AusAID project 'abusing rights'

AusAID project 'abusing rights'

Cambodia has reopened a stretch of railway destroyed during the country's war and officials described it as a step towards boosting regional trade through rail links with neighbours. Photo: Reuters

October 11, 2012
Jane Lee
WAtoday (Australia)

THIRTY Cambodian families have complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission that they have suffered hardships in making way for a railway project funded in part by Australian aid agency AusAID.

The families filed their complaint, alleging that their human rights had been abused, with the help of two not-for-profit groups, Inclusive Development International (IDI) and Equitable Cambodia, on Friday.

David Pred, IDI's managing associate, said the families were among 4174 households affected by the project that began in 2006 to restore about 650 kilometres of Cambodia's railways.

AusAID is the project's second-largest financier, behind the Asian Development Bank, and its largest country donor.

The families want their resettlement debts to be written off and compensation until their incomes are restored, with efforts from development partners to restore their livelihoods.

''Poor people have been thrust into even deeper poverty. People who could at least put three meals on the table now don't have enough food to be able to feed their children and send their kids to school,'' Mr Pred said.

''It's counter-intuitive, it's not what I'm sure Australian taxpayers would like to see their money being used for.''

IDI monitored the project's impact on the community, interviewing 230 households across Cambodia. They found that the average person received $US757 ($A743) in resettlement compensation, which was to cover a number of things including new housing, moving costs, livelihood assistance for six months and lost income.

''[According to Habitat for Humanity] a four-metre-by-four-metre wooden house costs roughly $US2000 ($A1960) … and the average compensation for fully affected families was $US757,'' he said.

Mr Pred said many families had gone into debt and were being extorted by lenders.

He said the bulk of families were resettled at a site near the Thai border without electricity. Other sites lacked basic services including running water, with at least three deaths attributed to inappropriate resettlement.

Mr Pred said IDI had repeatedly warned AusAID of the high risk of human rights abuse over the past two years and had met senior officials in Canberra to present their findings to no avail.

''Cambodia has a pretty huge track record of forced evictions … They should have known and they should have assessed the human rights impacts before committing funds to the project and put proper safeguards in place,'' he said.

This week AusAID pledged an additional $1 million to help people living close to the railway project. The money is intended to improve community consultation and monitoring of the resettlement process, as well as helping resettled people to earn a living and manage their finance.

It said it would restructure its funding to fix the ''construction bottlenecks'' causing delays to the project.

An AusAID spokesman said he could not comment on the complaint because the government had not been informed of its details. But he said the project would ''help lift many tens of thousands of people out of poverty'' by linking Cambodia to other economies in the region.