Land
Probe under way on military logging case
The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has launched an investigation into an October 2010 incident in which three RCAF soldiers allegedly opened fire on Forestry Administration officials who had just confiscated a haul of illegal wood, one of the officials involved said yesterday. An RCAF official, meanwhile, said ...
Preah Vihear families seek top-level intervention
Families continuing to defy eviction orders in Preah Vihear fear police and authorities will use violence to remove them from their homes this week, villagers told the Post yesterday. Representatives of Svay Chum village in Choam Ksan district’s Kantuot commune trekked to Phnon Penh on Friday ...
Mob breaks evictee into home
A PROTEST on the fifth storey of a residential high-rise in Borei Keila ended with authorities fleeing the scene and incensed villagers breaking down a door yesterday. About 50 villagers converged on the site to protest against Phan Imex and authorities evicting a man from his ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011122253561/National-news/mob-breaks-evictee-into-home.html
Prey Lang protesters on run after police allegedly pay a visit
TWO activists involved in last month’s Prey Lang forest protest against illegal logging fled their houses yesterday in Sandan district in an attempt to evade local authorities, villagers reported. Roeun Sopheap, village representative in Sandan commune, said he fled his home yesterday after finding several police ...
Hun Sen sets out northeast development plans
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday outlined the government’s plans to spur economic growth in the northeast of the country through implementing a wide range of projects in sectors such as agriculture and the extractive industries. Rights workers have warned that little information on the plans for ...
Called to court: Summonsed woman brings crowd of 150
A woman summonsed to Kampong Speu provincial court over a land dispute yesterday returned home without being arrested after about 150 protesting villagers turned out to support her. Rath Thavy, provincial monitor for human rights group Adhoc, speculated that the court decided not to arrest Khem ...
Gathering of youths makes case for forests
Cambodia’s National Youth Congress called on the government yesterday to act to protect the country’s natural resources from illegal traders. About 100 young people from 30 colleges in Phnom Penh, Kratie and Kampong Thom Chhnang provinces attended a discussion about protecting natural resources – with a ...
Logging in the wild west
Illegal logging of staggering proportions abetted by military personnel is decimating stocks of luxury rosewood in the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, while the conversation group tasked with protecting the area and its government counterparts deny the trade is even happening. In a period of several hours ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011122153536/National-news/logging-in-the-wild-west.html
Incitement claim: monk called to court over land protest
A Kampuchea Krom monk was issued a summons yesterday to appear in a Phnom Penh court tomorrow to face accusations of incitement. In a letter obtained by the Post yesterday, the investigating municipal judge, Duch Kimson, ordered Sieng Sovannra, a monk at the Samaki Raingsey pagoda, ...
More than two dozen men held in Laos after logging
Twenty-eight Cambodians were arrested Thursday by Lao soldiers after crossing the border while logging rosewood, officials said yesterday. The Stung Treng provincial RCAF commander, Brigadier General Svay Ngorn, said yesterday that Stung Treng authorities were negotiating the men’s release with their Lao counterparts ...
Relocated and living on the edge
Years after their eviction from central Phnom Penh, families continue to trickle back into the city from their relocation sites on the city’s outskirts. They search for cheap rental rooms instead of houses like the ones they were driven out of, in some cases, by ...
Military police shoot three farmers over land concession
Military police in Battambang province shot three villagers in the legs during a confrontation between local farmers and a private company that was granted a land concession, a police official said. Phnom Penh district police chief Song Sopheak said employees of Suon Neang Sambath company, a ...
City Hall hands out Boeng Kak land titles
Marking another milestone in the years-long struggle between the government and the families of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake community, Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema handed out 254 land titles to lakeside residents at City Hall on Saturday. But with the government shrouding the titling process ...
Land dispute: threatened villagers protect land
Roughly 100 villagers were allegedly threatened by soldiers brandishing AK-47s yesterday, while attempting to block a company from bulldozing their farms in Kratie province’s Snuol district. Soun Vicheka, a representative of 136 families in Snuol commune’s Krasaing village, said villagers formed a human chain to prevent Horizon ...
Asian Development Bank keeps growth outlook at 6.8%
New policies in agriculture, real estate and finance led the Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday to keep its outlook on Cambodia’s economic growth this year at an estimated 6.8 percent. The announcement comes even as the World Bank and the government have reduced their expectations, projecting ...
Villagers block national road in call for land
More than 250 villagers blocked National Road 48 yesterday in Koh Kong province while protesting against their eviction from their Kiri Sakor district homes, slowing traffic for more than eight hours, officials said Prom Sann, a representative for the villagers, said the protesters represented 250 families ...
Villagers take land title fight to Santuk District Hall
Villagers accused of illegally occupying state land in Kompong Thom province protested outside Santuk district hall yesterday to ask for land titles, residents and authorities said. Sue Nhaunh, a villager and representative of 160 families in Kraya commune, said that more than 100 residents had gathered ...
Villagers to block roads in protest
Hundreds of people whose land has been swallowed by a giant Chinese tourism project on the coast of Koh Kong province will attempt to demonstrate their grievances today by blocking national roads 4 and 48, villagers and human rights workers said Protesters have been resisting China’s ...
Railway impact reports nowhere to be seen
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has not made public the last two quarterly reports on the impact of resettling families who are being evicted for a $142 million railway rehabilitation project. The reports, which are required under an ADM loan agreement with the government, haven’t been ...
Fraud, forgery charges over rosewood logging
Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday charged a businessman with fraud and forgery stemming from a complaint made by the director of Win World Trading Co. Ltd. over a deal involving the selling of rosewood logged in Laos to Vietnam. The provincial military police detained Sann Dichham ...
Forestry department confiscated rosewood in Ratanakiri
The Ratanakiri provincial forestry department over the past week in Andong Meas district confiscated more than 600 pieces of the luxury rosewood species of timber, a forestry official said. Vong Sok Serie, Ratanakiri provincial administration chief, said his officers collected a total of 610 pieces of ...
In a call to find justice, Boeng Kak Lake villagers draw blood
Rounding off a week that included two violent clashes with police and the charging and release of four protesters, Boeng Kak lake villagers yesterday daubed paper sheets with their blood in a symbolic call to end what they consider judicial intimidation. About 50 villagers gathered at ...
Another logger shot dead along Thai border
Thailand has repatriated the body of an Oddar Meanchey man fatally shot Tuesday while illegally logging for rosewood in Thailand, border officials said yesterday. Torn Kimsann, 22, was among a group of four men from Samraong City’s O’Smach commune who had ventured about 1km into Thailand ...
Villagers locked in land dispute threaten arson
Police and military police stopped about 200 villagers from entering rice fields in Battambang province yesterday, saying they had no right to harvest in the 100-hectare area because it belonged to well-known businessman Song Thon, villagers said. Chhut Mao, a 64-year-old village representative of Lvea commune, ...