Students at Phnom Penh French high school demonstrate against eviction of Cambodian families

Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 09/04/2009. Students asking for “fair” compensations for families living on the Rene Descartes high school premises and now facing eviction©Vandy Rattana



Ka-set

By Duong Sokha
09-04-2009

This is a first: on the morning of Thursday April 9th, some thirty Cambodian and French students at the international Rene Descartes high school in Phnom Penh demonstrated in favour of housing rights for around 30 families living in a building on the premises of the school and now facing eviction. In a lively and peaceful manner, beating drums and chanting the motto of the French Republic “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, students put up banners and called for a “blockade”. They aimed at showing their solidarity towards those families so they can obtain fair compensations failing the possibility for them to stay on the plot of land and avoid eviction as it often happens in Cambodia in this type of conflict.

The building where 37 families currently reside is located in the heart of Cambodia’s capital on the premises of the French high school René Descartes, which used to be home to the National Institute of Affairs. The authorities then entrusted the council in charge of the management of the school with the responsibility for that structure, in exchange for the financing of the construction of a new building in the Steung Meanchey area.

Cambodian families live on the ground and top floors as access to the first, second and third ones has been blocked for renovation by the school head as the latter wishes to use these premises fully.

Recently, authorities from the Daun Penh section and from the Phnom Penh municipality reminded those residents that they had already asked them to leave the premises a few years ago and claimed they were squatters living in an illegal situation. San Lim Sreang, who lives on the fourth floor of the building, rejects the wording: “We settled there in the 1980s. Back then, the authorities of the state of Cambodia even gave us family record books in 1985. And in 200, we were given a residence book”, San Lim Sreang points out. The former civil servant at the National Bank of Cambodia refuses to leave as he estimates that the compensations offered by the authorities, “between 5,000 and 10,000USD”, are not enough to resettle and buy a plot of land or a decent apartment in the centre of Phnom Penh.

Reached on the phone, Daun Penh section deputy governor Sok Penh Vuth, in charge of the dossier, told Ka-set that the Phnom Penh authorities did not intend to implement any forced eviction against those residents. According to him, the students demonstrators – who fear a scenario similar to that suffered by the Dey Krohom residents, violently evicted by a private company as the Phnom Penh authorities adopted a soft attitude towards the matter – “did not understand” the situation “very well”. “There is no plan for any eviction. We are still looking for a peaceful solution”, he says. “More than half of the families, i.e. 13 homes [actually thirty-seven families still live in that building at the time of writing – Editor’s note], accepted our leaving offer in exchange for a sum of money and a 4x8 metre plot of land in the Boeung Tompong area, in the mean Chey section, in the city. Six other families are currently going through paperwork to move out”, the Daun Penh deputy governor explained.