“Once, the mountains were ours”

A thousand years later, a very different empire has sprouted. Cambodia is the sixth fastest growing economy in the world, largely due to foreign, particularly Chinese, investors. The Phnom Penh skyline grows ever taller and more complex, the streets are buzzing with luxury cars and futuristic scooters. Outside of the cities, natural resources are sold off to the highest bidder, giving rise to frustration among those Cambodians who have always played by nature’s rules.

The God Kings may have changed into suits, but they still rule over their environment in the names of market forces and profit. Everything is for sale here, even the land itself.

Cambodia’s lush and diverse natural landscapes are disappearing fast, as collateral damage in the hunt for progress and profit. Entire jungles are felled, tonnes of sand are dredged from riverbeds. Mountains turn into quarries and marshlands to deserts.

The country’s largest tourist attraction, the vast overgrown temple complex Angkor Wat, bears witness from a civilisation inextricably entwined with the surrounding nature. The rulers of the Khmer Empire saw themselves as gods and kings all at once, divinely selected to dominate their environment. They built their wealth on an intricate system of canals and reservoirs which sustained their society for centuries, but when the rain stopped falling, the empire fell.

Falling giants

Mondulkiri province, Northeastern Cambodia.

The same story has played out several places in the area. Firstly, the original forest is razed, often without regard to whether or not it is in a conservation area. Rare precious wood is sold in Cambodia or elsewhere in the region. Then pine, oil palm or rubber trees are planted or mining operations are established. The landscape is forever changed. The locals are robbed of the land they have inhabited and depended on for generations and have to look for alternative sources of income. Some resort to poaching, others turn to logging for meagre profits from shady intermediaries.

Over half of the population in Mondulkiri belong to the Bunong minority, a people who have traditionally lived from and in accordance with nature in the ancient forests that once sprawled across the borders of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. Members of the Bunong people report that when the pine industry was introduced, workers were brought in from outside Mondulkiri, harassing the locals, killing their cows and buffalos and making the area feel unsafe.

Among the most important tales of the Bunong people is the tale of the elephants. Once, a group of Bunong gatherers walking through the forest accidentally touched a poisonous plant. Their skin started itching terribly. They scratched and scratched … — Among the most important tales of the Bunong people is the tale of the elephants. Once, a group of Bunong gatherers walking through the forest accidentally touched a poisonous plant. Their skin started itching terribly. They scratched and scratched until their skin became tough and thick and their hands and feet hardened. Without the use of their hands, they could only eat bamboo and leaves and had to venture deep into the forest to fill their stomachs. In time, their noses turned into trunks and they forgot the language of the humans.
Because of this mythical connection, the Bunong people see elephants as distant relatives and therefore part of the family. Before the Khmer Rouge took power, elephants were used for working fields and roamed the forests in between tasks, but the regime confiscated all the elephants for use in labor camps. With a disappearing natural habitat and rampant poaching, the elephants never made a comeback in the Cambodian forests after the regime fell. Today they are all but extinct and mainly used as a tourist attraction. Princess here is one of five elephants that have retired at the NGO Mondulkiri Project. For years, these elephants have been lugging tourists around Angkor Wat or illegal timber across the Vietnamese border. But for now they are safe here, in a part of the forest that the Mondulkiri Project rents and protects against loggers and poachers. The contract will expire in 25 years and so only time will tell what happens to Princess and the others then.

The darkest chapter

But Pol Pot did not want to build grand temples like the God Kings of Angkor. His goal was to create a communist society, regardless of the human costs. The Khmer Rouge forcibly moved the urban populations out of the cities and into labor camps in the country side. Here, the order of the day was backbreaking work, forced marriages, hunger and executions of anyone thought to be an enemy of the organisation. Artists, intellectuals, religious minorities and anyone who could speak English were executed first. The next in line were those who did not comply, work hard enough or believed sufficiently blindly in the new order. After only four years, the Pol Pot regime had a fourth of the entire Cambodian population’s blood on their hands.

