Cambodia justifies controversial rehousing of Angkor residents

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Friday defended his program consisting of moving thousands of families living near the temples of Angkor, "a first step" necessary according to him for the preservation of the famous archaeological site. “We, in the 21st century, must come together to preserve and take action so that this soul (in reference to the temples of Angkor, editor’s note) remains alive for thousands of additional years,” he declared. “It’s a first step. We will continue,” added the leader, who succeeded his father Hun Sen in August.

The NGO Amnesty International has repeatedly denounced “forced evictions” violating the human rights of many people. The Cambodian government accelerated at the end of 2022 the rehousing of 10,000 families residing on this archaeological site classified as a UNESCO world heritage site, to land located a little further away, formerly dedicated to agriculture. “It’s not easy to move from one place to another,” admitted Hun Manet, traveling to Run Ta Ek, one of the two towns created ex nihilo for the displaced, where certain basic infrastructures are lacking. Again.

The program, the authorities explained, aims to protect the integrity of the site, threatened by the expansion of human activity due to the waste generated and the excessive use of water resources. Phnom Penh assured that its policy was based on voluntary action, and that UNESCO threatened to remove Angkor from its list in the event of inaction. Two assertions denied by Amnesty International and UNESCO, which declared that it had never requested such a plan.

The famous temples of Angkor, testimonies to the power of the Khmer empire between the 9th and 13th centuries and the country's tourist hub, welcomed more than two million foreign visitors in 2019, before the Covid epidemic. Some 120,000 people lived in the 400 km2 of the protected area in 2013, six times more than twenty years earlier.