Economic land concessions and plantations

Villagers from Koh Kong province have descended on the capital, ready to petition Prime Minister Hun Sen and the government today to intervene in their long-running land dispute with prominent businessman Heng Huy. Phav Nhoeung, a representative of 15 families in Sre Ambel district’s Chi Khor ...

About 200 ethnic Phnong villagers gathered in Mondulkiri province’s Bousraa commune yesterday to protest against several companies that hold economic land concessions in the area, which they say are destroying their traditional livelihoods. The villagers from Pech Chreada district accused the Kau Su Dak Lak Company ...

The National Assembly’s Human Rights Committee has laid out its plan to mediate negations to settle a more than decade-long land dispute between villagers and a powerful development company in Kompong Chhnang province’s Lor Peang village. The bipartisan committee announced early this month that it would ...

Minority villagers from Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district climbed up a mountain to a community forest yesterday morning to challenge a company they claim is illegally felling their trees. ...

Six economic land concessionaires in Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey provinces have had their contracts to supply the government with wood to build housing for soldiers and their families cancelled. In 2011, after the conflict with Thailand over the Preah Vihear temple, the government encouraged the ...

Military police in Mondolkiri province say they are searching for a guard working for a local rubber company who allegedly injured three villagers Saturday when he fired a bullet in their direction that ricocheted off a rock, prompting questions about the firm’s use of armed ...

Kompong Chhnang provincial authorities on Thursday urged villagers locked in a land dispute with KDC International to accept compensation from the development firm, promising to request that a social land concession be granted to them. ...

The National Assembly’s newly formed bipartisan Human Rights Commission met with representatives from the embattled Lor Peang village on Monday, promising a prompt resolution to their 12-year-old dispute over 145 hectares of land in Kompong Chhnang province. Lork Kheng, deputy chair of the commission, vowed that ...

More than 30 activists from two communities impacted by land-grabbing demonstrated together in front of Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday to demand that authorities intervene in their cases. ...

Last month, Prime Minister Hun Sen was mocked for claiming in a speech on August 18 that he was unaware of a land dispute in Kratie province’s Snuol district over which villagers had repeatedly petitioned his cabinet. But Mr. Hun Sen’s admission that he was unaware ...

About 100 villagers marched through Koh Kong province’s Sre Ambel district on Saturday, handing out leaflets in an effort to inform the public about their land dispute with Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL). ...

Land Management Minister Im Chhun Lim intervened in a high-profile land dispute between villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district and a South Korean agribusiness firm over the weekend, announcing Saturday that the contested 1,562-hectare tract would be taken back from the company and awarded to ...

One of five villagers arrested in a land dispute with politically connected company KDC International told the Post after their release on Friday that he would keep protesting “until our community obtains a resolution from the government”. ...

Koh Kong Governor Bun Leart has promised villagers evicted from their land by Chinese-owned Union Development Group that he will give their petition to Minister of Environment Say Sam Al today. ...

Workers at the center of a land dispute between villagers in Kompong Chhnang province and a company owned by the wife of the mines and energy minister on Thursday pressed forward with a campaign against the release of five villagers who were imprisoned over violence ...

Over the past year, Phnom Penh officials have proven themselves to be an unyielding group in the face of dissent, and the helmeted, baton-wielding security guards who answer to them the scourge of protesters. On Wednesday, however, Daun Penh district officials took a softer approach when ...

Representatives of villagers in Kratie province locked in a land dispute with an agribusiness firm said discussions with land management and provincial officials at the Snuol district hall ended Tuesday without a resolution. ...

A group of Kompong Chhnang villagers in a fight for land with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem delivered petitions to the Ministry of Justice and National Assembly on Monday, one of five communities from across the country that have recently traveled ...

About 70 residents from Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district were blocked on Saturday from marching to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh villa, where they planned to appeal for support in a long-running land dispute. The residents were representing 134 families from four villages in Chhvang ...

More than 15 months after a Global Witness report revealed that Vietnam’s state-owned rubber giant had illegally cleared land and displaced communities in Cambodia, the company has announced that it will accept and respond to complaints from those whose lives it has damaged. Vietnam Rubber Group, ...

The director of a Vietnamese company hoping to buy timber off a pair of land concessions has accused three local businessmen of cheating her out of $200,000 and asked Prime Minister Hun Sen to investigate, according to a letter published by local media. ...

A 67-year-old woman from Kampot province was arrested Wednesday for attempting to prevent a construction company from clearing land she says belongs to her, police said. The arrested woman, Hin Srin, is part of a group of 12 families in Kompong Trach district who have been ...

The number of people charged in land disputes across the country so far this year has already surpassed the number of charges in all of 2013 in what rights group Adhoc on Tuesday called an “alarming” increase in legal action against those wrapped up in ...

About 100 villagers who lost land to a sugarcane plantation, which was until recently financed by ANZ Royal Bank, traveled to Phnom Penh to protest in front of the bank’s headquarters Thursday, but failed to convince the bank to help them. Several hundred families in Kompong ...