The Khmer Rouge years is by far the darkest chapter in Cambodia’s history and a topic that most Cambodians prefer to avoid. But even today, the consequences of the regime are visible in the country’s demographic. Only four percent of the population is over 65 years old.

Today, it is 42 years since the Khmer Rouge was expelled to the border of Thailand. From there, they funded twenty years of guerilla warfare against the new government by logging and mine operations. Pol Pot understood that there was money to be made from precious wood and unknowingly started a trend that would shape the Cambodian landscape forever. The Khmer Rouge are no longer active, but the logging that they introduced certainly is.

Cambodia’s forests have been a battle field ever since the Vietnam War crossed the country’s Eastern border in the 1960’s. The long standing conflict between North and South Vietnam and the United States’ involvement in it, put a sudden end to what is today known as Cambodia’s “Golden Age”. A time when ambitious architecture and urban planning, cinematography and rock’n’roll thrived after Cambodia gained independence from France.

For long, Cambodia managed to remain neutral to their neighbours’ war, but this stance was revised when North Vietnamese troops invaded the country and American bombs fell on both sides of the border. King Norodom Sihanouk was dethroned in a coup and replaced by prime minister Lon Nol. Supported by the American military, Lon Nol attempted to ward off the North Vietnamese.

In the middle of all this chaos, a new enemy was growing stronger in the depths of the jungle. A sprouting rebellion that in time would lead to one of modern history’s most gruesome genocides. The Khmer Rouge.

The extremely communist and xenophobic organisation took power in Cambodia in 1975, with false promises to the displaced king and support from the North Vietnamese government. The Khmer Rouge’s vision was a return to the ways of the Khmer Empire, an organised and productive society that put the collective advancement before the well-being of the individual. The Khmer Rouge’s leader Pol Pot is quoted as saying, “If our people could build Angkor Wat, they can do anything”.

A prosperous reign

As a young Khmer Rouge soldier, Hun Sen fled across the Vietnamese border. The regime was becoming increasingly paranoid and was no longer content persecuting outside enemies. It now turned to its own ranks and Hun Sen feared for his life.

A few years later, he returned as part of a Vietnamese sponsored rebel army. He went on to be appointed Deputy Prime Minister in the transitional government that followed the Khmer Rouge government. Only a few years after this, he sat in the Prime Minister’s chair in parliament as head of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). 35 years later, he sits there still, ranking fifth on the list of the world’s longest-ruling leaders.

It is not easy to comprehend how a pine plantation ends up in the middle of a nature reserve, or how a rain forest that has sprawled across a country can almost disappear in fifty years. To comprehend the incomprehensible, one must get to know the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen.

The same forests that are now being felled were officially protected in the early 1990’s in a decree bearing the signature of the late King Sihanouk. However, for the past two decades, the government has generously issued long term leases for vast areas of land to members of the political elite and foreign investors alike.

These so-called Economic Land Concessions stretch across enormous territories, where logging, plantations, mine operations and construction is allowed without regard to environmental and social consequences as well as protection status. Over half of Cambodia’s arable land is in the hands of a few individuals, resulting in endless conflicts between influential stakeholders and aggrieved local communities.

This is how a pine plantation ends up in the middle of a natural reserve. This is how a forest, that is protected by a King himself, is cut down for the world to see.

To many Cambodians, the Hun Sen regime represented much needed stability following the cruelty of the Khmer Rouge, but this stability came at a price. Hun Sen has used his position to weave an intricate web of political alliances and lucrative friendships, the profits of which tend to avoid the public purse. Cambodia is extremely rich in natural resources which the CPP government seems to protect with one hand and sell to the highest bidder with the other.

Prisoners of war

The overgrown vehicles are testimony to the efforts made to combat illegal logging. Twice a month, government sponsored forest patrols enter a section of the jungle for four days. If they encounter loggers, the forest officers ask them why they are felling trees. If the wood is meant for building houses in the community, they are let go. If it is cut down for export, it is illegal. The perpetrator is asked to sign a contract promising they will not fell trees again, the matter is reported to local police and the logger is set free.

