Cambodia's Anti-Vietnam Obsession

On June 21, 2015 a mixed contingent of soldiers and police descended upon Areyksat village in Kandal province to forcibly remove 55 houseboats and 10 houses on the river banks. Unlike other violent evictions — which are far from rare in Cambodia — the logic of removal was not to make way for development or infrastructure, but for “environmental reasons.” The people, all of whom happened to be ethnic Vietnamese, were purportedly “polluting the area” – which, according to local authorities, impacts on “local beauty” and “national and international tourism.” On one of the many pro Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) news channels that night, the news presenters gleefully presented the story, noting that “illegal immigrants have to respect the rule of law” and local authorities should be commended for “protecting the environment.” They even [incorrectly] added that a number of the evictees had been deported to Vietnam – to triumphant smiles.

Two weeks later, this small Vietnamese community was pondering where to go when a large group of students — flanked by government officials — came to clean up the area, walking around picking up litter. They cited the need for “citizens” to protect and clean the environment. In a bizarre scene “student environmentalists” joined soldiers in “cleaning up” the local “environment” (which really equated to a straight out eviction), to the astonished stares of the recently evicted.

It wasn’t the first time this Vietnamese community had been pushed away from the land they considered their home – since the early 1990s they had been forced to relocate several times. Although most in the community were in fact born in Cambodia, without proper identification they had few avenues to challenge the eviction.

read more http://thediplomat.com/2016/09/cambodias-anti-vietnam-obsession/