Villagers aboard a bamboo train in Cambodia’s Pusat province. Villagers aboard a bamboo train in Cambodia’s Pusat province. Photo: Reuters

After months of cozying up to the authoritarian government of Hun Sen, Australia has finally managed to convince Cambodia to accept its refugees from Nauru and Manus Island. Never mind that Cambodia has neither the resources – nor the human rights record – to guarantee the proper resettlement of these asylum seekers. Canberra got what it wanted.

But while Australia is busy trying to offload its refugees on ill-equipped Southeast Asian nations, it is turning its back on over 20,000 Cambodians that its own aid agency helped displace. These impoverished urban families were kicked off their land and dumped onto distant resettlement sites, where they are trapped in a cycle of debt and unemployment. Many fear losing their land a second time.

All of this has occurred in the name of an Australian taxpayer-funded development project ostensibly designed to help Cambodia’s poor.

The saga began in 2010, when AusAID contributed $25 million to a scheme to remake Cambodia’s colonial-era rail network. Australia provided the money to the Asian Development Bank, which took charge of the project. Around the same time, a joint venture of Australia’s Toll Holdings and the Cambodian firm Royal Group secured a 30-year concession to operate the refurbished railways. In order to rehabilitate the dilapidated railway, poor families living along the tracks needed to be relocated.

The Asian Development Bank’s expressed mandate is to fight poverty. It has standards to ensure that resettlements such as these occur in a fair and humane manner. But the operation was so poorly planned and executed that most of these standards fell by the wayside. The end result was a calamity for affected families.

Oem Sameum, 59, is one of the displaced. She lives in a resettlement community called Trapaing Anhcheng, which is home to over 100 railroad families about an hour’s drive outside of Phnom Penh. Surrounded by empty fields and piles of trash, the makeshift village has the feel of a refugee camp.

After being forcibly relocated here to make way for the new tracks in 2011, Oem took out a loan to rebuild her house on the lot provided to her. Unable to find work – she can’t afford the daily commute to Phnom Penh – Oem fell behind in her payments. With interest, her loan has ballooned to $4000, roughly five times Cambodia’s average annual income. ''I’ll never be able to pay back that money. I’m worried sick that I’ll lose my land,'' Oem says.

The vast majority of railway families face similar predicaments. Some have even grappled with death. In 2010, at a resettlement site in western Cambodia, a brother and sister drowned in a nearby pond just a few days after they were relocated. The pond was used by the resettled families as their primary water source since the site was not equipped with water facilities.

In January, the Asian Development Bank’s internal watchdog issued a report concluding what the railway families and organisations like mine that have been advocating on their behalf have been telling the bank and the Australian government since 2010. The displaced were not provided with adequate compensation or housing, ''push[ing] many households into a debt trap''. It also found that the bank was at least partly responsible for the death of the two children.

The report issued seven recommendations, including $3-4 million in additional compensation for the families and improved facilities at the resettlement sites. It also called for the families of the dead children to be offered payment for their loss and distress.

The railway project stands as an unqualified aid disaster. As one of its principal sponsors, Australia has an obligation to try to alleviate some of the suffering it has caused. Fortunately, the release of the watchdog’s report presents an opportunity to do so.

The Asian Development Bank’s board of directors has ordered the lender to implement the report’s recommendations. However, it has encountered fierce resistance from the Cambodian government, which refuses to compensate the evicted families and write off the debts incurred. This is no great surprise in a country where land grabs are endemic and the elite routinely ride roughshod over the poor and vulnerable.

Australia has remained shamefully silent through all of this, while its senior minsters have twice flown to Phnom Penh to seal the deal on refugees.  

As one of Cambodia’s largest donors, Australia should be using its leverage to ensure that the victims of the railway project are properly compensated and assisted. The last thing we should be doing is palming off refugees who fled to Australia’s shores for safe haven to a country that doesn’t even care for its own displaced people.

Of course, no amount of money can truly compensate the families for their years of suffering. Nor can it bring back the children who died. But by using its influence and resources to help people like Oem Sameum get back on their feet, Australia can begin to correct the pattern of reckless behaviour it has shown towards some of Cambodia poorest citizens.

Dr Natalie Bugalski is an Australian Human Rights Lawyer and Legal Director of Inclusive Development International, which is representing the railway families in their complaint to the Asian Development Bank.