Land policy and administration

The governor of Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district said Tuesday that land titles were handed to two more families from the Boeng Kak neighborhood, including that of 76-year-old land rights activist Nget Khun, known also as “Mummy.” ...

CNRP lawmaker Un Sam An sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday asking for an investigation of Try Pheap’s Special Economic Zone in Ratanakkiri province, saying that the timber magnate is misusing the site to export illegally logged trees to Vietnam.   ...

Although the number of land disputes across the country decreased in the first six months of the year—largely due to a freeze on the granting of economic land concessions—little has been done to resolve existing disputes, according to a report released Wednesday by rights group ...

Police in Kratie province on Sunday arrested a farmer—accused of trying to squat on a new social land concession for poor families—after he allegedly struck the officers when they arrived to tell him and his wife to leave. ...

About 300 protesters from Svay Rieng and Preah Sihanouk provinces marched to parliament yesterday to file petitions urging the local authorities to intervene to resolve ongoing land disputes in their homelands. ...

Seventy families in Ratanakkiri province have agreed to accept a 100-hectare plot of land, bringing an end to their four-year dispute with a Vietnamese rubber company, but 156 other families refused to settle, officials said Thursday. ...

Representatives for 77 families involved in a land dispute with a company that plans to build a dry port and industrial area in Kratie province petitioned the Interior Ministry and the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on Monday against a court order for them to ...

One decade ago, villagers celebrated when a 10,000 hectare Economic Land Concession here was awarded to a prominent Phnom Penh tycoon. ...

A long-running land dispute between more than 130 families and the company managing the Koh Kong Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is nearing its end, with only seven families left to sign the compensation agreement, officials confirmed yesterday. ...

Var Kimhong, the CPP government’s minister in charge of border affairs, declined to speak with reporters Tuesday after hosting Vietnam’s deputy foreign minister for the first Joint Border Committee meeting since the opposition CNRP began a campaign to uncover Vietnamese territorial encroachments. ...

Phen Bunthoeun, the NGO director who was arrested and detained overnight by Vietnamese authorities for leading about 40 students to visit a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province on Saturday, admitted Monday that he had gone there to inspect alleged border violations. ...

Ahead of a meeting between Cambodian and Vietnamese border officials in Phnom Penh on Monday, opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Sunday that the CNRP’s digital copy of the border map had now been set up to work with GPS technology and had already revealed misplaced ...

Economic land concessions in Cambodia have a profound and negative impact upon rural households located near the plantations, severely limiting residents’ access to natural resources and causing incomes to dip by almost a fifth, a new study by the University of Copenhagen has found. The report, ...

Vietnam attaches great importance to the relationship with Cambodia and hopes to develop a peaceful and friendship borderline with the country, said Le Hai Binh, spokesperson of Vietnamese foreign ministry on Tuesday. ...

After having her home burnt down, being arrested and driven from land she says is her family’s, Yoa Sa-aim is clinging to her last option. ...

Two Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers, Um Sam An and Real Camerin, with the youth group got serious injured by the yesterday clash at Svay Rieng province, Cambodia-Vietnam border when they went to inspect the demarcation. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday ended a long-running land dispute and dropped charges against four Boeung Chhouk community representatives, after the court found no evidence that residents committed violence against local businessman and developer Lao Tonmey. ...

The Council of Ministers’ secretary of state Tek Reth Samrach clarified a recent directive, which ordered all government officials in all ministries and institutions to get formal approval from the respective minister before meeting with or providing clarifications to parliamentary commissions or groups. ...

Forty four families living in Kandal’s Akrei Khsat commune, characterised by its ethnic Vietnamese population and floating homes, have jumped ship prior to their June 22 eviction deadline, moving to other parts of the country out of fear they would be forcibly removed. ...

Opposition lawmaker Um Sam An on Saturday led about 200 nationalist activists to inspect a non-demarcated strip of land along Kandal province’s disputed border with Vietnam where the Vietnamese government is constructing a military outpost. ...

The governor of Kratie province this week sent a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries requesting the reallocation of more than 3,000 hectares of economic land concession (ELC) property to villagers. ...

Opposition lawmaker Mao Monyvann on Thursday rebuked the government over its repeated refusals to publicly release a copy of a map of Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, saying he would push ahead with a banned press conference to publicize the lack of transparency on the issue. ...

Villagers who have lost their land first to a Thai sugar company supplying Coca-Cola and then to a military unit in Oddar Meanchey province’s Samroang district yesterday petitioned the Agriculture Ministry to ask for it back. ...

As tension rises along an undemarcated border section with Vietnam in Ratanakkiri province, analysts say the government’s newfound toughness against Hanoi reflects rising Chinese influence here. ...