캄보디아 이야기 35 | 벙깍 호수와 프놈펜 도시 개발 이야기 | Life After the Lake - Boeng Kak Lake Phnom Penh

캄보디아 프놈펜(Phnom Penh) 생활 중.

 

오래간만에 나아진 몸으로 사무실에 출근. 주말 동안 쌓인 The Cambodia Daily(더 캄보디아 데일리 신문)를 읽었다.

 

지난 Weekend 특집에 아래와 같은 기사가 실린 것을 보고 천천히 읽어 내려가는데... 정말 나도 모르게 눈살이 찌푸려지고 눈물이 찔끔... 

 

 

 

 

내가 캄보디아에 온 뒤로 신문의 1면을 계속 장식하고 있는 Boeng Kak lake(벙깍 호수) 'PROTESTER'들에 관한 이야기....

 

그들의 아픔을 '다' 이해할 수 있다고 말할 수는 절대 없지만.. 도시 개발을 위해 사람들과 집들이 밀려난 호수는 이미 모래로 가득 채워져 있고.. 그 위에 잃어버린 집을 그린 한 소녀의 사진을 보니... 이 곳에서 살던 빈민들의 아픔이 전해져와서 정말 마음이 아팠다. 한편으론.. 아.. 나도 이런 일에 마음이 아플 수 있는 사람이구나.. 스스로 놀라기도 했던 순간이었다.

 

 

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Life After the Lake

-Alternative visions for the capital city's largest empty space-

(Veronica Hansen)

 

 

 

At sunset, a teenage girl draws an image of a house in the sands that now fill Boeng Kak lake earlier this month.

 

In late 2003, the Phnom Penh municipality, with the support of the French Embassy, organized a competition between more than 100 international experts to select the best development plan for Daun Penh district's Boeng Kak lake.

 

The idea was to rejuvenate the city's urban landscape as the "Pearl of Southeast Asia," with plans to turn the area into a "green belt" with an emphasis on leisure and recreation.

 

It was an idea best embodied by the chosen model for the future Boeng Kak, which included public parks, a museum, commercial facilities and residential properties.

 

That winning model was ignored.

 

Instead, Shukaku, a company owned by a CPP senator was given a 99-year lease to the area in 2007. Immediately, the company started filling in the lake with sand and began kicking out thousands of families in what is one of the most notorious evictions in the country's modern history.

 

Shukaku had a different vision for what would stand on the drained and filled in lake; the firm would build hundreds of high-end residential units surrounded by large mixed-use tower blocks.

Despite an elaborate ceremonial ground-breaking last year attended by senior government and business officials, Shukaku's vision appears to have stalled.

 

Now with 90-hectare of empty land in the heart of an increasingly congested capital city, residents shared their visions of how Boeng Kak could be put to better use for the people, and the prestige, of Phnom Penh.

 

"I want to see a university be built there, because the existing universities don't have spaces for the students to just relax and read books," said Krouch Sopheap, 19, a first-year student studying pharmacy at International University. "If they can't build a university there, then they can build a public hospital that provides good medical services to the general public," she said. "That area is in the heart of the city."

 

Vann Molyvann, Cambodia's most important architect who designed the city's most iconic structures, including Olympic Stadium, Independece Monument and the Chaktomuk Comference Hall, siad that building an open park space of some kind would be a preferable option for Boeng Kak. "It could be like the park in New York and like the other parks in the heart of Europe, so I think for this, it can be," he said.

 

Sung Bonna, CEO of Bonna Realty, said that water should be re-incorporated into whatever ends up being built at the Boeng Kak site. "I know that they just filled it in, but they should build in a lake--at least 50 percent of it-surrounded by 30 to 60 high-rises that would serve as business centers and some residential homes," he said.

 

Long-time resident of Phnom Pneh Matt Rendall, a property law expert and partner at Sciaroni and Associates, said the Boeng Kak area is now Phnom Pneh's last remaining hope for developing an open park space that the city badly needs. "The one thing everyone can agree on is that Phnom Penh seems to be lacking open space and it goes without say that any great city has it." Mr. Rendall said.

 

 

 

 

A construction crane stands still near Street 70 last month.

 

 

 

 

After a rainstrom, two young boys run through the flooded streets of 12.44-hectares set aside

by Prime Minister Hun Sen for Boeng Kak evictees.

 

 

 

Sok Kheng collects morning glory greens from the remaining patches of vegetation on the former Boeng Kak lake.

 

 

 

 

from above :

1. The operator of newly installed water-extraction pumps stands guard in front of the devices along Street 86.;

 

2. In Boeng Kak's protected 12.44-hectare neighborood, Sin Sophal stands with his wife in the doorway of their house.

 

Sophal complains that recent rains have increased flooding in the area.;

3. Chea Sophea stands in front of her house, which lies next to the canal of former Boeng Kak lake.

 

 

 

 

A young girl stands along Stree 86 just before the afternoon rain begins in Boeng Kak neighborhood.

 

 

 

"Unfortunately, this is about economics...and there is really no financial gain to be had making it a public space, but if there was some way to make a mix of water and green space than that would get my vote," he said.

 

Creating that public space would likely be an uphill battle, as it would require significant restructuring of the city's current agreement with Shukaku, said Sambo Manara, a professor of Cambodian history at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. "The Chinese company [Shukaku Erdos] is not the only company that should be working on the proeject, there should be others," he siad, adding that he would like to see the area become a cultural hub, using traditional Khmer architecture. "We should transform the place to become a cultural and commercial trading hub that would become the symbol of our nation," he said.

 

Oan Vipha, a 29-year-old electronics vendor at Daun Penh district's Sorya shopping center, said she would like to see modern shopping malls and condominiums built on the newly formed plot of land. "If we can't bring back an old thing, why don't we use the land to make something fantastic?" she asked. "We rarely have such buildings like developed countries have and it would be very bad if the land just sits there and turns into a patch of grass," she said. "If the people want to go to lakes then they can go to the rural area," she added.

 

 

 

 

 

An eviceted family of Boeng Kak now resides in a single, rented room in Pteah Khsach.

Residents of this building claim that the buy-out provided by Shukaku Inc. was not enought to relocate to new houses.

 

 

 

 

Boeng Kak residents play volleyball in the shadow of the Vattanac Tower.

 

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시민들의 목소리는 프놈펜의 발전에 대해 상당히 호의적이다... 물론.. 이런 시민들이 다 돈 있는 자들이라는 것이 문제지만...

 

발전을 다 나쁘다고 볼수는 없지만.. 벙깍 호수 근처에서 생의 터전을 삼고 있던 자들에 대한 예후.. 삶의 터전에 대한 대책이 부족하다는 것... 그리하여 이곳 주민들은 자신들의 생존권 보장을 위해 깃발을 들고 일어나 외칠 수밖에 없고... 정부에서는 이들을 'proterter'들이라 규정하여 잡아가고... (물론 말 그대로 시위자들이 맞긴 하지만..) 아이들은 감옥에 간 엄마.아빠를 빼내어 달라고 정부에 또 맨손 시위를 하고.... 정말 안타까운 상황들이 연속적으로 연출되고 있다.

 

도대체 무엇을 위한 발전인가.... 누구를 위한 발전인가를 자꾸만 생각하게 만든다. 그래서 벙깍 소식을 접할 때마다 마음이 참 아파온다. 자연도 살리고, 사람도 살리고.. 모두가 조화롭게 공존할 방법은 없는 것일까?

 

19 Jun 2012