Cambodia defends family relocations for tourism around Angkor Wat temple complex, saying only squatters are being removed
Cambodia is rejecting allegations it violated international law by evicting people living around its Angkor Wat temple complex, saying in a report to Unesco that it was only relocating squatters and not residents of more than 100 traditional villages.
Amnesty questioned Cambodia’s assertion that the families were being voluntarily relocated, citing interviews with people who said they had been forced out, and maintained that resettlement sites lacked adequate water, sanitation and other facilities; it criticised Unesco for failing to challenge Cambodian authorities.
Paris-based Unesco responded that it was “deeply concerned about the allegations” and ordered Cambodia to report on the state of conservation at the Angkor site about a year earlier than previously planned, while urging “them to ensure that any relocation is voluntary”.
The Angkor site spreads across some 400 square kilometres (155 square miles), and contains the ruins of Khmer Empire capitals from the 9th to the 15th centuries, including the temple of Angkor Wat.
Unesco calls it one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia, and it is critical to Cambodia’s tourism industry.
In its report to Unesco, Cambodia argued it was moving only people involved in the “illegal occupation of heritage land” and not those identified by Unesco as inhabitants of traditional villages shortly after the Angkor complex’s inscription in 1992 as a World Heritage site.
“At the Angkor heritage site there are 112 villages where people have been living for generations, but there are squatters who have been coming in, and these squatters are the people who are being relocated, not the people living in the traditional villages,” said Long Kosal, spokesman for the Cambodian