Critics Say Hun Sen’s Land Title Program Is Biased
A controversial land titling program set up by Prime Minister Hun Sen has been suspended ahead of the July 28 elections, but critics say the program should not be restarted. The titling program itself began in December 2012 and is expected to end after elections scheduled for later this month. According to government figures, the program has measured off some 620,000 plots of land, of which 260,000 were titled, in 322 communes. Still, land concessions and forced evictions continue to be a sweeping problem. Human Rights Watch estimates about 700,000 people are being affected by economic land concessions to foreign companies or local business interests, many with ties to officials in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Human Rights Watch has called on the World Bank and the United Nations to revise the titling process. … The program does have some supporters. Franz-Volker Muller, who oversees a land rights program for the German development agency GIZ, recently issued a report on the program, praising it for titling 2 million people with state land they had previously occupied illegally. …