Confronting the loggers can be dangerous, so the forest patrols are always escorted by government soldiers. In 2018, an entire forest patrol, consisting of an environmentalist from Wildlife Conservation Society, a forest officer and a military police officer, were shot and killed after confiscating chainsaws and motorcycles from loggers in Keo Seima. The area of the crime is close to the Vietnamese border, where illegal wood is often transported. According to the Mondulkiri chief of police, the perpetrators were soldiers from the Cambodian border patrol. There are many different agendas at play and it is not easy to tell who is a friend and who is a foe in Cambodia’s forests.

In the impenetrable jungle of Keo Seima, one can easily imagine tigers on the prowl and elephants chewing bamboo, even though both are as good as extinct here. The air is saturated with oxygen and the deafening sound of insects communicating in a language that resembles tinnitus.

In the middle of the forest lies a myriad of confiscated cars, motorbikes and chainsaws. Green vines crawl in and out of improvised extended trunks made from welded scrap metal as if to take revenge. The illegal timber is still in the cars, like prisoners of a war between humans and nature, a war that both parties are bound to lose.

New giants

This tendency is most apparent in Phnom Penh but other parts of Cambodia also bear witness to China’s presence in the country. Sihanoukville, situated on the Southwestern coast, used to be a sleepy coastal town attracting Cambodian holidaymakers and Western backpackers with its palm trees and turquoise waves. After China obtained Economic Land Concessions for 20% of Cambodia's coast coastline for the next 99 years, Sihanoukville has been dubbed “the new Macau”.

While the Cambodian rainforests fall, new giants grow. High rises wrapped in green scaffold mesh stretch upwards all over the capital, Phnom Penh. On the outskirts of the city, so-called “boreys” pop up, gated communities consisting of row upon row of identical mini palaces and Western style villas.

Cambodia’s construction sector is booming, supported by innumerable foreign investors. China holds an undisputed first place among them. 70 per cent of the total industrial investments in Cambodia comes from China, who is hard at work building infrastructure and luxurious condominiums.

Changing landscapes

Phnom Penh.

“The law states that foreigners cannot own land in Cambodia. However, there are ways of working around this. Either one can apply for citizenship. Many foreigners achieve this, even if they do not speak Khmer or have anything to do with Cambodian people,” says Kim Heang, CEO of Khmer Real Estate. “Another way is to create a company with Cambodian people owning at least 51 percent of the shares and then buy land through that company”.

Kim Heang was born in Cambodia to Chinese parents and speaks Chinese with the majority of his customers. He is quite pleased with the influx of Chinese in Cambodia and with the cash flow they bring with them.

The population of Phnom Penh is expected to have doubled by 2030. Therefore, it sounds like good news when Kim Heang estimates that around 45.000 new homes will be ready in 2021. But unfortunately most of these homes will be far out of the average Cambodian’s price range and this will change the city dramatically.

“If you are a Phnom Penh local and travel abroad for a few years, you may not be able to find your way home at night, when you return. Roads are changed, old buildings demolished, new ones built,” says Kim Heang. “No one can predict the future but some things are certain. More rich people will move from villas to condos. The villas will be torn down to make room for more high rises. The small local markets will turn into supermarkets. Urban living will be more expensive and so the poor people will have to move. It is the same story everywhere in the world, that is just how it is”.

To Kim Heang, the construction boom heralds a bright, new future but critical voices are questioning China’s motives and whether this development is really benefiting Cambodia.

For now, most of the new condos are empty. Few Cambodians can afford to live there, fuelling speculations that they might be built as some form of money laundering scheme or a way for affluent Chinese to store their wealth outside of the Chinese tax system. No matter the reason for their existence, these new giants are forcing some Phnom Penh residents to look for new homes.

A floating house

Chroy Changvar.

