Ethnic minorities and indigenous people

More than 100 Banong ethic minority villagers in Mondolkiri province on Wednesday stopped and briefly apprehended a group of 11 outsiders who they say were caught illegally logging timber in the area, villagers said yesterday. The villagers say that they took it upon themselves to stop ...

More than 300 protesters seized two company trucks outside the Kratie office of Korean-owned timber company Think Biotech Co yesterday as protests by villagers who allege land-grabbing continued for a second day. “We have seized the company’s two trucks to ask the company to come ...

A community of ethnic minority Tampuon people in Ratanakkiri province yesterday filed a complaint with the provincial court against six people they believe illegally cleared 80 hectares of community forest land and sold it to a rubber investor, villagers and court officials said. The land in ...

Eight ethnic Tampuon villagers from Ratanakkiri’s Bakeo district will file a lawsuit at provincial court today alleging that more than 70 hectares of protected forest have been illegally cleared by a police official and six villagers from a neighbouring commune. Ting Kham Se, 52, of Laminh ...

More than 70 ethnic minority Banong families from two separate villages in Moldolkirri province’s Keo Seima district received communal titles to a combined 1,031 hectares of ancestral land from the Land Management Minister Im Chhun Lim on Saturday. Communal land titles were established under the 2001 ...

A father whose three children were badly beaten by employees of a rubber plantation has accused a Ratanakkiri Provincial Court judge of threatening to send two sons, aged 14 and 21, to jail unless they accept $1,000 in compensation and drop the assault complaint. Ry Saron ...

Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay said yesterday that he would ask the government to cancel the land concession of a Vietnamese rubber firm in Ratanakkiri province he accused of logging and exporting wood illegally. Mr. Chay, a candidate in July’s national election for the Cambodia National Rescue ...

A year after a massive military raid here that left a 14-year old girl dead and hundreds of families evicted, there remains little sign of the original land dispute that turned this rural village into a hotbed of agitation. But a new firm and a government-issued ...

A local official and four ethnic minority Tompuon villagers appeared in a Ratanakkiri court on Friday to face accusations of land-grabbing and protesting against a private company that purchased their land in 2007, authorities said yesterday. Rocham Pheun, an assistant to the chief of Keh Chung ...

Commune authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have allegedly banished a local resident for persisting with a lawsuit that accuses them of selling 500 hectares of community forest to two Cambodian developers for $300,000. Romas Svang, who is a member of the ethnic Jarai minority, filed ...

Provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri have warned ethnic Jarai villagers that they will be arrested if they continue to stop bulldozers belonging to a Vietnamese company from clearing forest in O’Yadav district’s Paknhai commune, community leaders said yesterday. Sav Finh, leader of Lom village’s forestry protection committee, ...

As work begins on Cambodia’s biggest dam, those advocating against its construction have warned that the region’s rush for hydropower will have a disastrous effect on millions of people who rely on the Mekong River to survive. Last month, workers began preparing an area in northeastern ...

In diversifing its holiday attractions, Cambodia’s tourism industry should focus on three key areas – the country’s northeastern region, the coasts and the vicinity around Siem Reap – but efforts to promote these destinations are still lacking, an industry leader says. Statistics from the Ministry ...

The government’s abuse of land rights and indigenous minorities were among the top concerns raised Tuesday by non-governmental groups at a workshop in Phnom Penh on Cambodia’s progress toward achieving a long list of U.N. human rights recommendations. As part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s ...

Jarai minority villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district protested in two locations yesterday against a Vietnamese company that community leaders say has been clearing their protected land and forcing villagers to accept inadequate compensation. Community leader Sev Hem said 30 angry villagers directly confronted five Company 72 ...

A rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of encroaching on communal land belonging to an ethnic minority in Ratanakkiri province has cleared 150 hectares of forest outside of its economic land concession (ELC) in the past month, according to the senior investigator for local ...

Hundreds of indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province are being made worse off by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme which, rather than securing their property rights, is contributing to the loss of their ancestral lands, according to a new report. The report supports complaints aired since ...

Officials in Ratanakkiri province are investigating the provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc for incitement after he helped villagers organize a demonstration, ultimately canceled, against a Vietnamese rubber company in O’Yadaw district. Mr. [Chhay] Thy, [Adhoc’s Provincial Investigator] said yesterday that he met with about ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday temporarily suspended the operations of Vietnamese rubber concessionaire Day Dong Yoeung, which has clashed with Jarai ethnic minorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district since late last year, after its previous manager was jailed on fraud charges, district governor ...

Student volunteers from across the country yesterday took a break from their land-measuring duties to attend a pre-Khmer New Year ceremony at Phnom Penh’s Koh Pitch where they were presented with a thank-you letter from Mr. Hun Sen. Since Mr. Hun Sen launched the land titling ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has issued letters to 11 ethnic Tampuon villagers from the province’s Lumphat district, instructing them to prepare for a hearing over accusations of using violence on the property of rubber company DM Group. DM Group first began setting up rubber plantations in ...

Since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced an ambitious new plan some 10 months ago to make nearly half a million families official land owners, hardly a week goes by that a rural community does not complain of local officials trying to scam the project. But when ...

Initial mapping of three ethnic minority Banong communities in Mondolkiri province got underway yesterday, a critical step in their plans to gain much coveted communal titles to their ancestral land. Established by the 2001 Land Law, communal land titles were designed specifically to protect the ancestral ...

As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense. “Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are ...