Conflict continues: Transitioning into a battle for property in Cambodia today

Abstract

This article discusses the ongoing hybrid war crimes tribunal taking place in Cambodia — in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) — in relation to the simultaneous eviction of the Boeung Kak Lake community in the capital, Phnom Penh. Presenting these two phenomena alongside one another highlights the contradiction inherent in the liberal peace model's humanitarian rhetoric of societal reconstruction and its economic imperatives, which serve the interests of the elites. The material discussed here suggests that so-called transitional justice interventions may accompany a period of stabilisation, which is good for the global market, but do little to enhance fairness and peace for ordinary people.

‘A war of houses and a war of land’: Gentrification, post-politics and resistance in authoritarian Cambodia

“…Overnight reforms offered occupiers rights of ownership, overriding previous claims to tenure and creating an immediate inflationary land market (Hughes, 2003). The conditions plunged Cambodia into a new conflict: ‘a war of houses and a war of land’ (cited in Kent, 2016: 6).…”

“…Through the 1990s, RGC rhetoric openly labelled informal communities – denoted ‘anatapdei’ or ‘anarchic’ settlements (Hughes, 2003) – as a threat, promoting forced eviction to enforce order. Spurred by non-governmental organisation (NGO) interventions, the RGC has toned down its language since but, until recently, the softening of state discourse bore little impact on the fate of the newly imagined ‘urban poor’ (Kent, 2016). Between 1999 and 2015, 150,000 people were displaced from the capital – 11% of its population (Strangio, 2014) – as Cambodia gained notoriety for the ‘scale and brutality’ (Brickell, 2014: 1256) of its forced evictions: enacted through rubber bullets, tear gas, and bulldozed homes; with negligible compensation, if any (Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, 2016).…”

“…In what follows, I begin by reviewing the literatures on planetary gentrification and post-politics. Next, I document the property policies that warped Cambodia’s post-conflict urban transition into a new mode of gentrifying violence: ‘a war of houses and a war of land’ (Kent, 2016: 6). After, I present three empirical sections of the paper that illustrate the rollout of, and response to, the RGC’s recent strategic shift in fighting this ‘war’, away from overt authoritarian force towards the post-political manufacture of consent.…”

Political Violence as a Time That is Past? Engaging With Non-Participation in Transitional Justice in Cambodia

“…These interviews with citizens who are facing political violence and human rights violations today and who are engaged in struggles against abusive practices of CPP power thus bring to the fore dissonant narratives in the context of Cambodia, where the KR regime is repeatedly portrayed as the worst, yet past, period of political violence (Kent, 2016). In his research on geographies of violence in Cambodia, Springer (2013) has repeatedly encountered similar analogies between the KR regime and contemporary political violence, including the observation that the difference with the KR regime mainly lies in the singling out of the poor in contemporary political violence.…”

“… 2. An exception here is Kent (2016), who questions the ECCC’s relevance in Cambodia in relation to the eviction of the Boeung Kak Lake community. …”