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| Angry Boeung Kak Lake protesters |
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| Hun Xen shaking hand with his Chinese benefactor |
By Prak Chan Thul
“The future is that there will be more serious human rights violations, and unrest like in the Arab countries.”
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Ly Mom has been driven out of her lifelong home in Cambodia’s fast-growing capital. Like thousands of other Cambodians forcibly evicted by the authorities, she is homeless, jobless and angry.
Her grocery store on the banks of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak Lake is being bulldozed to make way for a luxury housing estate to be built by a Chinese developer and a well-connected Cambodian tycoon.
“People living here have nothing apart from their bare hands,” she said. “They have been given no choice.”
Ly Mom’s story is the flipside of a “no strings” Chinese investment boom that Cambodia’s government says will transform its underdeveloped $10 billion economy and improve living standards for millions of impoverished people.
A total of 2,752 families have already been driven from their homes around Boeng Kak.
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