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Indigenous Minority Affairs

      (i)         Introduction

Indigenous minority communities in Cambodia are traditionally located in Kratie, Mondolkiri, Ratanakiri, Stung Treng, Kompong Thom, Koh Kong, Pursat, Kompong Speu and Sihanoukville. The majority of Indigenous minority people live in the largely forested areas of the north and north-eastern part of the country.

Several international instruments have been developed with the specific aim to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities. The Royal government of Cambodia also formed the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) for Highland Peoples Development in 1994. This body developed a General Policy for Highland Peoples Development in 1997. This document is still in draft form. In addition to this, the National Poverty Reduction Strategy (NPRS) contains a number of brief points with regard to Indigenous minority people:

-          Ethnic minorities are disadvantaged due to lack of representation at the management and legislative levels, and because of language barriers. (p.iii)

-          Lack of access to law and rights is a serious issue, since the poor are not able to understand the law, unaware of their rights and vulnerable to exploitation. (p.iii)

-          Historically the ethnic minorities are not included in any policy, decision-making and development process. They are therefore in many ways inferior in the society in terms of status, position and living standards (p.123).

-          However, little is understood about the ethnic minorities in Cambodia by the majority, and by national decision-makers (p.123).

      (ii)          Key Issues

Land Rights: Numerous land studies have shown that Indigenous minority people operate a well-developed land allocation and land management system that relies on communal decision making through traditional structures. Individual land titling and land sales bypass this system threatening the collective nature of Indigenous minority communities and can create much poverty.

Provincial governments in Ratanakiri and other provinces have been working with partner organisations on programs to promote land security through community based natural resource management. In Ratanakiri, this has resulted in provincial recognition of many community natural resource management areas. This is a positive step for initial land security.

In 2001 the Royal Government of Cambodia passed a new Land Law that contains provisions for Indigenous minority communities to gain title to their land, either in the form of individual titles or as a communal title. In this law indigenous community land can be defined as residential land, agricultural land and land kept in reserve as part of the traditional rotational cultivation system.

Sub-decrees that define the requirements for legal recognition of communal land ownership have yet to be written.  Therefore, the drafting of this sub-decree should be encouraged.  In the process of developing this sub-decree, there needs to be comprehensive analysis in order to give full benefit to the indigenous minority communities in terms of sustainability of the utilisation and management of land and natural resources.  The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction has already implemented a pilot project in order to register indigenous community land.  A national task force was created which continues to work on the pilot project.  The task force is supported by a consultation forum, in which the members of the forum can provide input and positive recommendations as well as raise important issues in order to facilitate the legal process in communal land registration.

In order to inform the development of these legal instruments, 3 pilot communal land titling projects are being undertaken (2 in Ratanakiri and 1 in Mondulkiri). These need to be monitored closely to ensure that bureaucratic constraints and vested interest do not strangle the process.

Despite these initiatives, land alienation remains an alarming and growing problem. Of particular concern are a proliferation of “land concessions” issued by the government in provinces like Kompong Thom, Stung Treng and Kratie. These land concessions aim at establishing industrial agricultural plantations – rubber, cashew nut. They remove native forest and reduce indigenous minority people into positions of subservience and poverty, their natural resources being removed from their management and use.

Also of concern is the continuing growth of land “sales” that involve misinformation, coercion, threats, bribes to officials and other illegal mechanisms.

-          Information about basic human rights, land rights and contract procedures is an urgent need.

-          This information needs to be delivered in indigenous languages with the active involvement of indigenous minority people and indigenous minority organisations.

-          This needs to be supported by independent legal representation in land cadastral commission and court processes.

Forestry issue: Like all communities using forest for livelihood support in Cambodia, indigenous minority people do not have secure management rights for the forest areas they traditionally use and manage. Land alienation means that indigenous minority people have to shift their agricultural areas into forest areas. They are then blamed for forest clearing. Forest concessions intimidate indigenous minority communities and deprive these communities of developing their own secure and sustainable livelihood support.

Indigenous minority people are not entitled to extract timber for sawing, even by hand, “because this is not customary use”. Indigenous minority people are establishing community regulations to protect forest and feel discriminated against by the “customary use” provisions of the forest law and its interpretation.

A Sub-decree on Community Forestry has been delayed for years and this may offer more scope for indigenous minority people’s management and use. There is a strong need to carefully monitor this to ensure that the sub-decree actually serves the needs of poor communities.

-          It is imperative that the community forestry sub-decree implementation includes community traditional management rights in mature forest and forest concessions, not just degraded forest.

-          Many areas of forest, especially spirit forest, burial forests and small areas of forest amongst agricultural land need to be included in communal land titling if indigenous land management and culture is to be protected. Excluding these forest areas will also have the effect of drastically slowing the mapping processes required for communal land, reducing land security for the majority of indigenous minority people.

Education: Education reforms in Cambodia, in general, progress slowly. In the area of education for indigenous minority people a number of positive but also some disturbing trends occur. One positive aspect has been the support for developing bi-lingual education that promotes the development of literacy in indigenous languages as a bridge to Khmer literacy. NGOs are working in close cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to create a model for bi-lingual education in formal education.

Non-Formal Education (NFE) – both bilingual and monolingual - continues to produce positive results, possibly reinforced by the deficiencies within the formal education system. This form of education remains literacy based and has had much success, as indigenous minority communities have been given the flexibility to manage classes at the time most suited to their seasonal and daily lives. Another feature of the NFE has been indigenous minority people have been the teachers and have been able to use indigenous languages to support Khmer literacy.

