Land
Public land lease
Villagers in land fight use flames
Members of a Lao ethnic community in Ratanakkiri province allegedly burned down three makeshift houses belonging to a rubber plantation on Monday. The 250 villagers in Veun Sai district’s Hatpak village accuse Indian-owned SK Company of encroaching on the forest and ignoring markers demarcating village farmland, ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-land-fight-use-flames
BK evictees lose battle on plot size
Fourteen families evicted from Boeung Kak were left disappointed again yesterday when Phnom Penh’s governor ignored their calls to increase the size of land plots authorities had offered them. During a three-hour meeting, Governor Pa Socheatvong held firm on a 2011 decision that the families would ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bk-evictees-lose-battle-plot-size
IFC investigates over ‘land-grabbing link’
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has launched an internal investigation into a complaint lodged against the institution for investing in a Vietnamese rubber firm accused of illegal logging and land grabbing in Ratanakkiri, an NGO and villager said yesterday. Earlier this month, representatives of the IFC’s ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ifc-investigates-over-%E2%80%98land-grabbing-link%E2%80%99
2,500 workers in Bavet SEZ go on strike
More than 2,000 workers at three factories in Svay Rieng’s Bavet City went on strike Saturday, claiming their bosses owed them money. About 500 workers at the You Li factory, which makes baby clothes, went on strike Saturday because management refused to pay them for Thursday ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/2500-workers-in-bavet-sez-go-on-strike-56762/
Another New Year fracas at land dispute site
Security guards at the center of a yearlong land dispute between families in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community and the Khun Sear Import Export Company on Wednesday accused the families of attacking them during a late-night Khmer New Year drinking party. Nuon Sokhannara, one of the ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/another-new-year-fracas-at-land-dispute-site-56626/
Angkor Gold (V.ANK) says financing deal puts Cambodia 'in play'
Angkor Gold Corp. (TSX: V.ANK, Stock Forum) has entered into a strategic alliance with Hong Kong-based Tohui Beishan Property Group Holding Ltd. (TG) that could provide up to $10.5 million for exploration in Cambodia, Angkor said Monday. The strategic alliance between Angkor and TG includes TG’s ...
Stockhouse News Staff
http://www.stockhouse.com/news/newswire/2014/04/14/angkor-gold-v-ank-says-financing-deal-puts-cambodia-play
ADB urged to consult rail project evictees
More than two dozen NGOs have written to the head of the Asian Development Bank demanding the immediate release of a draft plan the ADB has drawn up to help Cambodian families evicted to make way for a bank-funded railway rehabilitation project. They also want ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/adb-urged-to-consult-rail-project-evictees-56514/
Anti-dam activists set to block workers’ arrival
Members of an ethnic minority in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley stood watch Thursday to block a road leading to the site of a proposed dam after they heard that Chinese workers would inspect the site, community representatives said. Villagers believe that the Chinese company Sinohydro ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/anti-dam-activists-set-to-block-workers-arrival-56442/
Rail evictees threaten protests against ADB
Families evicted for a rail project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) threatened to demonstrate if the bank does not show them its plan to improve their living conditions within one week. About 1,000 families who built homes over the country’s long-neglected train tracks were ...
Zsombor Peter and Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rail-evictees-threaten-protests-against-adb-56290/
Cashew plantations ‘destroyed’
Representatives of 50 families in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday alleging that a Vietnamese concessionaire is responsible for destroying about 50 hectares of cashew plantations. Sorl Penh, 58, a representative for the villagers from Nhang commune, said yesterday that ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cashew-plantations-%E2%80%98destroyed%E2%80%99
Evicted railway families await ADB’s help
In 2011, Oeun Phirun took out a $450 loan from the Asian Development Bank, using half to buy a used motorbike and spending the rest on a small flock of ducks and chickens he hoped to raise. His family and about 1,000 others have been evicted ...
Zsombor Peter and Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/evicted-railway-families-await-adbs-help-56128/
Licadho data ‘not real’: gov’t
The government yesterday accused Licadho of producing wildly misleading figures on land grabs, following the rights group’s announcement earlier this week that land conflicts in Cambodia have affected more than half a million people since 2000. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Sar Sovan, secretary of ...
