundamental human rights in the Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand placed under the brutal authority of political factions rival of the Phnom Penh regime, including in the camps controlled by the Khmer Rouge who perpetuated the same criminal methods in force when they were in power. Why such partiality? Because the concerned people of this NGO have personal political commitments and, in the two preceding cases, they were former admirers of the political doctrine of Chairman Mao Zedong.
This NGO gave a new illustration of its bias by violently criticizing the Cambodian authorities for the management of the COVID crisis, while many international observers and, in particular, the World Health Organization, have underlined the exemplary nature of this management. While this same NGO remained silent in the face of the disastrous management of this health crisis in countries it protects.
This time, Amnesty International, regarding the rehousing of squatters illegally occupying the protected area
of the Angkor Temple Park, published a report in which the Cambodian Government was violently accused, in the most outrageous terms, of carrying out ‘mass forced evictions’ which had ‘cruelly uprooted families who had lived in Angkor for several generations.’ In a country where, less than fifty years ago, a genocidal regime carried out real massive and cruel forced deportations, the expressions used are not innocent and intended to assimilate the current Government to that of Pol Pot. And this is indeed the political intention of this NGO whose constant criticism of the Cambodian authorities aims to describe life in Cambodia as if it is similar to that we know in the worst dictatorships in the world.
To achieve its goals, this NGO does not hesitate to lie and ignore anything that is likely to contradict its false assertions. This NGO ignores the demands formulated almost constantly by UNESCO in application of the rules which apply when a site, sensitive like that of the Angkor Park, is included on the list o
f World Heritage of Humanity. Worse, this NGO suggests that these demands are only pretexts put forward by the Cambodian government to carry out expulsions, which would be its favorite activity.
Any scrupulous person will find in official UNESCO documents that as early as 1992 the Cambodian authorities were warned against the double pressure that would be exerted on the integrity of the site. The completely exceptional character of the Angkor site would arouse such attraction that a double demographic pressure would be exerted: that of tourists and that of those – inhabitants of the country, but also investors, big or small, in the tourism sector – who want to profit from this influx of tourists.
And that’s what happened. Tourists, who numbered just over 176,000 in 1994, exceeded one million in 2004 and two and a half million in 2018. At the same time, the population of the 112 villages increased from 68,000 in 1998 to around 100,000 seven years later. The forest, in the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom sectors,
which occupied 360 ha in 1964, was reduced to 17 ha in 2004. However, the forest is an integral part of the protected site.
The UNESCO instructions for listing the site as a World Heritage Site would include the requirement for appropriate legislation, the creation of a specialized agency, and the establishment of clear boundaries designating the perimeters and their respective degrees of protection. This was done by a royal decree of 1994 which defined 5 zones. Zones 1 and 2, which cover more than 400km2, constitute the protected part of the Park subject to appropriate regulations. The inhabitants of these two areas can live there normally but can’t increase their home. In 1994, the country was not yet pacified, and Pol Pol troops were operating not far from the site. We had to wait for the pacification at the end of 1998 before we could proceed with full application of the royal decree. In the meantime, more than thirty thousand people have been added to the inhabitants of the 112 villages and UNESCO has b
een alarmed by the threats to the balance to be respected between the protection of monumental heritage and the development of human heritage. A census was carried out in 2004 which made it possible to identify the inhabitants of zones 1 and 2. For existing families who give birth to a new generation, the possibility was offered to them to settle in the commune of Run Ta-Ek where 500 ha were reserved for the creation of an eco-village, starting in 2010. This creation is totally ignored by Amnesty International.
The year 2004 is now the reference year. Those who have been registered as residents of these areas can remain there without having the right to carry out new construction, except to replace existing construction. The others are considered illegals, squatters. And this is how UNESCO considers them, which Amnesty International pretends to ignore.
The APSARA authority then carries out very important work to mark out areas and inform the population. This essential work is completely ignored by the NGO.
Likewise, this NGO ignores the refusal of some of the squatters to cooperate in the proper management of the site. The signs indicating the boundaries of the zones have been tagged and sometimes destroyed. Illegal constructions were erected during the night. No one word in the report of Amnesty about this kind of illegal activities.
What Amnesty International also ignores or pretends to ignore is the constant pressure from UNESCO, year after year, for the Cambodian authorities to put an end to the illegal occupations. In the official documents, we can read the following (with the precise sources in my brochure):
‘The World Heritage Committee also notes the progress made by the State Party [= Cambodia] in controlling illegal activities within the property and requests the State Party to continue these efforts in the future.’
Or
‘The World Heritage Committee noted ‘the progress made by the State Party in controlling illegal activities within the property and urges the State Party to further advance its effo
rts in this regard.’
Or again,
‘The International Coordinating Committee ‘congratulated APSARA for having carried out the program to dismantle recent illegal constructions. » and recommends considering ‘carrying out another dismantling program for older constructions illegally located in sensitive areas.’
