‘Everywhere is broken’: how land grabs in Cambodia are demolishing lives

The government has a ‘masterplan’ for the coastal province of Preah Sihanouk, with tourist meccas built on land given to elite families while the poor and powerless face the bulldozers

Sitting on the veranda of a stilted house, a group of Cambodian fishers drink tea and sort crabs into buckets as they discuss when they might have to leave their homes. In 2020, Boeng Thom Angkep, a finger-shaped lake tucked below the forested hills of Ream national park on Cambodia's south-western coast, was granted to an elite family to develop.

After nearly two decades of peaceful existence, hundreds of lakeshore residents now face eviction. Weekly the authorities cross the rickety footbridges that link the stilt houses to the shore to take photos and warn that demolition could start at any time.

"I don't want to leave my home for even one day or they might come destroy it," says 42-year-old Khun Dina. "We’re like small birds in a cage. They can smack us down whenever."

Theirs is not an isolated situation. A wave of tourism and housing projects is transforming the coast of Preah Sihanouk province. Signs of development are everywhere: Along the curve of Ream Bay, trucks dump sand into the Gulf of Thailand for a multibillion-dollar megaproject called the Bay of Lights, 934 hectares (2,300 acres) to include luxury homes, a beach club, go-kart track, and a reverse bungee jump.

A few kilometres north, excavators dig up a hillside where signs advertise a new gated community overlooking the bay. To the south, cranes loom over the edge of the national park where tourist resorts are being built.

Known for its seaside capital, Sihanoukville, and islands with white-sand beaches, the province drew international attention when a Chinese-fuelled casino boom started in 2013. By 2019, Sihanoukville's streets were lined with hotels, casinos and restaurants and drew more visitors than Angkor Wat.

A ban affecting gambling was announced in August 2019, and half the city's casinos shut down. Together with the economic fallout from the Covid pandemic, Sihanoukville was left with empty buildings and abandoned construction projects.

Even the surrounding countryside is dotted with half-finished projects and there were reports of criminal syndicates moving in with global cyberscam operations and human trafficking.

Now the government is working on a new masterplan for Preah Sihanouk, wooing wealthy tourists and diversifying the once casino-heavy economy. Officials have been vague about the details, but the provincial deputy governor Long Dimanche explained in February that the goal was to make the province one of Cambodia's main development hubs. "This economic stimulus and investment in the tourism industry is the starting point," he said.

But residents say they are paying the price, facing sudden evictions, seizure of farmland and the loss of prime fishing areas. They say authorities rarely explain land giveaways, which are frequently linked to well-connected people, according to more than a dozen interviews around the province.

Phnom Penh-based human rights organisation Licadho has investigated the evictions of 787 Preah Sihanouk families between 2017 and 2022, a fraction of the true number, a spokesperson said.

On the tourist island of Koh Rong Sanloem, piles of rubble, stacked-up mattresses and tangled electrical cords litter half of Saracen Bay beach after about 10 resorts and businesses were demolished in February. A few still stand daubed with red paint and eviction notices.

When people began settling the island a decade ago, it had no electricity or running water. Even today, the island remains sleepy and idyllic beyond the string of beach bungalows and Khmer-style wooden resorts along Saracen Bay.

Tourists still arrive via speedboat daily, but many are shocked to see the destruction on the beach, says Sin Pisey, 35, who runs a massage therapy business. "Everywhere is broken," says Pisey, who begged authorities to let her stay open another month.

"It hurts me. They’re demolishing the resorts right in front of me, and we have no way to fight back."

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Eviction letters sent to residents in January said that almost the entire island has been leased to two private companies since 2008, and local businesses are operating "without permission".

Residents say they were never told about any development plans. One man, whose business was demolished, says authorities warned him against speaking to the media. He believes the island is being ruined after watching excavators rip up the forest. "It's all big roads, cutting down everything. They say they want to make the island look beautiful, but I don't think so. They are too big. Too powerful."

In August the government approved investment plans for 19 of Preah Sihanouk's 32 islands. So far, Koh Rong Sanloem, the largest of the province's islands, has been spared. Dimanche confirmed in February that one of the companies, Cambodia-registered Emario Shonan Marine Corporation, was going ahead with a project on Koh Rong Sanloem, but gave no details. Neither Dimanche nor another deputy governor responded to requests from the Guardian for comment; multiple calls to Emario Shonan were not returned.

Land giveaways are accelerating across Cambodia, often favouring the elite. In Preah Sihanouk, at least 39 giveaways have privatised 3,802 hectares (nearly 15 square miles) since late 2018, according to Licadho. Family members of a senator, the prime minister's daughters, and a tax department official are, says Licadho, among those who have benefited.

In many instances, people aren't sure who or what to blame, just that the land was handed over as part of an oknha, an honorific title bestowed on those who give at least $500,000 to the government.

On the outskirts of Sihanoukville near Ream national park, Chan Mom, 37, is in her one-room home, twisting sausages on to skewers and raising her voice to be heard over the construction trucks barreling past. Last autumn, the farmland where she, and her father before her, grew cassava and pineapple, was revoked.

She heard rumours a resort might be built there under an oknha's ownership, but the authorities gave her no explanation when they demanded that she tear down her shack and stop farming. "We don't know what to do. We can't get it back," Mom says. She decided against protesting. Her husband adds: "Even if I’m strong, I’m just one person. They’ll arrest me."

There have been small protests. East of Sihanoukville in O’Okhna Heng, where a series of villages are clustered along the road leading to Phnom Penh, Chanthy* – who asked to go by a pseudonym – joined about 30 families at a protest in February over impending evictions.

Ten years ago Chanthy bought several plots of land above the road and received titles stamped by the local government. But people were called to a meeting in January and Chanthy's husband returned with his hands shaking. He didn't speak for days. "There's no way for us to win," he finally said: an estate agent, Everfortune Real Estate, was reclaiming the area saying their titles, sold through middlemen, were never valid.

Neither Everfortune Real Estate nor an O’Okhna Heng official responded to questions about the evictions.

Chanthy says that people had to flee bulldozers, leaving all their belongings behind. Her home is one of a few left at the top of the village. She owes $11,000 in microfinance loans for useless land titles. "If they come again, I will just stay inside the house and let them demolish us too," she says. "No one can help this place."

Near Sihanoukville airport, 70-year-old Kav Phor is refusing to move from where she has been raising chickens and ducks since 1983. Years ago, Phor faced another land dispute and won her farm back by court order. "New year, new problem," she says. She thinks the compensatory plot of land authorities offered is too close to another development project, meaning she could be evicted again.

She has not left her shack for weeks, relying on her children to bring her supplies. "I can't accept this," Phor says. "Here, the land [should] belong to the people. Living in Cambodia is so hard."