Ya Rohny is part of a small fishing community that belongs to the Muslim Cham minority. They used to live up on dry land, where the Sokha Hotel and the fenced in neighbouring plot is now. After the construction begun, they have moved with the water. When the monsoon season ends and the water levels fall, the small patch of land appears and the community move their temporary houses from the concrete slope.

“The Chinese plan on building something behind that fence. I think it will be a hotel like Sokha. As soon as they start building, we will be evicted, but I have no idea when or where. It is like we live in a floating house, we are always about to sail off. The Chinese are everywhere, but there is no place for us at all. We just float around all our lives,” says Ya Rohny.

On the tip of the peninsula where the Tonlé Sap and Mekong rivers meet, lies the five star Sokha Hotel with its 1650 square meter swimming pool and 18 stories of restaurants, bars and luxurious suites. A small private ferry transports the hotel’s guests across the river and straight to the centre of Phnom Penh, conveniently circumventing the hustle and bustle of the city traffic. Between the hotel and the river waters is a small concrete slope and a small, muddy patch of land. This is where twenty year old Ya Rohny lives with her husband and newborn daughter.

“I was born here, back when it was a village named Joh Kong. It means “The Last Island”,” says Ya Rohny. “Some of us have lived here forever, some were moved here by authorities when they built the bridge from Phnom Penh to Chroy Changvar”.

Diamond Island

The vision behind Koh Pich is a city within the city. The town hall, fire station, condominiums and gated communities are already in place, although the whole place remains largely empty of inhabitants because of the high rents. It is difficult to believe that twenty years ago, Koh Pich was a swampy area, home to 300 families who made a living fishing and growing rice.

On Sunday nights, all roads lead to Koh Pich, Diamond Island. The mostly artificial island is a literal stone’s throw from the rest of Phnom Penh but it is a world apart. Swanky new buildings pop up everywhere in a confusing melange of Ancient Greek and Parisian inspiration, the crown jewel being an enormous triumphal arch flanked by apartment buildings with verdigris coloured domes. The streets bear names like Elite Road, La Seine and Harvard Street. The largely empty storefronts showcase real estate agents’ contact information in English, Chinese and Khmer.

The pulsating heart of the disorienting scenario is the funfair. Deafening bubblegum techno merges with the sound of diesel engines pulling creaky rides. Flashing LED lights tint the faces of the youngest generation as they are hurled around in ferris wheels and small plastic airplanes. On the boardwalk, families and young couples enjoy the view of the Mekong River that appears blue in the dusk instead of its usual brown colour.

An activist is born

One of the people who remember Koh Pich from before it became Diamond Island is 30 year old Lim Kimsor.

“The government representatives came in 2007. They informed us that an international company had bought our land,” says Lim Kimsor. “My father knew the law and he understood that if they wanted our land, they would have to buy us out. He also knew that he had the right to fight for his home. Unfortunately, our neighbours did not. He tried to explain the law to them, but it was the company’s and the government’s word against his”.

Intimidation and charged negotiations were the order of the day for the following two years. For a period of time, unknown men even tried to set fire to the island dwellers’ houses during the night. In the beginning the community came together, but more and more gave in over time.

“In the end, very few families were left. My father was offered 20.000 dollars, but he still refused to move. The representatives pointed a gun to his head and said that in that case he and his family would have a problem. My father realised that we had to go. He did not want their dirty money, but they forced him to take it so that it would look like he sold our land voluntarily,” says Lim Kimsor.

This experience turned Lim Kimsor into an activist. She could not stand by and watch as others suffered the same fate as her and her family. But life as an activist in Cambodia is difficult at best and fatal at worst.

“We used to get good catches with just a small net,” says Mot Sopha, a Koh Sralao fisher woman. “Now we need a huge one just to catch something. We had to loan money from the bank to afford the net. If we do not catch anything, we can pay off the lo… — “We used to get good catches with just a small net,” says Mot Sopha, a Koh Sralao fisher woman. “Now we need a huge one just to catch something. We had to loan money from the bank to afford the net. If we do not catch anything, we can pay off the loan and then it just grows and grows”.