May Titthara and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/licadho-data-%E2%80%98not-real%E2%80%99-gov%E2%80%99t
Preah Vihear Governor to close NGO office for inciting workers
Preah Vihear provincial governor Oum Mara has sent a letter to inform Interior Minister Sar Kheng that he is ordering an NGO to close its local offices, on the grounds that the organization is inciting villagers to destroy sugarcane farmed by a Chinese company. In the ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/preah-vihear-governor-to-close-ngo-office-for-inciting-workers-55773/
Child labor probe on Preah Vihear sugar plantation moves forward
Police in Preah Vihear province say they have uncovered more evidence of child labor on a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation and will send the case to court if further investigation confirms their preliminary findings. A former employee of the Lan Feng plantation filed a complaint last month ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/child-labor-probe-on-preah-vihear-sugar-plantation-moves-forward-55643/
Half a million Cambodians affected by land grabs: rights group
More than half a million Cambodians have been affected by land conflicts involving the government since 2000, with more than 2,000 families across the country subjected to largely violent land grabs during the first few months of this year, local rights group Licadho said Tuesday. The ...
Joshua Lipes
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/land-04012014170055.html
Company 72 again accused of illegal logging
Ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri province have once again accused the Vietnamese owners of a rubber plantation of illegally logging their ancestral forests in a complaint filed with rights group Adhoc. A district official, however, said the plantation owner, Company 72, was granted an extension on ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/company-72-again-accused-of-illegal-logging-55399/
Big logging cartel alleged
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s brother Hun Neng and a Vietnamese state-owned rubber firm are involved in an illegal logging cartel involving several well-connected companies operating on a “massive scale” in the embattled Prey Lang forest, forest monitors working in the area allege. Video footage and photographs ...
May Titthara and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/big-logging-cartel-alleged
Tough talk on ELCs
Economic land concessionaires not abiding by their contracts could have their licences revoked if they have seriously breached the terms, Prime Minister Hun Sen has said. Illegally seizing forest land would be punished under the Law on Forestry, he said on Friday, speaking at an annual ...
May Titthara and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tough-talk-elcs
Relocated ‘need more’
Minister of Environment Say Sam El urged economic land concessionaire Union Development Group (UDG) – the mega-resort developer at the centre of a long-running Koh Kong province land dispute – to provide sufficient infrastructure in the relocation areas provided for residents it displaced, a ministry ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/relocated-%E2%80%98need-more%E2%80%99
Land dispute families turn down offer of new apartments
Three families involved in a bitter land dispute with a powerful land developer in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district on Monday rejected City Hall’s offer of new housing, saying the apartments being offered were far too small. They also said they planned to file a complaint ...
Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/land-dispute-families-turn-down-offer-of-new-apartments-54868/
Friends in high places
A Chinese developer with a “family-like” relationship to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit has accelerated construction at its $5 billion resort – ostensibly cancelled by royal decree in 2010 – in a protected national park in Preah Sihanouk province. The 3,300-hectare Golden Silver Gulf resort ...
Daniel Pye and May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/friends-high-places
It’s paradise – for some
On the shore of Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district overlooking a cluster of islands, a flourishing new golf course lies vacant but for a handful of workers tending its empty greens. The Romanesque hotel behind it, replete with a bold central dome, luxury VIP suites ...
May Titthara and David Boyle
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/its-paradise-%E2%80%93-some
Logging firm fails again to notify and pay taxes
Logging by Vietnamese-owned concessionaire Company 72 has once again spilled the boundaries of its land in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district, this time without paying proper taxes to the Forestry Administration (FA), local forest conservation activist Romas Svang said yesterday. ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/logging-firm-fails-again-notify-and-pay-taxes
Borei Keila deal taken by some
Fifty families who have lived in squalid conditions at Borei Keila in the capital’s Prampi Makara district since they were evicted and their homes destroyed have accepted City Hall’s offer of temporary shelter at the site, their representatives said yesterday. Evictee Sar Son said the 50 ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/borei-keila-deal-taken-some