Boeung Kak residents protest in Phnom Penh to demand recognition for land allocated to them on March 22nd 2012. RFA photo.
The Cambodian government has quietly released a draft agricultural land law could be used as legal cover for land-grabbing and natural resource exploitation, warns the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO). The organization and its partners say that the law threatens to eviscerate private property ownership rights and eliminate all limitations on economic land concessions. They have numerous concerns with the law that require immediate scrutiny and substantial revisions.
Late last year, the Cambodian government released a draft Law on the Management
and Use of Agricultural Land that would have serious implications for private landholders.
LICADHO reports that the draft law, as currently written, could be used as legal cover for land-grabbing and for those who wish to exploit and personally profit from Cambodia’s land and resources. Most alarmingly, the law creates felony criminal liability for any actions that violate the law’s far reaching provisions.
As increasing violence and human rights abuses related to land conflicts throughout the country continue to race towards a crisis point, the introduction of this draft law could not come at a worse time according to local human rights groups. They caution that the law would have grave implications for private landholders, taking away their ability to make fundamental land use decisions on their own property under threat of criminal prosecution.
“This draft law poses a serious threat to private property ownership rights – particularly for smallholder farmers,” said LICADHO Director Naly Pilorge. “As land disputes throughout Cambodia continue to grow in intensity and frequency, a law related to land management and ownership rights must be drafted with transparency and extensive consultations, neither of which have occurred here. This draft law must go back to the drawing board.”
The draft law provides for a sentence of up to one year in prison for any violation of the law itself, of any sub-decrees issued under the law, or even of any orders issued by the General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA), a body under the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). Given the incomprehensibly vague nature of several obligations established under the law, the groups claim that such criminal liability is inappropriate and susceptible to substantial abuse.
“The draft law appears to create a list of new crimes to threaten small farmers with, ,” said Chea Sopheak, of the Farmer & Nature Network (FNN). “Such interference with private property ownership rights is unjustifiable.”
The law would provide for the government-led creation of loosely defined “Agricultural Development Areas” (ADAs) consisting of an unlimited number of privately owned plots of any size. ADAs are established upon agreement by an undefined majority of affected landholders. Once established, private landowners within the zone must implement mandatory development plans regardless of whether they agreed to join in the first place. They face the threat of jail time if they refuse. There are no provisions that allow for the termination or expiration of an ADA, or for private landholders to opt out.
Residents of Borei Keila look on as Phanimex workers demolish their homes on January 3rd 2012. RFA photo.
The draft law also requires that all private landholders take action to prevent or reverse “soil loss or deterioration.” If such actions are not taken to the satisfaction of government officials, the law provides MAFF with a litany of powers. A MAFF order under the draft law can, for example, dictate the destruction of crops without compensation, or can provide for entirely unfettered MAFF “control” over the offending land. Neither “soil loss or deterioration,” nor the actions that could be required to prevent or remedy it, are defined or limited to reasonable burden or cost.
It also creates an entirely new “agricultural land lease” scheme which implicitly overwrites limitations and protections currently required of Economic Land Concessions under the 2001 Land Law and subsequent sub-decrees. There are no size or duration limits, environmental impact assessments, or prior consultation or consent requirements related to such leases in this draft law.
“The government says that its overall policy is poverty reduction, but this draft law could hurt our basic rights to use and manage our own land,” said Theng Savoeun, of the Coalition of Cambodia Farmers Community (CCFC). “How will that help us reduce poverty?”
Focusing on the Boeung Kak Lake and the Borei Keila cases, this video from LICADHO explores the impact of land grabbing on poor Cambodians and exposes the risks facing housing rights activists. It was shown at the United Nations Sustainable Development Conference in Rio in June 2012.
