Magnum Blog / The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 13: That's it... They won...

The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 13: That's it... They won...

The 3,6 ha of land where once thrived the Dey Krohom community is now empty... The 3-year long struggle of its 1400 residents with repeated and often violent intimidations by 7NG, a development company which plans to build high rises and a shopping mall, has come to a brutal end. In the night of January 24th, at 2:00 am, police blocked access to the site. At 6:00 am, in a well planned move some 200 police using tear gas and 400 hired workers with axes and crowbars, backed-up by bulldozers and fire trucks, violently and thoroughly flattened every single building, burying people's belonging -motorcycles, refrigerators, clothes, family pictures, everything- underneath rubble and torn tin sheeting. Neutral observers of Human Rights organizations and press photographers were intimidated, pushed and beaten. Click the image for a popup version of the slideshow. Phnom Penh. 24/01/2009: Portrait of Prime Minister Hun Sen a few hours before final eviction of Dey Krohom. © John Vink/Magnum Photos I started to work on the Bassac area in 2000 as part of my Quest for Land project (download a PDF on the project here). It seems it will never end. After Sambok Chap (1300 families) and Dey Krohom (about 400 families), next in line will be Group 78 (88 families), and then it will be the inhabitants of "The Building", an iconic building conceived in the 60's by architect Vann Molyvann. After that it will be Boeung Kak lake (4225 families)... All destroyed in the name of development.

bobblack

Searching for Dad

March 1979
for Lorraine Ciancio

When I left, dad sat on his bed,
wanting to go through his shakes in private.
With no food or water, dad lived on Buddha
while his body became covered with sores.

He refused to leave. He wanted to meditate.
Pol Pot separated me from my Teacher.
When I return, I find he is gone.
Dad, what miseries did you suffer?

In '75, it was ashrams everywhere.
Old men and women who were fed up
with reincarnating into this life of pitfalls
sought ways to reach Nirvana.

Now, in '79, I see only aquatic bushes.
I break into a cold sweat. I get dizzy;
No matter what the ideology du jour,
there is always the same lament.

Oh trees in whose roots the fish spawn,
in the dry season of '75, my dad was still here.
He was alive under the sanctuary of worship.
Now in what grave does his skeleton lie?

He was a builder, followed the precepts, gave alms.
He built temples, chateaux, palaces, stupas.
Yet Pol Pot killed him.
Annihilated his genius without regret.

O grasses, your grandson begs you-
if the grandfather grasses know
the whereabouts of my father's grave,
I shall shave my head in thanks.

O grass of thickets, grass
of sticking burrs, where is
the skeleton concealed?
Tell-and I shall ask no more of you.

The horizon is like the hem of a mosquito net, pelican feet
like duck feet. We've been living in misery
because of our king, eclipsed because ladies adore diamonds,
our forest turned to deserts out of ignorance.

Oh, God! Why Cambodia?

--U Sam Oeur

bobblack

just a little 'bump' to get the conversation started, since i hope the long poem didnt shut down the chat...

this project and john's documentation of this critis has been one of the most stirring and gut wrenching to watch...he's our eye on the ground and it's a remarkably powerful and heart-breaking and passionately photographed and told story...because Vink has been there from the beginning and is smack dab in the middle...just as with the slideshow recently shown at Magnum of the tragedy, it's calls into question all we think of as development and prosperity for people...

in a nation, such as Cambodia, defined by the ancestral, spiritual and sacred relationship to land, this is a devastating piece....and leaves us forlorn....

at least the quest continues...and is being reported and hopefully this witnessing will at somepoint lead to some reconsideration or an erosion in the inequity...

thank you john for that...

running
bob

scott lucas

When I saw your pictures on the home page of Magnum a few days ago I was hoping they would be featured on the blog so that I could comment. Powerful, heart-rending images taken with great compassion. Thank you so much, Jon.

scott lucas

Ross Nolly

"in a nation, such as Cambodia, defined by the ancestral, spiritual and sacred relationship to land, this is a devastating piece....and leaves us forlorn...."

Hi John/Bob; Not only Cambodia I'm afraid, but pretty much every country. That's what makes land issues such as this so devastating for those concerned. It can't get any more personal than your losing your familial land.

Good work John

nigel amies

Makes me sick. Same thing going on, more or less, throughout the region - anywhere where there's no effective legal system and a totalitarian regiem - even if it does, in Cambodia's case, call itself a democracy. Gangster democracy. And the UN just keeps pumping more money in.

John Vink

Nigel: not only the UN. 800 million US Dollars (your dollars too) pledged to Cambodia by various donor countries for 2009. About half of the country's budget.

Dominic Robinson

It seems that South East Asia is selling itself off, with the politicians' visions of glass towers and five star hotels blinding them to the daily reality of the average citizen.

It's interesting that this was covered by predominantly foreigners as throughout this region I’ve noticed that most charities and human rights missions are solely or majority foreign staffed. Is this our post-colonial arrogance allowing us to interfere wherever we please, or were the people in so many countries so repressed for so long that it’s now progress at all costs mixed with a feeling that people can’t make a difference at a grass roots level?

John Vink

Dominic, It's not that our colleagues did not want to cover the event. They were prevented from doing so by very convincing policemen they didn't dare to challenge, out of fear of having their precious equipment broken. As to the human rights workers, there were many Khmer in the middle of the action that day.

nigel amies

Regarding the comment by Dominic above, it's true, most NGOs in the region rely heavily on foreign staff. Call it Neo-Colonialism if you like but the reality - sourcing international funding aside - is that often - at least in Laos - local staff have a very different perspective on working with NGOs than foreigners - meaning usually Westerners - do. The concept of 'volunteerism' barely exists, but the main difference to the Lao is that NGOs pay fairly decent salaries and provide decent working conditions and benfits. However, if they find a better paying job outside the NGO scene they'll switch without batting an eyelid. Very few work at NGOs primarily due to a strong motivation to help society. An example I know of was one Lao staffer who worked with an international environmental organisation involved in trying to mitigate the effects of some of the many dam projects in the country until he got a better paying offer from one of the corporations actually building one of the dams. He saw no conflict of interest. He was only in it for the money. So let's not do the usual dump on the foreigners. Without them there most likely wouldn't be much in the way of any civil society promoting organisations - at least not around here.

John Vink

Nigel, true that the foreign NGO's are (were?) important in setting up development structures and promoting Human Rights issues alongside. But I know of a few Khmer HR workers over here who were threatened, pushed and shoved, but who continue their work with commitment. So my guess would be that it is nearly the same proportion in our region here as back in the West of people who feel they have to give up on a few things because there are more important things than their own well-being.

Peter

Picture is spot on and does what it is supposed to do. Not representative of urban development in all neighboring countries...Saigon f.e. is going through major changes and the rights of the poor seem to be taken into account at a different level. This said, why this picture results in a tail of UN and NGO bashing beats me.

John Vink

Which picture do you refer to Peter?

If you want to know about why the UN and NGO's are bashing, take a look at the slideshow on Ka-set ( http://cambodia.ka-set.info/k7-media/ ).

Also, Chan Vichet and three other community leaders have go to court this monday and tuesday for accusationsby 7NG, the company which evicted them, of property damage, incitations to violence and defamation: ( http://johnvink.com/news/2009/02/12/justice-2/ ) ( http://johnvink.com/news/2009/02/13/its-not-getting-any-better-is-it/ ) ( http://cambodia.ka-set.info/powers/news-dey-krohom-7ng-cour-municipale-violence-proces-plainte-090211.html )

Nike Kobe IV

Powerful, heart-rending images taken with great compassion. Thank you so much, Jon.