It is necessary to respond to Amnesty’s false accusations. But before, I want to underline that this NGO relies on the testimonies of a hundred people, that is to say on 0,25% of all relocated people. And who are these witnesses? Illegal occupants of the protected zones whose activities are those which affect the special character of the site. The Angkor site is not a gastronomic destination. Temples are not places to drink, eat or shopping. No more in Angkor than in Borobudur or Sukhothai.
1) Have there been forced evictions as Amnesty states? Remember that the assertions of this NGO are based on testimonies from people in an illegal situation. The fact that their situation has been recalled by the auth
orities cannot therefore be presented as a threat. No more than the mention of the consequences of a refusal. That the authorities made multiple visits to people who persisted in an illegal presence and with full knowledge of the facts on a protected site to remind them of this illegal situation is in no way comparable to ‘direct or subtle threats. That the authorities have highlighted the advantages of this rehousing compared to their current situation is at most an incentive and in no way a threat.
2) Was it evictions as Amnesty states? Not at all. As with the creation, from 2010, of the Run Ta-Ek eco-village, people are relocated to land of which they become owners. What Amnesty remains silent about, deploring that these people had to rebuild their homes themselves by exposing themselves to bad weather, is that these people had been able to build themselves, at their own expense, in the same climate conditions, their illegal housing while on the new site, the land, money and basic materials for the recons
truction of housing are offered to them. This is in no way an expulsion, but rather a matter of rehousing.
3) Were the relocated people adequately informed as Amnesty states? For thirty years, the zoning of the protected site has been established. For twenty years, people likely to benefit from long-term resident status have been clearly identified and their rights notified. For twenty years, the delimitation of zones and the rights and duties relating to them has been the subject of intensive information campaigns. Warnings addressed to those who entered the protected site illegally were repeated ad nauseam by APSARA: ‘those who arrived on the site before 2004 are legal residents; those who arrived later are illegal residents.’ Amnesty lies. The displaced people were more than informed.
4) Among the people relocated, had some of them lived on the site ‘for generations’ as it is said by Amnesty? By quoting the testimony of a person “present on the site for 70 years’, Amnesty reproduces a lie because it is i
mpossible for a person living on the site since 1953 to be rehoused. The families present on the site at the time of its inscription as World Heritage in 1992 and until 2004, who respected the rules, are protected, as has been specified in several UNESCO documents, in several Cambodian legal texts and in abundant documentation distributed by APSARA. As is very often the case with Amnesty, this NGO cites ‘witnesses’ whose status or motivations it verifies neither.
5) The rehousing would not be ‘voluntary’, as Amnesty states. There is no doubt that having to move is not necessarily a choice that we accept happily. This is why the authorities argued and highlighted the advantages of leaving and the risks of staying. What’s more normal when speaking to people in an illegal situation? This is neither ‘threats’ nor ‘intimidation’ as Amnesty asserts, using deliberately excessive terms, but the duty of the authorities to provide complete information. None of these witnesses reported on the consultation organized by
APSARA. And for good reason. Neither does Amnesty. Once again, Amnesty lends a sympathetic ear to people who have cheated, who lie and who present themselves as victims. But they are victims of their own faults.
6) According to Amnesty, rehousing would be undertaken to move people towards sites ‘lacking essential services’. In this regard, there are two facts to remember. First, Amnesty, obviously, makes no mention that the equipment problem was taken into account by the Prime Minister who declared on 20 October 1922 – that is to say, two months before the start of the first transfers – regarding people to be transferred: ‘if the designated new area has not been completed and if they do not have any transportation yet, they can remain in their old place for the time being’. Second, Amnesty ignores the important achievements made well before the publication of its report of November 2023. At the beginning of August 2023, the line of 165 km of road was completed and ready to be concreted or asphalted, the cons
truction of the hospital including a maternity and that of a middle school and a high school, including a library with three rooms, were completed. The primary school is operational. The drinking water distribution and electricity distribution networks are in place and 28% of the population was connected to drinking water as well as 97% to electricity. The construction of an administrative center was 70% complete. The construction of a pagoda was 87% complete.
7) Finally, Amnesty systematically questions the reality of UNESCO’s demands. All official documents show that UNESCO has not ceased to express strong concern about the protection of zones 1 and 2 and has not stopped to encourage APSARA to put an end to illegal housing and activities. To the point of even mentioning that ‘maintaining the exceptional value of the site’ was at stake. In September 2023, in response to a letter from Amnesty, UNESCO reiterated the reasons for putting an end to illegal settlements and illegal constructions.Consequently, the
World Heritage Committee took note that Cambodia ‘has been acting to enforce zoning regulations and has relocated families who settled illegally in the property, taking into account the threats that may be posed to the integrity and authenticity of the property and its Outstanding Universal Value.’
The writing, by Amnesty International, of particularly moving stories attributed to anonymous witnesses, the repeated lies by omission, the intentional choice of particularly distressing photos not representative of reality, the calls for pity, all indications which testify to the fragility of the accusations made by this NGO. As usual, Amnesty is investigating and charging Cambodia, with a systematically complacent ear for those who oppose the authorities without verifying who its interlocutors are and what their motivations may be. With such a report, this NGO has itself demonstrated that it does not deserve the credit it receives.
Source: Agence Kampuchea Presse
