Private property, public greed in Cambodia
Mark Moorstein knew little about Cambodia before he got involved in a lawsuit on behalf of land owners there. But as it’s turning out, the suit could end up affecting most every country in Asia. Moorstein is a land-use lawyer in Northern Virginia who, like many lawyers, was looking for some pro-bono, charitable work to do on the side. … Across Asia, almost every country is guilty of baldly seizing its citizens’ land without significant compensation and then selling it to corporations or developers, leaving the owners homeless and often destitute. … Finally in 2001, Cambodia enacted a Land Law intended to curb these seizures. But like so many measures passed to mollify the Western donors who keep the government afloat, the government immediately began ignoring its own law. Now, as one major Cambodian human rights organization put it: “In Phnom Penh and the 12 provinces” around it “land-grabbing has affected an estimated 400,000 Cambodians since 2003, helping to create a sizable underclass of landless villagers with no means for self-sustenance.” … It turned out that the land he [Mark Moorstein] focused on — two plots of about 25,000 acres each — is used to grow sugar cane, primarily. A wealthy and powerful Cambodian senator took possession of it after evicting residents from about 200 individual plots. Many of the evictees held identification cards the United Nations had given them when it set up a protectorate in Cambodia 20 years ago. Under the Land Law, that meant they held legal title to the property. … Once the suit was filed, Tate & Lyle seemed to panic. Very quickly, it sold its entire sugar unit to American Sugar Refining, better known here in the United States for its name-brand product: Domino Sugar. That company is now the defendant, and when contacted for comment, the company declined. But last Thursday, the company did file its response to the suit. It said Tate & Lyle had no knowledge of any prior ownership of the land in question. The villagers had no claim to the sugar cane grown on the land, even if they did previously own it, because they had not paid for the seeds or production costs. And finally, the defendants claimed, “The English court cannot adjudicate or call into question” matters of Cambodian law dealing with land concessions. Nonetheless, the British court had already accepted the suit. The case is moving forward, and that all by itself is already encouraging many people. …
