In June 1975, waves of black-clad guerilla fighters entered Phnom Penh and emptied it - by persuasion, coercion and violence - in just a few days. The Khmer Rouge had overthrown the government and, as a first step, more than 2 million bewildered people were banished from the city and sent to live in the countryside.
Today, facing the prospect of its first skyscraper, a rash of special economic zones and numerous foreign-backed developments, Cambodia boasts of a new era. Yet some things haven't changed.
'See that tree?' asked Son Chhay, a Cambodian lawmaker, as we stood on the steps of the national assembly building and looked south. 'Behind that there's a company, 7NG Group, that's trying to move 600 families more than 20km away. They're literally building around them now, cutting off their entrances and exits. They have gangsters. A few of us have already had to physically step in, in their defence.'
An opposition lawmaker and notorious thorn in the side of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), Son Chhay has been fighting land-grabbing since 2000, when he found out that a property he had owned for five years was being eyed by developers; it was just outside Siem Reap and he had planned to turn it into an agricultural training centre. After a declaration was issued by the Council of Ministers earmarking the area for a 'hotel development' zone, Son Chhay, along with 150 families, was told that if he moved out quietly, he would get a decent rate for the property.
'Cambodian property laws state that, if the government buys private land they should be using it for the public interest, and they must pay the market price,' Son Chhay said. 'If it was for schools or a road, it would be different, but hotels? Why do we need them to build hotels when we Cambodians can do that?'
The families were offered between 30 US cents and US$2 per square metre. Son Chhay was offered 50 cents. The land was easily worth US$50 per sq metre, and now, having passed from the government-appointed Apsara Foundation to the Sokha Hotel Resort company and morphing into the luxury Angkor Resort Hotel, it is worth 20 times that. After a messy, protracted fight, a third of the families walked away with a figure slightly better than the original offer.