Ethnic minorities and indigenous people

Sok Hieng* is concerned about a government census of foreigners that some observers believe will focus primarily on those of Vietnamese descent. “I am afraid that I will be forced to leave Cambodia because I do not have ID yet,” said Hieng, a 33-year-old construction worker ...

A spokesman for the Cambodian Parliament on Wednesday strongly denied that the country’s Parliament chief Heng Samrin has promised Vietnam to take strict measures to punish ethnic Khmer Krom activists who had held protests against a Vietnamese diplomat. The denial came after Vietnamese media reported Monday ...

suspend protests against Vietnam over a territorial dispute as Phnom Penh expressed “regret” to Hanoi over the burning of a Vietnamese flag during the demonstrations last week. Horn Nam Hong met at his office with the head of the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation, Thach Setha, who agreed ...

Some 500 ethnic minority Khmer Krom monks and activists concluded Wednesday their three-day protest against a Vietnamese diplomat, who reportedly said that South Vietnam, or former Kampuchea Krom provinces, belonged to Vietnam prior to France’s official transfer of the land in 1949. The protest ended without ...

The U.N.’s human rights representative in Cambodia visited ethnic Bunong villagers in Mondolkiri province this week, days after local authorities prevented hundreds of them from marching to mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Wan-Hea Lee met with villagers in Pech Chreada district’s Bosra commune ...

About 500 ethnic minority Khmer Krom monks and activists on Monday staged a fresh protest here to demand a Vietnamese diplomat to recognize the “true history” of the former Kampuchea Krom provinces. It was the third rally in the last two months after Trung Van Thong, ...

About 1,000 ethnic Khmer Krom monks and Khmer nationalists will hold the first formal protest this morning at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park since authorities re-opened it last week after seven months of a high-security lockdown. The municipality over the weekend approved plans from the Khmer Kampuchea ...

Authorities in Mondolkiri province prevented hundreds of ethnic minority members from marching through Sen Monorom City to mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous People on Saturday, claiming it would confuse tourists. Marches elsewhere were allowed to go ahead. Doung Pen said Sunday that he was ...

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear ...

As scheduled, Khmer  Krom citizens gathered Monday in front of French embassy in order to present their petition which asks the VN embassy’s spokesman to apologize for his comment over Khmer Kampuchea Krom territory. Some 500 students, monks, and citizens were led by leaders of Federation ...

A delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) recently visited Cambodia to participate in an international conference organized by the Council for Development of Cambodia under the slogan “Islamic Education and Economic Development in Cambodia” in the capital Phnom Penh. Located in the southern portion ...

A Cambodian advocacy group says the Mekong Delta of Vietnam should be returned to the Khmer people who have lived there for generations. The region is still referred to as Kampuchea Krom, or Lower Cambodia, by many Cambodians, despite its partitioning to Vietnam by the French ...

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 huge area of Ratanakkiri province’s Virachey National Park has been declared a protected area under a European Union-funded plan that government officials say will shift forest communities away from dependence on depleted forest byproducts. Chhay Samith, head of protected natural areas at the Ministry of ...

Officials involved in negotiating compensation offers between the developers of the Lower Sesan II dam and affected villagers have kept a portion of the money paid out to 12 families for themselves, according to an official. Duong Pov, Stung Treng provincial administration director, claimed that a ...

More than 100 ethnic minority activists trying to protect community forests have been arrested, jailed, threatened and subjected to violence so far this year, a major local rights group has said. In a statement released yesterday, Adhoc condemned the “discriminatory” treatment of indigenous people who have ...

Ethnic Bunong in Mondolkiri province’s Sen Monorom City said Tuesday that they would no longer cooperate with local officials in fighting illegal logging and that they would begin to confiscate loggers’ equipment and burn illicit timber themselves. At a press conference in Phnom Penh, representatives of ...

Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...

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 ...

More than 100 villagers in Kompong Thom province blocked a funeral procession in Stung Sen City on Saturday to prevent the burial of a recently deceased ethnic Vietnamese man on land he owned in the vicinity of a local primary school, villagers and an officials ...

A company ordered to cease its sand-dredging operation along the Sesan River in Ratanakkiri province after it was accused of illegally searching for gold is now defying the order, villagers claimed Monday. Discovery Power, a joint Chinese-Cambodian venture, was given a license to dredge sand for ...

Arrest, detention and even an upcoming trial can’t sway 68 Khmer Krom families faced with eviction to give up a bitter land dispute over a bird sanctuary in Takeo province. After being charged in April with illegally occupying state land, three representatives from Sangkum Meanchey village ...

The army created a new platoon on Monday to guard an area near the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province, where hundreds of ethnic minority residents have fiercely resisted plans by a Chinese company to build a hydropower dam that would flood their ancestral lands. The ...

Opposition leaders brought politics to the forefront of a ceremony to mark yesterday’s anniversary of France’s official transfer of the former Kampuchea Krom provinces to Vietnam in 1949. Speaking to a crowd of hundreds of monks, Khmer Krom and Khmer attendees at Samaki Rainsey pagoda in ...