Insatiable hunger

Koh Kong province, South Western Cambodia.

The landscape seems endless. The wide waterway flanked by green mangrove forest stretches into infinity. The horizon is interrupted only by the Cardamom Mountains that rise like a blue shadow in the distance. At first glance, Southeast Asia’s largest mangrove forest looks untouched, almost prehistoric. But the mangrove is very different from what it once was. The damage is difficult to see, because it lies below water. Intensive sand dredging has destroyed a fragile ecosystem and made the future insecure for the local fishing communities.

Ten years ago, life was easier for the fishers of Koh Sralao, a village community nestled in the mangrove forest. Before the sand dredging started, the ecosystem and the changing season provided a natural safety net. In the hot dry season, fish and crabs were plentiful. When the monsoon started, the roots of the mangrove teemed with snails and shrimp. But as tonnes upon tonnes of sand was dredged from the river bed, the fish lost their natural habitats. Large areas of the mangrove were destroyed and the remaining vegetation tumbled into the water, leaving fewer dwellings for snails and shrimp.

Sand is the second most consumed natural resource on a global scale, following fresh water. It is estimated that the annual world consumption is 15 billion tonnes. The humble substance is an essential ingredient in concrete and asphalt, it towers upwards in innumerable stories and stretches out in endless road networks connecting people and places all over the world.

The demand for sand is immense. Last year alone, China’s sand consumption was enough to cover the entire state of New York in 2,5 centimeter layer of sand.

Complications

Leading up to the 2018 elections, this worrying tendency reached new heights. The Cambodian Supreme Court dissolved the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the only opposition party that ever posed any real political threat to the government. The founder of the party, Sam Rainsy and other prominent members had already fled the country years ago, and the party leader Kem Sokha was put under house arrest in his home in Phnom Penh for more than two years. Independent radio stations were shut down. A government friendly investor took ownership of the English and Khmer language newspaper The Phnom Penh Post. The country’s other independent newspaper, The Cambodia Daily, received an astronomical tax bill and had to close down. The last headline read: “Descent into Outright Dictatorship”.

Mother Nature was not spared Spanish co-founder Alejandro González-Davidson was arrested and deported in 2015. In late 2017, two prominent members of the group were imprisoned for five months for filming alleged sand smuggling in Koh Kong. Mother Nature is still in the government’s spotlight and Lim Kimsor experiences harassment over the phone on a regular basis.

“Many people tell me that I should stop my activism, that I should think of my future. But that is exactly why I don’t stop. Because I am thinking of my future,” says Lim Kimsor.

Through a series of videos that went viral on Facebook, Mother Nature has fallen out with the government again and again by revealing disturbing discrepancies between the Cambodian sand export figures and their foreign business partners’ import figures. It seems that the intensive sand dredging has not benefited the Cambodian people on a broader scale nor the economy. According to Mother Nature, at least 72 million tonnes or various types of sand worth 730 million USD has seeped through the fingers of the Cambodian tax system since the group started monitoring the sand dredging.

The solid silence is ripped by the roar of the outboard motor of a fishing boat belonging to Pen Sophany and Mot Sopha, a couple from Koh Sralao. On the wooden deck sits Lim Kimsor, smartphone and steady cam in hand, alongside Oud Rydy. Lim Kimsor is here on behalf of the activist group Mother Nature which monitors sand dredging in the area.

Lim Kimsor is musing over an Instagram post showing Prime Minister Hun Sen sporting a Philippe Patek wrist watch. The caption states that the watch costs 3.2 million USD. This is puzzling to Lim Kimsor, as Hun Sen’s official monthly salary amounts to 2500 USD, meaning that the Prime Minister has been saving up every cent he ever made for 106 years. “Corruption at its finest!” states one comment. “Admirable morals,” another notes. Lim Kimsor smiles tightly, the virtual giggles are bittersweet.