On the less positive side, post literacy NFE materials and classes remain seriously lacking. These classes would be to support people developing their literacy skills past very basic Khmer literacy.

In the formal education sector, many schools remain understaffed or non-functional. In many cases non-indigenous people are sent to teach in indigenous people’s schools without adequate consideration of the practicalities of this. Isolation from their families and culture, language problems and cross-cultural barriers add to the huge absenteeism of teachers. In areas where there is no Non-Formal Education little or no effective education is available to indigenous minority people. This is within an environment of very rapid social and economic change and there is a very large danger that marginalisation will be further entrenched.

Health: Health indicators among indigenous minority people in Cambodia are still among the worst in the country. Indigenous minority people continue to report frequent incidents of corruption and abuse at the hands of non-indigenous health staff. This has led to indigenous minority people being very untrusting of the health system and less likely to follow its directions and services. Many of the attempts to rectify this situation have been frustrated by inefficiency in the public health system. Recent moves to outsource health services may offer a short-term solution to this, but reform of the national health system will also be required in the longer-term to develop health assistance responsive to indigenous minority peoples’ needs.

Hydro Electricity Dams: In previous years extreme problems have been reported as a result of hydro-electricity dams located on the Sesan River in Vietnam that flow through Ratanakiri and Stung Treng provinces in the northeast of Cambodia. The dams have resulted in deaths from flood and irregular river flows.

While these problems continue, they are likely to be increased by more dams already commenced or being planned in Vietnam. These dams are being built without adequate assessment of past impacts, rectifying the problems or first conducting serious future environmental and social impact assessments. International donor agencies and multi-lateral banks continue to support and validate their construction by supporting associated projects like power line construction. In this way large international institutions like Swedish International Development Agency, Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Vietnamese government, effectively undermine the lives of indigenous minority people in northeast Cambodia. There are very strong local concerns that large-scale industrial power generation and the model of industrial development that it supports have profound and long-term negative impacts on the lives of indigenous minority people.

Tourism: The Cambodian, Laos and Vietnamese government have signed a “Triangle Development Plan” which includes opening the northeastern provinces of Cambodia up to rapid and large road access and extensive tourism development. The Asian Development Bank has funded, via loans, the development of an international airport in Ratanakiri under the guise that rapid economic and tourism development will reduce property.

This model, in relation to tourism, is however, based on the concept that indigenous minority people will have access to and want tourism development. Without access to education and training services it is unlikely that indigenous minority people will be able to have sufficient voice in tourism management nor access to tourism incomes. In this context, tourism could further contribute to the marginalisation of indigenous communities.

-          Tourism development needs to be controlled and managed until barriers to sustainable and equitable tourism development are removed. Current policies of rapid expansion of tourism are misplaced and potentially highly destructive.

Decentralisation: Dependency or self-management: Much is made of the decentralization processes now underway within the Cambodian Government and intend these developments do offer real opportunities for promoting indigenous peoples’ self-management. However in many indigenous minority people’s areas much money is being directed into ‘development’ without adequate support for true community development and human development support. In many areas predominantly non-indigenous minority people in government and NGO projects deliver sometimes nationally or regionally designed projects in non-indigenous languages. In this scenario per diems and similar financial support are being used to acquire participation in the activities of development agencies.

The effects of this are starting to be seen in the form of dependency, loss of community self-management and community disempowerment. Without indigenous minority people being actively involved in their own development and without local alternatives to the industrial development models now being promulgated many severe social and economic problems can be expected to arise, as they have in other indigenous communities in the world with similar conditions.

-          A major review of the impacts on indigenous minority people from different development approaches is required.

      (iii)         Recommendations:

·         The Royal Government of Cambodia should as soon as possible take steps towards adopting the General Policy for Highland Peoples Development drafted by the IMC in 1997. This is essential, as Cambodia needs a National Policy for allowing indigenous minority peoples to guide their own development. The impediments to ratifying this policy need to be identified and openly debated.

·         Many development visions being implemented in indigenous minority people’s areas are based on economic development models and not following the self-determination principles of the Highland Peoples Development Policy drafted by the IMC in 1997 nor international conventions related to indigenous people’s rights. A careful review of development philosophies and strategies need to be undertaken to correct this situation.

·         Donors have developed guidelines regarding the treatment of indigenous communities or impact of projects on indigenous communities. It is important that the donors remind the different actors and the general public that these guidelines and operational directives exist and need to be followed.

·         In accordance with their Operational Directive 4.20 the World Bank undertook an Indigenous Upland Minorities Screening Study in Cambodia in 2002 as the Bank was preparing a loan for the Rural Investment and Local Governance Project to support the Royal Government of Cambodia's expansion of the Seila Program. It is also important that the contents of such studies will be disseminated widely throughout the country and that the findings will be taken into consideration when making development decisions in indigenous minority peoples’ areas.  

·         The Minister of Land Management Urban Planning and Construction has started to pilot communal land titles in three communities in Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces in 2003.  Donors and NGOs need to play a prominent role in ensuring that Indigenous Peoples rights to their ancestral lands are not compromised in this process.

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For more information and the issues raised in this paper, please contact:

NGO Forum, Tel: 023 986 269, Email:  ngoforum@ngoforum.org.kh

Non Timber Forests Products Project (NTFP), Tel: 075 974039, Email: ntfp@camintel.com

Health Unlimited Ratanakiri, Tel: 012 731396, Email: hurtk@camintel.com, RAMA@camintel.com

CARE Ratanakiri, Tel: 075 974056, Email: care_rtk@camintel.com