Tag: Cambodia

About 100 villagers took possession of two bulldozers owned by the Rui Feng company and detained the drivers, who they said were clearing property the community uses as grazing land, said villager Sath Say, 63.

The incident was not the first time villagers had stopped and held machinery owned by the company and its affiliates.

“They had promised not to clear that area and they’ve cleared almost all of our forest . . . They even bulldozed the demarcation posts – they cleared about a dozen hectares,” Say said.

“The district governor, police, military and company came to compromise with the villages . . . They promised not to do it again and if they do, [the authorities] said villagers can do whatever they want to.”

Reached yesterday, district police chief Chhuon Mady said the district governor had resolved the problem, but was unable to give further details about the incident.

When asked who was at fault in the incident, Mady said he didn’t know. “I was only checking on security.”

Continue reading “Cambodia: Preah Vihear villagers seize company’s bulldozers”

In 2012, the government granted a 70-year, 6,000-hectare economic land concession (ELC) spanning both provinces inside the Kulen Prom-Tep Wildlife Sanctuary to Ly Chhuong Construction and Import Export (later renamed Green Rubber).

Following protests from villagers, who claimed they had lived on the land since 1998, the government excised 473 hectares from the concession in 2014. However, other villagers have continued to contest parts of the concession. In total, 2,000 hectares remain in dispute.

Pang Yiet, Kulen’s district governor, said that authorities and company representatives met residents of five villages on Monday, telling them that the company this year planned to clear 1,000 hectares, including land on which some of their farms were located.

The villagers reacted by setting fire to two of Green Rubber’s outposts in the ELC, he said.“We told them in the morning and they burned things down in the afternoon; they did not listen to us,” the governor said yesterday.

Continue reading “Cambodia: Villagers torch ELC guard posts in land dispute protest”

Um Vanna is a Phnom Penh-based officer in the National Police’s riot squad. To the protests of local residents, Vanna lay claim to a burial site in Preah Vihear’s Sangkum Thmei district early last year.

Sun Chanda, 31, lives nearby and is among the villagers who oppose Vanna’s claim to what they say is the resting place of their ancestors.

“Vanna wants people to hand the ancestral graveyard to him for his private property, but we want to preserve it as collective property,” said Chanda.

Chanda is one of eight villagers accused in a lawsuit brought by Vanna in December of “violently grabbing and intentionally vandalising” his property.

Continue reading “Cambodia: Villagers, riot cop in fight over Preah Vihear burial site”

Ethnic Kuoy villagers in Preah Vihear province block Rui Feng trucks and machinery from travelling along a road earlier this week.

4 March – Following a two-day roadblock protest by residents of six villages in Preah Vihear province, district authorities have inspected land allegedly stolen by Chinese sugar cane producer Rui Feng.

Rui Feng was granted 8,841 hectares in a 2011 economic land concession (ELC), but ethnic Kuoy villagers allege that the company has been pushing the boundaries of its ELC and encroaching on their farmland.

Some 200 residents of six Kuoy-majority villages in Chey Sen and Chheb districts on Tuesday began to obstruct a road used by the sugar company, said Luot Sang, a land issues coordinator with NGO Ponlork Khmer, who was present.

Villager Huoth Maly, 35, said 500 hectares of farmland have been bulldozed by Rui Feng since 2013, despite some villagers possessing land titles.

“Some of our villagers’ farmland has a land title, but the company still bulldozes it to plant sugar,” Maly said. “If there is no solution, we pledge to conduct a bigger protest.” An official had threatened to send him to prison, he added..