Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and Phnom Penh swelled with refugees, the complex was appropriated for use as a field
hospital. Later, in the ghost capital of the Khmer Rouge, it hosted political training ses-
sions.
2
When Phnom Penh was repopulated after 1979, the old land records had disappeared
and people settled wherever they could find vacant land or housing. After a few years as
a police training facility, the old athletes' village was opened up to residents. By then it
was in a decrepit state, its ponds filled with muck and its flagpole-lined entrance strewn
with garbage. But people happily occupied the old athletes' apartments, modifying them
to suit their needs; others erected shacks on the surrounding land. They came, like thou-
sands of other migrants from the countryside, in search of opportunity, earning a living
as market vendors and moto-taxi drivers, hairdressers and construction workers. As the
years went by the homes became more permanent. They were reinforced with brick and
metal sheeting, and decorated with potted plants and spirit houses. Soon enough homes
and apartments at Borei Keila were being bought, sold, and rented out.
It was only a matter of time before the site attracted the attention of developers. In
2003 Phanimex, a firm owned by a businesswoman named Suy Sophan, expressed an in-
terest in acquiring the site. As part of a widely publicized program of “slum upgrades,”
Hun Sen announced that Phanimex would be granted rights to develop part of the area
in exchange for building ten new apartment blocks to accommodate the 1,776 families
who would be displaced. Anyone who owned a home at Borei Keila, or had rented for at
least three years, was eligible for a new apartment. The city trumpeted the settlement as
a symbol of the government's commitment to the urban poor. Land rights activists were
optimistic that the authorities recognized the need to balance development against the in-
terests of the city's poorest residents. But in April 2010, after constructing eight of the ten
buildings, Phanimex reneged on the agreement. The government did nothing. Suddenly
384 Borei Keila families were left without housing. Most claimed they had lived in the
area since the 1990s. Some had documentation proving their ownership or residence; oth-
ers didn't, or, like Noch Chhoun's family, lost their documents when their homes were
later demolished. The city then ordered them to leave, accusing the families of building
budge, the authorities resorted to force.
Nothing much was unique about Borei Keila. Similar disputes have occurred across
Phnom Penh over the past decade, as political stability and economic growth have pushed
up land values and triggered a frenzied grab for inner-city real estate. Since 1999 an es-
timated 150,000 people have been displaced from Phnom Penh—around 11 percent of
now dot the outskirts of the city—dumping grounds for the displaced. These scattered
