Cambodia - Chinese Developers Gamble Away Cambodia’s History for Luxury Resort

Botum Sakor, Cambodia. It was once a pristine jungle home for wild animals. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

“This was all forest once,” says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape. “But then the government sold the land to rich men.”

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 square kilometers of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for “extravagant feasting and revelry,” its Web site says. A 64-kilometer highway, almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in impoverished Cambodia could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

The land sales also point to another trend: the expansion of Chinese economic interests in Southeast Asia’s undeveloped frontiers. Last year, the Cambodian government granted so-called economic land concessions to scores of companies to develop 7,631 square kilometers of land, most of it in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, according to research by the respected Cambodia Human Rights and Development Organization.

The area of concessions granted has risen six-fold between 2010 and 2011, a reflection of booming trade as China’s economic influence spreads deeper into Southeast Asia. Foreign conservation groups in the country have remained silent about the sell-off for fear of angering the government of mercurial Prime Minister Hun Sen. But Cambodians dislodged from concession areas are starting to find their voices.

Fishing families in Botum Sakor say Union Group is using strong-arm tactics to relocate them far inland.

“It’s been my land since my grandparents’ generation,” says Srey Khmao, 68, from Thmar Sar. “I lived peacefully there until Union Group threatened the villagers and told them to remove their belongings.”

Such protests could ratchet up anti-Chinese sentiment in Cambodia, where China is both the largest foreign investor and source of foreign aid. That aid has made Hun Sen less reliant on Western donors, who generally demand greater transparency and respect for human rights.

It has also eroded the influence of foreign conservation groups in Cambodia. Their criticism has remained muted for fear Hun Sen will do what he did to British environmental watchdog Global Witness in 2005 and kick them out.

“The days of donor dependency are over,” says a foreign conservationist working in Cambodia, who asked not to be identified. “Much more money is coming into this country through direct investment, especially from Chinese companies, so the carrot-and-stick incentive that NGOs might have had 10 years ago isn’t as powerful these days.”

Land-grabbing, illegal logging and forced evictions are common in Cambodia. But by granting land concessions, the government has effectively legalized these practices in the country’s last remaining wilderness, activists say.

Companies from Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries are also exploiting the land sell-off, mainly to develop rubber plantations and other agribusinesses. But the most lucrative projects — mining for gold and other minerals — are dominated by the Chinese, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights says.

Cambodia’s 2001 land law forbids concessions greater than 10,000 hectares. But Union Group won a 99-year lease thanks to a 2008 decree which carved out 36,000 hectares from Botum Sakor and redefined it. That year, a contract was signed by Minister of Environment Mok Mareth and the chief of Union Group’s board of directors Li Zhi Xuan.

The company was granted a further 9,100 hectares last year to build a hydroelectric dam. Union Group has big ambitions for the area, including a network of roads, an international airport, a port for large cruise ships, two reservoirs, condominiums, hotels, hospitals, golf courses and a casino called “Angkor Wat on Sea”, according to its Web site.

It will sink $3.8 billion into its Botum Sakor resort, a figure quoted to rights groups in February by Bun Leut, governor of Koh Kong province. It covers an area almost half the size of Singapore.

The four-lane highway, built at a cost of about $1.1 million a mile, is part of a system of roads Union Group will run across Botum Sakor. This alarms Mathieu Pellerin, a researcher with the Cambodian human-rights group Licadho, who notes that newly built roads give logging operators greater access and could accelerate forest destruction.

The work sites along the highway house Chinese engineers and are guarded by Cambodian soldiers. Access to the resort area itself is blocked by a provincial park ranger who, when Reuters tried to pass, threatened to radio for back-up from military police, who along with police routinely provide security for big firms.

“This is China,” he says.

Nearby, at the seaside village of Poy Jopon, people were preparing to leave after signing away their property to Union Group — under duress, they say.

“I’m upset, but there is nothing I can do about it,” says Chey Pheap, 42, a grocery store owner. “This is the way society works.”

He and the other villagers will soon be moved to houses some 10 kilometers inland. Passing behind the houses is a moat delineating Union Group’s land. It was three meters deep, twice as wide and ran for many kilometers. For the villagers, it symbolized China’s power and remoteness.

“Even though we hate the Chinese, what can we do?” says Nhorn Saroen, 52, who was among hundreds of families already moved from Kom Saoi, another fishing village.

For Chut Wutty, Union Group’s activities smack of colonization. “You think after 99 years this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they’ll kick the Chinese out? No way. It’s forever.”

Reuters

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