SONG OF THE DAY: NINE INCH NAILS - EVERYDAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME


THE STEALING OF CAMBODIA: HOW FOREIGN INVESTMENT IS OUSTING THE LOCALS FROM CAMBODIAN FARMS

 



Cambodia may no longer be of the Cambodians, at least as far as certain tracts of farmland are concerned. 

Foreign investors are buying tracts of land with the Cambodian's government permission and ousting local farmers who have worked the land for generations. 

Even though protests are made by the locals, the foreign corporations send heavy machinery to bulldoze everything on the land, including farmers' dwellings and move everyone out.  

In one single day in 2006, for example, more than 200 families lost their land and their means of sustenance.  Most of them today are unable to feed themselves.  Some of them had to emigrate to the very countries whose corporations have expropriated their lands: Thailand and Malaysia.  

The current Prime Minister is actually signing economic and land concessions to the foreign entities, whose principals have financial or even familial ties to him.  

Human Rights organizations estimate that almost 600,000 people have been thrown off their land and into a life of utter poverty.  

Strangely enough, the seed money for the corporations' acquisitions in Cambodia comes from Germany.  In fact, it is all part of program that the land grabbers are using to their advantage, courtesy of the German taxpayers. 

With the land grab, which ends with cultivation of destructive crops such as palm trees and sugar cane, are also disappearing some of the oldest forests in Cambodia.  

The ability of corporations to expropriate the land makes good use of a chaotic land management system, that goes back to the Khmer rouge rule when almost all relevant documents were burned and millions killed,so that no one for sure knows who owns what land, and what land is actually private or state owned.  The Khmer also passed a law that said that the entire country's land was government property.   Although a law was passed that allows farmers to own land they have farmed for the past 5 years or more, that does not stop foreigner entities from taking it away.  All the law provides for, is that the farmer be compensated.  And even that is poorly implemented. 

Talks in Phnom Penh are slated for the beginning of December. One of the points to be discussed is the land grab that has been ongoing for almost a decade.  The German Green party wants the loans that are the basis for the acquisition to be cancelled.   Cambodia, for its part, is promising to enact a land registry in which all farmers can record their land.  2 million people have already taken advantage of the new registry, according to the central government.   Germany has also been assisting in this, by offering land registry experts from the German Society of International Cooperation for almost a decade.  But since Germany is the loaning agent in most cases, the role of the German government as contradictory as it is, is coming under increasing scrutiny. 

However, the German aid workers in Cambodia relate that the Prime Minister is still allowing companies to buy land, even as he promotes the land registry program.  They even cite the fact that some of the Germans who want to oversee the program are blocked from traveling to the farmlands.  For this reason, they are not able to verify if the farmers who have registered their land in the land registry are actually holding title to their land. 

 Source : Spiegel international/ 11.30.13




UKRAINE IN THE MAELSTROM AGAIN: A COUNTRY DEFINED MORE BY ITS PAST THAN BY ITS FUTURE

 


For a while, Ukraine seemed to have successfully distanced itself from the grip of the Kremlin. 

But, like every country that lived under the Soviet for more than a decade, the specter of corruption soon raised its ugly head.  Old tricks, and renewed alliances, rendered a country on the verge of freedom unable to rise to its own expectations. 

After almost a quarter of a century, Ukraine is faced with the stark reality that it might not be an independent country, but one ruled almost by proxy.  Elections in post Soviet era countries can easily be swayed.  Pressure from the Kremlin still has the power to subvert the destiny of nations.

The latest presidential action, just this week, has nullified an agreement that would have seen the Ukraine joining the EU zone at least in certain commercial aspects.  And the reason why the EU deal fell through is that the sitting president refused to free former president Tymoshenko, a precondition of the EU deal, who was jailed on trumped up charges of corruption that made way for what many have called a rigged election, whose winning candidate closely aligns himself with the Kremlin.

The people of Ukraine however, have not forgotten their ability to protest. Having already changed the course of history twice in the past two decades, they are now taking to the streets again.  This time, they are protesting the current's president, Viktor Yanukovych for letting EU deal fail.  

The protest however, was not as peaceful as it had been in 2004.  Many protesters were brutally torn off the streets and arrested.  Many of them were injured as the police broke up the protest. 

This repression of the people's will does not bode well for Ukraine.  Already many people know that the current government favors a close alignment with the Kremlin, and that could spell both economic and human rights downturns.  But more importantly, the peaceful Orange revolution, which had brought the hope of a future devoid of repression and persecution, is now little more than a memory of what could have been.


Source : France 24/ 11.30.13