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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

In Cambodia, Land Seizures Push Thousands of the Poor Into Homelessness

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27...=1&ref=world_&oref=slogin

Excerpt:

“Expropriation of the land of Cambodia’s poor is reaching a disastrous level,” Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, a private monitoring group, said in December. “The courts are politicized and corrupt, and impunity for human rights violators remains the norm.”

With the economy on the rise, land is being seized for logging, agriculture, mining, tourism and fisheries, and in Phnom Penh, soaring land prices have touched off what one official called a frenzy of land grabs by the rich and powerful. The seizures can be violent, including late-night raids by the police and military. Sometimes, shanty neighborhoods burn down, apparently victims of arson.