Agro-industrial production

Representatives for about 250 families involved in a long-running dispute with an agri-business firm in Kompong Speu province have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc and say they will attempt to retake land that was stolen from them. About 60 of the villagers traveled to ...

More than 200 people from the group Land Communities for Peace marched from the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) to the National Assembly on Thursday in defiance of a ban issued by City Hall. Phnom Penh deputy governor Khuong Sreng said the protest would not be allowed after ...

A villager involved in a long-running land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has accused his commune police chief of discrimination after he was refused a character statement he needed to apply for a garment factory ...

A representative of villagers involved in a land dispute in Mondolkiri province appealed to the government Tuesday to address their displacement after their shelters were destroyed by police and soldiers in a forced eviction Monday. Chan Rithy stood outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on ...

A Cambodian delegation to the United Nations last week used the stage to shame the World Bank’s financial arm for failing to adequately monitor investments in a Vietnamese rubber giant accused of illegal logging, forced evictions and sexual harassment. Representing 17 indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri that ...

Eight huts were torn down and about 50 families were ordered to vacate land yesterday in Mondulkiri province’s Koh Nhek district as the couple whom police said illegally sold them the plots was arrested and sent to court. ...

Villagers in Ratanakkiri province blocked National Road 78A on Thursday for more than three hours as authorities tried to push through to evict them in favor of a rubber company, police and villagers said. About 400 villagers blocked the section of the road that links O’Chum ...

Sacred burial grounds and community forests should be granted more protection under a new government proclamation issued this month, but rights groups and land-grab victims are wary that, without proper enforcement, it will amount to little in practice. An interministerial proclamation, or prakas, signed by ...

More than 400 people clashed with police and military police in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday as authorities attempted to bulldoze their houses to make way for a rubber company plantation, villagers said. Authorities managed to bulldoze the houses of about 200 families, who they said had ...

Some 250 families in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Sruoch district have sought intervention from rights group Adhoc to help resolve a land dispute involving a business they allege is headed by the son of former provincial governor Kang Heang. Families from three villages say Heang, who ...

Sexual assault and the annihilation of sacred graveyards are among the many claims levelled at Vietnamese Rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) by villagers in Ratanakkiri province, a report by the World Bank’s investment arm reveals. In February, 17 indigenous communities that accused HAGL of ...

Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen is expected to pay a 3-day official visit to Dhaka from Friday to further expanding and strengthening trade relations and cooperation in agriculture sector between the two countries. During the visit, sources said Dhaka is expected to seek long-term ...

T Mohan, a Malaysian publisher and businessman arrested in the 1990s for attempting to extort a casino executive, is back in Cambodia’s newspaper market. The Khmer Times, the latest English-language news offering from Mr. Mohan, hit newsstands earlier this month, with a government spokesman even resigning ...

The government has issued a total of 3.4 million land titles across the country, 500,000 of them since a renewed push personally orchestrated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, according to new figures released by the Land Management Ministry. In a notice posted to its website Friday, ...

Nearly 200 villagers from Kratie province gathered in Phnom Penh Monday, hoping to deliver a petition to the Cambodian Senate and other government agencies in protest of a rubber company’s development there. The villagers, from Snoul district, say a Vietnamese rubber company began developing in ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 ban on the allocation of economic land concessions was supposed to halt the unpopular practice of turning over large swaths of property to developers. And going by the numbers last year, it worked. But in the vacuum, according to local rights ...

Cambodian authorities have charged nearly half as many villagers in land dispute cases in the first three months of this year as they did in all of 2013, a local rights group said Thursday, adding that most of the rows stemmed from government-granted land concessions. Following ...

A Vietnamese firm behind several Cambodian rubber plantations accused of rampant land grabbing and illegal logging has bowed to a request from the International Finance Corporation (IFC)—which helps fund its operations—to temporarily suspend forest clearing at some of its local subsidiaries. In an April 28 decision, ...

A World Bank-supported rubber company accused of land grabs has suspended some of its projects, as an investigation by the bank continues. The Hoang Anh Gia Lai company, which received support from the bank’s International Finance Corporation, said in a decision following an April 2 ...

Dozens of representatives from at least 100 recently evicted families accused of illegally occupying state land in Kratie province traveled to Phnom Penh on Monday morning to petition Prime Minister Hun Sen for his help getting their land back. The families say local authorities have been ...

About 40 residents from Kratie province rallied on Monday in front of Wat Botum pagoda in order to present a petition to Prime Minister Hun Sen over land disputes in their community. ...

ANZ’s financing of ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat’s controversial sugar plantation has come under fire once again, this time in an investigation by NGO Oxfam into Australia’s big four banks and their links to rights abuses in developing countries. In a report titled “Banking on ...

First Sum Tea lost her farm. Then she lost her son. Sum Tea is one of hundreds of farmers who lost her small landholding in 2006 when the Cambodian government granted Phnom Penh Sugar, a company owned by Cambodian tycoon and ruling party senator Ly Yong ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al met with private firms with land concessions last week to gauge their compliance with government rules and regulations, and adherence to their own contracts. Amid mounting local and international pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen in mid-2012 ordered a freeze on ...