Horologists refer to any function of a watch, beyond telling the time, as “complications”. Hun Sen’s Philippe Patek Grandmaster Chime 6300G has a lot in common with his reign. Both are expensive and full of complications.

Lim Kimsor knows more about this than most. Along with her fellow members of Mother Nature, she is among the few remaining Cambodian activists that dare openly criticise the government. Crossing Cambodia’s ruling class has never been risk free. Throughout the country’s recent history, several journalists and activists have been killed or jailed.

Fighting back

Following massive pressure from the local community and Mother Nature, the government decided to only allow sand dredging in certain locations and for national consumption. It is unknown whether the export has actually ended. Either way, the damage is done and it is perpetuated as long as sand is being dredged. The ecosystem of the mangrove forests is unlikely to recover. The fish are gone and the sand reincarnated as a high rise in Phnom Penh or somewhere far away.

Other than monitoring the sand dredging, Mother Nature’s strategy in Koh Kong has been to engage the local community and encourage them to fight against the commercial interests in the area. Pen Sophany, Mot Sopha, Oud Rydy and large parts of Koh Sralao’s inhabitants are well aware of how sand dredging is destroying their environment. They know their rights and have met with stakeholders and authorities on several occasions and confronted workers on the barges that transport the sand. They have shared information about the sand dredgers in WhatsApp groups and supported each other in a long, tough struggle.

“Sand dredging is down to 20 per cent in comparison to when it was at its worst. But it is still sand dredging and so our community still has a problem. I don’t want to see sand dredging here or anywhere, in any shape or form. I don’t care if they have permission to do it, because they don’t care about us either,” says 20 year old Oud Rydy.

The future of Koh Sralao lies in the hands of people like her. Oud Rydy often meets with a group of women from the village to discuss what they can do about the sand dredging and how they can help their community in general. They have a finger firmly on the pulse and are often the ones to meet with authorities and stakeholders.

“They can threaten or arrest me. I am not afraid because I know I am not doing anything wrong. Hopefully I can inspire others to keep up the fight. That is who I want to be, a strong woman in my community,” says Oud Rydy.

The battle is half won in Koh Kong but it has only just begun in the Mekong River. All around Phnom Penh, sand dredging barges abound, because the national demand for sand is enormous, even if exporting sand is banned on paper. When sand dredging was introduced in the Mekong, the government’s explanation was that there was too much sand in the river and that it was the government’s duty to remove it.

A friend indeed

The coup made it clear that Cambodia’s budding democracy was all but an illusion and human rights a mere fancy word on paper. Nevertheless, the United States and Europe continued to provide financial aid in the hope that a carrot-and-stick policy might lead Hun Sen back on the path to democracy. For years, the aid came with terms and conditions that Hun Sen regarded as condescending and restricting.

Following the dissolvement of the CNRP opposition party before the 2018 elections, the United States and Europe more or less gave up the fight, especially seeing as Hun Sen on numerous occasions has emphasised that China is willing to fill the vacuum from any Western sanctions. China does not meddle or ask questions about how their friends manage their affairs.

To China, Cambodia is not only an attractive building site but also an essential part of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative (BRI). The Chinese vision is a trading bloc centred around China, a modern reincarnation of the Silk Road connecting the “Middle Kingdom” to more than 70 countries via land and sea. The investments in Cambodia is a small price to pay for an advantageous deep sea port in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand and an unwaveringly loyal ally.

China has no large-scale strategy for their investments in Cambodia, no goal of benefiting the broader population or using the many billions in a sustainable way. The luxury condominiums in Phnom Penh are more or less uninhabited waiting for wealthy tenants. A viral story tells of a Cambodian man who won 130.000 USD in a Sihanoukville casino, but was denied his prize because Cambodian nationals are prohibited from gambling by law.

Nature also falls victim to China’s rise. China extracts natural resources on all the world’s continents and even though the country also engages in sustainable initiatives, these far from outweigh the massive environmental damage caused. The new Silk Road cuts through countless areas that are home to unique ecosystems and biodiversity. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the BRI will affect 265 endangered animal species negatively. The Europeans were guilty of the same merciless hunt for resources in Asia, Africa and North and South America, but China today has the muscle to repeat this pattern in a much faster pace in what many refer to as modern day colonisation.

