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Forced Evictions in Tropical Cities: An Introduction
Author(s) -
Olds Kris,
Bunnell Tim,
Leckie Scott
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
singapore journal of tropical geography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1467-9493
pISSN - 0129-7619
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9493.00129
Subject(s) - citation , library science , history , media studies , political science , sociology , computer science
Copyright 2002 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and Blackwell Publishers Ltd In early January 2002, a fire destroyed a slum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, displacing approximately 16,000 people. The slum was situated on “prime” riverfront land, some of which was owned by Theng Bunma, a politically powerful Cambodian businessman. Several days after the first fire, some men were witnessed propelling Molotov cocktails into another Phnom Penh slum, leading to the destruction of over 1,000 additional homes populated, in this case, by mainly Vietnamese people. Not coincidentally, the fires cleared space to be used in an urban “revitalisation program” that is associated with government ambitions to reclaim Phnom Penh’s historical reputation as one of Southeast Asia’s grandest cities (Kazmin, 2002).