More Plots Readied for Land Titles at Boeng Kak
Phnom Penh deputy governor Khuong Sreng oversaw the demarcation of five more plots of land Thursday in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, where at least 48 families are still fighting for formal land titles.
Some 3,000 families have been evicted from the neighborhood since the city leased the area to CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin in 2007 for his high-end real estate project. Nearly 700 families who held out against the evictions were granted titles afterward, but a few are still fighting for titles of their own. Getting their plots measured by the city is a key step in the process. ...
Thursday’s measurements came during a protest march several of Boeng Kak’s anti-eviction activists joined to deliver a petition to several foreign embassies asking for their help in securing the release of 23 protesters arrested earlier this month and an end to government violence.
Sia Phearum, secretariat director of the NGO Housing Rights Task Force, said he suspected the timing of the measurements Thursday to be a ploy by the city to draw the Boeng Kak activists away from the march, which they did in fact abandon when they heard from neighbors that the survey team was at work. ...
Mech Dara and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/more-plots-readied-for-land-titles-at-boeng-kak-51002/
