Land

Representatives of a Chinese firm embroiled in a land dispute in Preah Vihear province have destroyed a hectare of rice fields to drive a farmer away, villagers alleged yesterday. According to 45-year-old villager Tem Song, on June 28 six Cambodian and Chinese employees of Roy Feng ...

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 ...

More than 300 villagers who live around Boeng Samraong lake in Phnom Penh’s Prek Pnov district protested for a third day straight Sunday against a private company they say has been filling the lake with sand, threatening the livelihoods of local rice farmers and fishermen. The ...

About 100 villagers in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district who allege two powerful families are trying to push them off their land protested yesterday after workers fenced off more than 3 hectares of the land they claim in Kouk Rokar commune. ...

The head of the Cambodian Mine Action Authority (CMAC) said Thursday that field testing of a pair of war-era barrels found by villagers in Mondolkiri province earlier this week identified the contents as CS, a tear gas-like powder or aerosol that was used by the ...

North of the Sesan River, in protected forests that stretch to the border with Laos and Vietnam, illegal timber traders describe a network of bribery that leaves them counting their riels, despite the multimillion-dollar nature of the industry. In contrast to the large flat-bed trucks owned ...

In response to a spate of Cambodian illegal loggers being shot dead by Thai soldiers near the border, the government on Tuesday urged a Thai delegation to consider border patrols composed of representatives from the two countries, the foreign minister said. “I would like to request ...

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 ...

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 ...

The governor of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district Wednesday ordered the private firm heading a $3-billion real estate project on the peninsula to temporarily stop pumping sand onto land being contested by about 40 local families, but urged the families to reconsider the compensation on ...

Experts will begin tests today on two barrels discovered in Mondulkiri province earlier this week, which are suspected to contain chemicals used by the US in the 1970s in its war against the Viet Cong, officials said yesterday. Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine ...

Villagers in Mondolkiri province have found a pair of rusty barrels believed to date back to the early 1970s and which officials suspect hold chemicals the U.S. used in its war against the Viet Cong to defoliate trees and eliminate cover. The officials said they did ...

A public forum will be held next month to find a solution to the Borei Keila housing crisis, city officials said yesterday. During a meeting with about 50 representatives of the community, Nhem Chanthary, deputy director of City Hall’s poor community development office, said Governor Pa ...

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 ...

District security guards were deployed to Chroy Changva peninsula Tuesday to intercept villagers who were ready to smash a pipe that has been pumping sand onto their land for the past year. The roughly 40 families occupy the northeastern corner of a 387-hectare swathe of wetlands ...

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”, ...

Two Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers were arrested on Monday while smuggling luxury wood in Kompong Thom province, military police said Tuesday. ...

Security guards working for a firm building a resort in Koh Kong province beat a woman who was trying to farm the land from which she had been evicted, she has told police. Khun Phall, 40, said that on Monday evening, she and family members returned ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen marked National Fish Day on Tuesday in Kompong Chhnang province by urging fishermen to refrain from illegal fishing and report lawbreakers. The government bans fishing in the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers during the breeding season to allow fish stocks to ...

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 ...

Despite a number of agencies dispatched to solve land dispute, rights workers say people continue to face forced evictions and rights abuses by land developments. These problems are not being handled at the local level, fueling mistrust in local government, rights workers say. Rights workers from myriad ...

Interior Ministry police arrested a former Phnom Penh deputy governor and municipal councilor on Thursday for questioning over allegations of land fraud, but released him the next day, police said Sunday. Chea Sothon, who served as a councilor from 2009 until earlier this year and was ...

About 100 plainclothes men, some wielding sticks, tried to block a group of opposition activists and youth supporters in Svay Rieng province yesterday from reaching a disputed section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Clashes broke out at about 10am between the group of Cambodia National Rescue Party ...