In 2020, China’s direct investments in Cambodia reached over 860 million USD. The previous years have seen similar figures flowing into the Cambodian economy along with Chinese nationals and innumerable construction and infrastructure projects. China’s presence in Cambodia is a contentious topic as many locals express resentment towards their new neighbours and the ways in which the Chinese projects impact the local communities ranging from evictions to rising costs of living. But viewed from the top of Cambodian society, this overseas friendship is mutually beneficial as China is willing to provide an economic boost without the terms and conditions that come with Western capital.

The beginning of the 1990’s saw the birth of the peacekeeping operation United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), one of the UN’s largest missions. The purpose of UNTAC was to enable Cambodia’s first democratic elections and to stabilise the war torn country. Ten years after the liberation of Phnom Penh, Hun Sen’s Vietnamese backed government had still not managed to defeat the Khmer Rouge. The organisation remained active around the border of Thailand and as one three parties of a government in exile supported by China, the United States and the ASEAN countries. Cambodia was both literally and figuratively speaking a minefield.

The UNTAC operation did not succeed in creating stability in Cambodia but it did facilitate the country’s first democratic elections in 1993. The winner was Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s party, National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC). However, Hun Sen refused to give up power. The result was a coalition government, where FUNCINPEC held no actual power. Both parties remained suspicious of one another, plotting how to get the upper hand.

In 1997 the tense situation culminated in a bloody state coup. The CPP troops confronted their FUNCINPEC counterparts and demanded they surrender their weapons. Prince Ranariddh fled the country, leaving the political throne to Hun Sen. Prominent FUNCINPEC military persons were executed before the eyes of the powerless international community. The majority of the CPP party members did not support the coup and therefore many see it as the turning point, when Hun Sen became Hun Sen and took full power of both his party and the country.

Crumbling mountains

Kampong Speu province, West of Phnom Penh.

Oth Thy points out several places that used to be mountains and hills. Now they are merely stretches of horizon. Excavators and bulldozers are hard at work, eating away like termites until late in the night. For a while, new mountains are formed, piles and piles of rocks and gravel that are eventually transported away in a caravan of trucks disappearing in a grey, dusty cloud.

“Once, the mountains were ours,” says Oth Thy. “We would graze our cows there and whatever we needed could be found in the forests”.

Oth Thy has lived in Kong Pisei most of her life, roaming around the mountains with her husband, children and grandchildren, but ever since intense mining operations were established, Oth Thy’s mountains are being chipped apart, slowly but surely.

“Our community does not benefit from the quarries. My oldest son worked there for a while but the salary was too low and it was too hard to haul the rocks,” says Van Voeun.

Given the chance, his family would move in an instant but the ever failing crops and lack of employment makes saving up a near impossible task. But out of all these troubles, Van Voeun most pressing concern is the health of his two youngest sons. They are often sick and coughing, as are many people in the community.

“Our house smells like smoke and dust. It is impossible to keep it clean. We can see our own footprints on the floor and there is dust in our drinking water,” says Ven Voeun who lives next to a road that leads to one of Kong Pisei’s countless quarries. “My guess is that around a thousand trucks pass here daily. The company splashes water on the road twice a day to make the dust settle, but it makes no difference”.

Another truck growls by. Two loud bangs sound like shots from the mountain. The exploding dynamite makes the earth tremble. Two white clouds rise on the other side of Van Voeun’s rice paddies. The harvest does not look promising as the dust from the road and the mountain is turning the soil into a cement like substance. Also, the daily blasts make the walls of the village crack. Von Voeun’s house rests on tall concrete pillars and he fears it will collapse one day.

“We are not talking regular dust from the ground, which can be bad enough. This is rock dust and that is much worse. Everyone around here is sick,” says Doctor Cheny. “Many people suffer here so that a few people can make some money. If we could, we would stop them”.

