Advocacy in Cambodia: Increasing Democratic ... - Pact Cambodia

local authorities have refused permission. At one
time, it was very difficult for community leaders
to obtain meetings with district leaders. Recently,
the situation has changed considerably as
relationships improved during the mid- to late-
1990s, and squatters can now usually get the
permission they need. In at least one example,
local authorities even made a contribution to an
infrastructure project in a squatter neighborhood.
These positive trends notwithstanding, NGOs are
currently reassessing the relationship between
authorities, NGOs, and urban poor groups, in light
of the authorities’ treatment of squatter residents
after the Tonle Bassac fires of 2001.
Fires burn in the Building area of the Tonle Bassac
squatter community, May 2001.
Case Studies
Tonle Bassac Fires
In May and December of 2001, two fires
destroyed large parts of the squatter communities
in Tonle Bassac in the area known as Building,
opposite the Bondos Vichea Primary School. The
fires, which are generally accepted to have been
started intentionally, left 20,000 people homeless.
The Municipality’s subsequent handling of the
crisis has eroded the trust of NGOs and aroused
their suspicions.
The day after the first fire in Bondos Vichea,
LICADHO, the Urban Sector Group (USG), and
others distributed emergency supplies at the fire
site. From that point on, the Municipality began
sending mixed messages regarding permission to
contribute emergency supplies, and after a few
days declared that supplies could only be
distributed at the relocation site at Chung Ruk
(Samaki) (though some NGOs distributed supplies
to communities from their offices). After the
second fire in December, the Municipality again
refused permission to donate emergency supplies
to victims at the fire site, though distribution did
take place in pagodas and other places away from
the site. NGOs protested the Municipality’s
prohibition and felt that the government should
have allowed erection of emergency shelters at the
fire site while the relocation area was prepared.
Even so, NGOs wanted to help fire victims
and since the only way to do so was to provide
assistance at the relocation site, they inadvertently
helped to legitimize the government’s policy.
UNCHS, in complying with government demands
and helping to prepare the relocation site after the
first fire, also set a negative precedent. Thus, when
the second fire occurred, the government issued
the same restrictions. The government transferred
fire victims to a rice field until UNDP protested
based on the lack of planning and adequate
facilities at the transfer site.
The scale of the Tonle Bassac fires acted as a
catalyst for urban-sector NGOs. The first fire in
Bondos Vichea affected 547 families, while the
second fire in Bassac/Chbar Ampeu affected more
than 3,200 families. The crisis drew attention to
the problem of squatters and spurred NGOs to
consider issues related to the urban poor more
seriously.
As with many tragedies however, the
increased attention dissipated quickly. Although
there were eleven urban community development
NGOs monitoring the second fire and URC
organized a press conference to protest the
Municipality’s handling of the crisis, there appears
to have been no concerted effort to influence
government policy or practices. The press
conference received some media attention and
may have raised public awareness, but in the end
the decision to relocate all fire victims remained
unchanged.
Widening of National Route 1 and
Resettlement Compensation
When the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
entered into a contract with the Cambodian
government to provide a loan for the rehabilitation
of National Route 1, the contract included a
stipulation regarding compensation of residents
affected by the road-widening project. In addition,
a separate clause required that an NGO be
assigned to monitor the project. Separately, a
group of NGOs under the umbrella of the NGO
Forum conducted their own independent
monitoring. The various NGOs involved in
monitoring were not used to having different
agencies working on the same issue and it took
some time for NGOs to realize that each group had
an important and separate role to play.
After monitoring the situation closely, NGOs
submitted a short report to the ADB outlining
problems with the government’s compensation
methods. One problem was that the interministerial
committee for valuing and distributing
compensation was the same committee that heard
plaintiffs’ compensation-related complaints. This
represented an obvious conflict of interest that put
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