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| Southeast Asia |
| Cambodia returns land taken from indigenous people in 'unprecedented' move |
| 2019-03-31 |
| [TRTWORLD] Cambodia has returned land taken a decade ago from indigenous communities for a Vietnamese company's rubber plantation, a sign that foreign investors are facing greater scrutiny over rights violations, analysts said on Wednesday. The governor of the northeastern province of Ratanakari on Tuesday asked the agriculture ministry to take out 64 areas from the land concessions, including forests, wetlands and burial grounds that belonged to a dozen indigenous communities. The decision "represents an unprecedented recognition of indigenous land rights over business interests in Cambodia," said Dam Chanty, executive director of Highlanders Association, an indigenous rights organization in Ratanakari. But while the move was "a major victory", the communities still needed compensation and help rehabilitating their land and waterways, she said in a statement. Since the early 2000s, Cambodia has awarded large swathes of land as concessions to foreign companies for mines, power plants and farms, to spur economic growth and alleviate poverty. Such deals, which covered more than a tenth of the country's surface area by 2012, have displaced more than 770,000 people, human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... lawyers say. Following protests and pressure from rights groups, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced a moratorium on new concessions in 2012, and promised to review old ones. |
| Posted by:Fred |