The mountains are scattered. Rocks and gravel are used to build roads and buildings and to make undevelopable land developable. Large parts of the outskirts of Phnom Penh are flooded for much of the year and the never ending construction projects need solid foundations. Rocks and sand are not only used to build upwards but downwards too.

“We have many patients here and they all come because of the dust,” says Doctor Cheny who works at Pichmony Teklaok Health Center. “They cough and have eye infections, sore throats and lungs. It is especially children under five years who get really sick and this can lead to tuberculosis later in life”.

The clinic opened in 2000. Four years later, the quarries were established. The staff at the clinic are frustrated. Out of a community of 14.000 people, the clinic treats up to forty patients a week for health problems directly related to the eternal cloud of dust that hangs over the area.

City of the Future

Chroy Changvar peninsula.

This practice has rendered vast areas of arable land in Chroy Changvar completely useless to its inhabitants. Many have had to move. The purpose of this new real estate is “boreys”, the gated communities that are appearing all around Phnom Penh, housing only the few who can afford it.

“This area used to be lush, just perfect for farming. We used to grow taro, ginger, all sorts of vegetables. We made good money and got by easily. Now it is just sand. No water, no soil, just sand,” says Lom Meng. “After our farm was filled with sand we had to change our life-style to survive. Factories and construction sites are the only places we can find work now”.

Back in Chroy Changvar, marshes and lakes have been turned into deserts. In the shade of a tree sits 66 year old Lom Meng surrounded by family members. The small garden around his house is green with small vegetable patches, but just outside his fence, surrounding his house, lies a vast expanse of sand.

“A year ago, the OCIC filled our farm with sand. They dredged it from the riverbed and put it all here,” says Lom Meng. “When the area was nothing but a big pile of sand, they contacted the owner to convince him to sell it to them. That is how they do it. When the land is no longer of value to the owner, it is easier to bargain”.

Lom Meng shares his predicament with hundreds of families who are also facing seemingly hopeless land disputes with OCIC. Lom Meng and his family have lived here by the Tonlé Sap River since the Khmer Rouge released their iron grip on Phnom Penh. Lom Meng does not own the land, a member of Congress does. For decades, Lom Meng and his family have been allowed to live here in return for looking after the land and making sure no one builds here without permission. Many neighbouring plots have been turned into cow stables in an attempt to curb the sand dunes. Now, Lom Meng is waiting for the owner of the land to decide whether or not he wants to sell. Lom Meng does not want to move, but the City of the Future holds no place for him.

Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC) is the company behind the ambitious construction project “Chroy Changvar: City of the Future”. OCIC has built several Phnom Penh landmarks, including Koh Pich or “Diamond Island”, another marshland turned into prime real estate through intimidation, evictions and landfills.

In spite of the company’s visibility in the Phnom Penh cityscape, there is a striking lack of publicly available information about the OCIC. However, a few things are certain. The owner, Pung Kheav Se, holds an impressive resumé. The prominent tycoon of Cambodian citizenship and Chinese descent is the owner of the country’s largest bank, Canadia Bank, which controls one fourth of Cambodia’s bank deposits. Pung Kheav Se is also the president of the Association of Khmer-Chinese in Cambodia, an organisation aimed at boosting relations with China and attracting Chinese investors. Furthermore, he is an economic advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Uninterrupted by critical voices, the modern God Kings are free to cultivate new friendships and fill their pockets at the expense of fragile and unique ecosystems. The jungle will not grow back. The fish are gone. The mountains have been sold and the banks of the Tonlé Sap and Mekong rivers are collapsing around the new Khmer empire.

In an all-consuming hunt for economic growth, Cambodia, with Hun Sen at the wheel, steers towards an uncertain future. The country’s economy is expected to continue its explosive trajectory. The cities grow, spread and push those who cannot keep up further and further away. The two thirds of the population that depend on nature are at ever greater risk of losing their livelihoods.