12 january, 2011
Producer Jo Mathys recording an interview for Crossing Continents' Cambodia: Country for Sale
Crossing Continents reporter Mukul Devichand describes his trip to Cambodia to try to understand why global investors are suddenly fighting to snap up cheap fertile paddy fields from poor villagers, who claim they are being exploited and intimidated.
“There aren’t meant to be any landmines here,” says my producer Jo Mathys.
We’ve followed the rulebook on operating in potentially unsafe environments and made several checks before driving to this remote village in Cambodia’s far north.
But sometimes, even the best checks only get you so far.
Outside the car window is a very large flag with a skull and crossbones – the international symbol for mines.
It’s a clear warning, do not tread here.
New conflict
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Journalistically, this is the most difficult part of the assignment. While there are no end of non-governmental organisations eager to take us to villages where they claim there was wrongdoing, the business community - perhaps understandably - are wary of foreign reporters.
Crossing Continents reporter Mukul Devichand
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Land mines are just one of the perils of reporting in Cambodia.
But as we travel around the country making an edition of Crossing Continents – the BBC radio documentary series on world affairs – it soon dawns on us that much of what goes on here relates to recent history and a very painful conflict.
The country fell under the rule of leader Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge party from 1975-9, whose ‘social engineering’ policies resulted in the deaths of an estimated two million people. And for more than a decade after that, the Khmer Rouge were locked in a guerrilla war with the new, Vietnamese-backed government.
Twelve years after Pol Pot’s militia finally collapsed, we’re here to look at the way the government has opened up the country’s land to private and foreign investors.
These measures have resulted in a new type of conflict. Today villagers are saying that they’re being displaced so that their land can be sold.
Investigating allegations
Back in the car, with the skull and crossbones still staring us in the face, there’s a long and uncomfortable pause as Jo, myself and our local colleague Yin Soeum make calls and speak to locals in Khmer and English.
We ascertain that the path to the village we are visiting is, in fact, landmine free and well trodden.
Indeed, the warning sign turns out to be a part of the story.
Mines have now been cleared here, but it only happened when a private company took over the village’s land to turn it into a sugar plantation.
And we are here to investigate claims that these villagers have been forcefully evicted by the company.
Fallout from history
So we get out of the car and set out on the long walk to O’Batman village, led by locals through the humid afternoon air.
There’s not much to look at when we arrive. The burnt out shells of the villagers’ old homes are behind a perimeter fence, guarded by armed police.
The villagers say they were chased out and their houses set alight by authorities, shortly before a Thai investor acquired the land.
Investors often say villagers like these are ‘squatters’, because they don’t have documents to prove they own the fields being taken over.
Land being built on by developers, photographed while recording the programme
And technically they are right because the Khmer Rouge, deciding to turn back the clock to ‘year zero’, burned all land deeds back in the 1970s.
So, just like the land mines, this current conflict is a direct result of the fallout from Cambodia’s painful history.
Uncomfortable moments
A few days later, back in the capital Pnomh Penh, Jo and I are in the more congenial surrounds of the Metro Cafe.
It’s a favourite place for casual business meetings and the best venue in town to meet investors from abroad.
We’re keen to know what these investors think, so we take it in turns to strike up conversations with bemused-looking foreign businessmen, using our smatterings of Hindi and Mandarin, as well as English.
Journalistically, this is the most difficult part of the assignment. While there are no end of non-governmental organisations eager to take us to villages where they claim there was wrongdoing, the business community - perhaps understandably - are wary of foreign reporters.
After a number of dead-end conversations, I finally strike gold.
Winners and losers
Producer Jo Mathys recording street sounds for the documentary
The next morning I'm in a motorcycle rickshaw on the way to meet George, a Chinese Malaysian investor.
He introduces me to Liv Sokhpetra, his local business partner. Aged 28, having already made millions of dollars in land and other deals, this intriguing man (who goes by the nickname 'Petra') becomes a big part of our documentary and an indicator to what Cambodia's new elite really thinks.
Petra transports us around in his own four-wheel drive.
He maintains he has never 'grabbed' land, but acknowledges there are many losers in the new investment rush.
"It's just too bad for them," he tells me.
Like every Cambodian, he's seen much pain in his own lifetime and any form of change is welcome.
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