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“We fight for everybody. We have made a commitment for life. All Khmer have rights, freedom and power. Your leader is your servant. We need to stop walking the path as before. They did not know their rights [then] and didn’t know how to use them.”
— Tep Vanny to TheWip.com
A Cambodian land rights activist is set to receive an international award for her efforts to bring attention to the country’s land grab crisis — one that has pushed hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes in the name of lucrative developments.
Tep Vanny is set to receive the Global Leadership Award later today for her work rallying the Boeung Kak community against the questionable practices used to remove locals from their land. Created by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 1997, the award celebrates women from around the world who advocate for justice, strengthen democracy and protect human rights.
Since being forced from her home in 2008, Vanny has advocated for an active civil society and government accountability while fighting against the Boeung Kak development.
In 2008, roughly 4000 families were evicted form the area around Boeung Kak Lake in Phnom Penn to make way for Chinese investments. Offered little in the way of compensation, the families were forced to watch as the natural lake was filled in and their homes bulldozed.
Vanny was among the Boeung Kak 13, a group of women who were arrested, and then tried and convicted in a single day, for peacefully protesting against the development. Their struggle has become the subject of french film makers documentary Even a Bird has a Nest and a symbol for wide spread issues plaguing Cambodia.
Vanny isn’t alone in her condemnation of the Boeung Kak development project which has faced criticism for the cronyism involved — the land was sold to a firm owned by Lao Meng Khin, a senator for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party — as well as its further displacement of the poor.
A former grocer, the eloquent speaker and human rights advocate is an obvious spokesperson for the land rights movement. Not only has she and her family been evicted from their Boeung home that was gifted to her in 2006 by her in-laws, her parents are living in the Kampong Speu province where small scale farmers have been forced off their land by large-scale sugar cane plantations.
By speaking out, Vanny and the thousands of other women, men and children that she has come to represent are actively pushing for the future they want. They are the voices of a changing Cambodia; voices crying out for justice and equal treatment under the law. She may be the spokesperson, but behind her are thousands of others across the country voicing their own need for change.
“What motivates me is the injustice, to be strong for my community. But it’s not justice only for my community,” Vanny told award organizers. “It’s for everyone, every community affected by development. I want to show that everyone needs to understand their rights so that the government has to take notice.”
Journeys Within would like to congratulate Tep Vanny — and all those who stand beside her — for offering Cambodia the hope, strength and vision to push for a better future.
It takes a lot of guts to be an activist in some nations. How many of us in the U.S. take our freedoms and legal system for granted? Yes, we have abuses here too as no place is perfect because humans are not perfect; however, nothing coming close to some nations like Cambodia.
How many in developed nations would have the guts to protest when they know that prison, starvation and torture may be the result of their efforts like standing on a corner with a sign complaining of abuses?
The photo is interesting as there seems to be a security person or cop in uniform behind her documenting her comments.
The key to helping those who want nothing but the basic human rights most of us enjoy is to keep them visible. The more visible they are to the world, the less chance of them disappearing forever. Governments, whether corrupt or not, do not like bad world publicity.
In the U.S. one way is to contact our political leaders which can easily be done by email and voice support for such freedom fighters and demand that they (the politicians) put pressure on such nations; governments to support human rights.