THE first set of families who have opted to exchange life in Phnom Penh's squatter
camps for the Mong Reththy Co.'s palm oil plantation in Kampong Speu are set to move
today.
Ninety-nine families are leaving to start a new life 160 km from Phnom Penh on the
road to Sihan-oukville.
While the company has been trying to entice people away with the offer of housing
and a two-acre palm oil plantation each, it is more fear of a crack down on their
current lifestyle that seems to be motivating the first set of volunteers.
At the same time, community workers report that those who are remaining behind believe
that the people who have taken up the offer are making eviction a self-fulfilling
prophesy.
Pen Thoeun, 45, who has been gearing up for the Dec 25 move said that he decided
to take up the offer because he is scared he will soon be evicted from his current
house by the authorities.
And he added that even if the government was prepared to resettle the squatters they
evicted, it might be on land further into the country side than the palm oil plantation.
"This land [the government] did not give to us and later they will take it back,"
he says.
"I have no money to rent a house in Phnom Penh and I also have no money to build
a house if the government gave us land [for resettlement]."
Thoeun admits the move is a risk and confesses he has not even seen the plantation,
let alone their new house, because he did not have enough money to travel down and
look.
He says he has spoken to people who have seen the houses and they tell him they would
be alright to live in.
Thoeun hopes that he will be allowed to work as a carpenter or building worker in
addition to working on the plantation so he can support his family, though he realizes
work on the plantation will have priority.
"I think that if we are living there we have to do something for [the company]
because they give us land and a house so they have to get a benefit from us,"
he says.
"We cannot do other jobs without first making the plantation for them."
Meanwhile life on the plantation seems destined to be somewhat more sedate than that
in the city.
Thouen says the company wants to keep a tight rein on social problems for those living
in company houses and hence has instituted a number of rules.
"We have to promise that we will not drink too much, no gambling, and not to
have two or three or more wives because they want this to be a modern village,"
he says.
The company has also banned brothels and fighting.
Srey Oun is another squatter planning to move. Again it is less the enticements of
the project, rather the feeling that it is better to go sooner voluntarily than later
compulsorily, when the offers might not be as generous.
She says she also believes the company will want to create a good impression on the
first people to move in.
"If the first group are not helped properly the people will come back and the
next people will not go because they will have learned from the first group [what
it was like]," she says. "I hope that they will take care us."
She added that it might take a while to get used to the more sedate atmosphere after
life in a squatter community.
"I am sure that for the people used to living with a lot of other people they
will find it difficult in such a quiet place for three or four months until everybody
settles down to a normal life," she says.
Meanwhile for the man in charge of the first group, Pheng Song, the prospect of leadership
is somewhat daunting.
"If something happens to them in the future the man that they are going to scold
is me because I brought them there so if it is good I will be very happy," he
says.
The offer and its acceptance has generated strong feelings among those who want to
stay put.
One community worker, who asked not to be named, says she had been threatened by
squatters who see the move as the first step towards their eviction.
"I used to be threatened by a person unknown to me who said that they will kill
us all, even the child in the hammock, if in the future their living conditions become
difficult," she says.
"We are working very hard for them but they don't understand. When we meet with
the Phnom Penh municipality they forced us to convince the people to leave here,
and when we meet the people they threaten us."
Douch Sey, a Solidarity for Urban Poor Federation coordinator says that a billboard
announcing that part of the squatter area is to be made into a park has encouraged
some people to move out of the squatter area but not onto the oil plantation.
She says that since the Phnom Penh authority put up the sign people have been desperately
trying to earn and save money so they can buy some land close to Phnom Penh.
