Economic land concessions and plantations

Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Wednesday lauded the country’s controversial sugar industry and the jobs it has created, saying that companies operating in the sector need to be defended against the widespread criticism they have been receiving. Rights groups and the opposition CNRP have undertaken ...

Police and court officials on Wednesday searched the home of villager Oum Sophy, who has been outspoken opponent of the well-connected KDC company as it has tried to push her and dozens of her neighbors off their land in Kompong Chhnang province. The raid came after ...

The cabinet of Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday accepted a petition from villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district who are requesting intervention in a land dispute with a plantation owner. Kong Chamroeun, a secretary in the prime minister’s cabinet, met about 100 villagers at Phnom ...

Amid promises reiterated by the government yesterday that it will take a tougher stance on economic land concessions, logging tycoon Try Pheap minimally reduced his sweeping natural resource empire, returning more than 20,000 hectares of undeveloped forestry. It was unclear what kind of arrangement prompted Pheap ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet on Tuesday refused to accept a petition from some 200 farmers who traveled from Kratie province to Phnom Penh to ask for help in settling their land dispute with a plantation owner, urging them to try settling the case with ...

Two villagers embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the well-connected KDC company were charged Tuesday with intentional destruction of property and causing injuries during clashes with workers at the disputed development site in Kompong Chhnang province last week. On Monday, provincial police arrested 30-year-old Mang ...

Four more villagers from Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district embroiled in a land dispute with a powerful development company were questioned Tuesday as protests continued outside the provincial court. The villagers are the latest to be questioned over an ongoing dispute with the Phanimex Development company, ...

A 36-year-old villager was arrested at his home in Kompong Chhnang province Monday on allegations of destroying public property and causing injuries during one of several recent clashes in a long-running land dispute between farmers and the powerfully connected KDC International. Villagers say KDC, a firm ...

About 200 people from Ponhea Leu district protested outside the Kandal provincial court Monday as questioning began of residents summoned last month in an ongoing land dispute. The court summoned 12 villagers on June 30, shortly after Phanimex Development company filed a complaint against the families, ...

Nine environmental activists on trial for the destruction of private property in Kompong Thom province denied allegations in court Monday that they ravaged a local farmer’s cassava field in 2011. The nine members of the Prey Long People’s Network, a group of activists dedicated to protecting ...

In the predawn hours of May 6, a flatbed truck packed with lengths of illegally logged timber sped past a checkpoint in Ratanakkiri province, knocking aside a police car and racing off. Police later tracked down the truck to a house in Banlung City. In the ...

A company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem forged ahead with its construction of a concrete wall around a swath of disputed land in Kompong Chhnang province Friday, despite a call from the U.N.’s human rights envoy on Thursday that ...

Villagers in Kompong Chhnang province involved in a long-running land dispute with a minister’s wife took their grievances to the spirit world this weekend, staging a two-day ceremony during which they cast traditional curses on company officials and local authorities they say have wronged them. The ...

More than 60 people in Kandal province on Thursday protested the provincial court’s questioning of seven villagers who refused to thumbprint documents handing over their land to a dealer who claims to own it. Lim Kea, the land dealer, says she bought about 155 hectares of ...

Village representatives in Ratanakkiri yesterday shared their land grievances with the European Union ambassador, requesting he relay to the government their appeal that no further 99-year land concessions be granted to private companies. Although the Post was not permitted to attend the full two-hour meeting, NGOs present at ...

A company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, with the backing of a mounting police force, pushed ahead Tuesday with walling off a swath of land in Kompong Chhnang province that has been at the center of a seven-year land ...

Provincial government officials in Stung Treng have warned companies granted economic land concessions (ELCs) in the province to fulfil their promised development plans or face losing their rights to the land. Touch Thea, director of the Stung Treng provincial department of agriculture, said the call for ...

A long-simmering land dispute between a group of villagers and a high-ranking minister’s wife turned violent this weekend as 10 people were injured while trying to block the KDC company from building a warehouse on contested land in Kompong Chhnang province, villagers and police said ...

The commercial relationship between Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Sugar has come to an end, The Australian reported Saturday. ...

Villagers caught in a land dispute with an agribusiness firm in Kompong Speu province Wednesday attempted to reclaim farmland they say is theirs, but were thwarted by provincial authorities, who appeased them by promising to measure the land again. About 250 families in Phnom Sruoch district ...

Mondolkiri provincial villagers on Tuesday accused authorities there of colluding with a development company involved in serious deforestation. The Phnong minority villagers say the wife of the deputy provincial governor owns the company, Villas Development, which is allegedly involved in illegal logging. The activists spoke Tuesday ...

A Singapore-based firm whose subsidiary plans to buy land in Phnom Penh from which thousands of families have been forcibly evicted said Wednesday that the firm had no knowledge of the long-running land dispute. The firm, HLH Group, also denied any official or financial ties to ...

About half the Koh Kong province villagers relocated to make way for a Union Development Group resort project have abandoned the new homes provided for them, citing poor conditions and an inconvenient location, a village representative said yesterday. More than 1,000 families living in the province’s ...

More than 100 families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have filed a complaint with authorities, claiming a rubber giant – already accused of illegal logging – filled in two natural lakes, provincial officials said yesterday. Villagers, along with government officials, say Vietnamese company Hong Anh Gai ...