Tourist magnet: A file photo of tourists visiting the Angkor Wat temple complex. — AFP
RIGHTS group Amnesty International has accused Cambodia of breaking international law through the eviction of 10,000 families from around the Angkor Wat temple complex.
Phnom Penh has over the past year increased the relocation of families living within the sprawling Unesco world heritage site to a new community being built on former padi fields 25km away since last year.
Officials have long maintained that families are moving voluntarily, but in a report released yesterday, Amnesty said many are receiving “direct and subtle threats” to move.
“They must immediately cease forcibly evicting people and violating international human rights law,” said Montse Ferrer of Amnesty.
Cambodian government spokesman Pen Bona said the report was “not right”, insisting that the relocation of villagers was done on a “voluntary” basis and in line with Unesco rules.
Unesco said it was “deeply concerned” by the report, which comes on the eve of a regular intergovernmental conference on Angkor at the culture body’s headquarters in Paris.
The temple complex dating back to the ninth century is Cambodia’s top tourist attraction, and pre-pandemic drew more than two million foreigners every year.
The tourists spawned a micro-economy of stallholders, food and souvenir sellers and beggars, and the local population exploded from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1990s to about 120,000 by 2013.
Cambodian authorities say they are acting to protect the ruins by moving squatters whose informal settlements are damaging the local environment by producing rubbish and overusing water resources.
Officials say that only unauthorised settlements – often ramshackle huts without proper sewage, running water or in some cases electricity – have been targeted.
The Amnesty report calls on Unesco to condemn Penh Phnom’s actions and warns of further escalation if it should fail to do so.
“Unless there is serious pushback from Unesco, conservation efforts may increasingly be weaponised by states to their own ends, at the expense of human rights,” Ferrer said.
The rights group alleges that officials from Apsara National Authority – the body which manages the archaeological park – and the land ministry are using Unesco to justify the relocations.
One resident said Cambodian authorities told her explicitly that “Unesco wants you to leave” or lose the site’s world heritage status. — AFP
