Special Newsletter Report: Major Developments Concerning What Amnesty International Refers To “Mass Illegal Eviction” in Angkor Wat Region
Hun Sen, his family members, and government associates directly and personally benefited from Cambodia’s widespread land grabs and evictions for decades. The evictions in the Angkor Wat region are just the tip of the iceberg. They are just the latest example of a long-standing and long-festering problem that has been of major concern and interest to the Khmer Community for many decades. Now, the world’s most respected and experienced human rights organization, Amnesty International, has found that a United Nations’ agency is complicit in the “mass illegal evictions” in the Angkor Wat Heritage Site.
The World Heritage Committee’s “Interim Decision” is woefully deficient, and makes the United Nations complicit in the Angkor Wat evictions.
On Wednesday, 24 July 2024, the World Heritage Committee issued an "interim decision" calling for an on-site monitoring mission and improvements in the relocation sites. But, as Amnesty International and others have made clear, this "interim decision” is woefully inadequate because it does not address the core issues of the evictions themselves and the fact that the Angkor Wat Heritage Site agreement prohibited them outright.
Amnesty International and others have issued statements making it clear that UNESCO's interim plan falls short of its management responsibility and that UNESCO remains complicit in the violations unless more is done.
We are working with Amnesty and other groups to try to obtain a more effective response from UNESCO regarding the evictions, namely to prevent any further evictions and return those already evicted to their homes. Until those steps are taken, the Angkor Wat eviction problems remain.
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This eviction issue is finally getting major international media attention. They are important enough to be covered in the Washington Post, where an article by David Rising quoted us saying,
“UNESCO is complicit in these violations by failing to take effective actions to prevent and remedy the prohibited evictions.”
For further reading on this issue, here are some related articles: