Social development

Ethnic minorities and indigenous people

Land Project Sees Second Bribery Suspension

A second police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended on suspicion that he demanded money from villagers so that their names could be included on a list of people eligible for land titles as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling program, police ...

Officer Suspended Over Land Program Graft

A local police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended for demanding money from villagers before adding their names to a list of people eligible for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new land-titling program, police and villagers said yesterday. A total of 1,100 student volunteers are being ...

Villagers Claim Chief Signed Away Their Land

Sixteen ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province have claimed that they are being forced from their land after a commune chief signed it away, and that commune borders have been redrawn to dispossess them. On Friday, the families, who have been living on 30 hectares of ...

Villagers vs bulldozers

One hundred and thirty-five ethnic Kouy families from the Brame, Srae Preang and Bos Tom villages in Preah Vihear’s Tbeng Meanchey district gathered on Saturday and yesterday to protest the Lan Feng Company’s alleged bulldozing of their farmland. ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052156285/National-news/villagers-vs-bulldozers.html

Hotel owner looks to help

Mates are more important than anything else for Paul Ouk, an Australian-born and raised ethnic Khmer. “It’s not about the money, it’s about the people,” says Ouk, who owns Me Mates Place, a guesthouse on Street 90 and a restaurant and bar on Street 88 called, ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051656174/Business/hotel-owner-looks-to-help.html

Mu Sochua calls out Aussie mining firms

Opposition parliamentarian Mu Sochua has taken aim at Australian mining companies eyeing the Kingdom’s resources, travelling to their home soil to lobby the halls of power. Mu Sochua cited fears that Australian companies awarded exploration concessions in Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri provinces will treat ethnic minorities there ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012041755607/National-news/mu-sochua-calls-out-aussie-mining-firms.html

EU Launches Food Security Program Aimed at Minorities

The European Union has launched a $4.5 million program aimed at increasing food security among indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province, including those whose land has been affected by the growing number of economic land concessions in the area. Speaking on the sidelines of the launch in ...

Mondolkiri Minority Group Granted Communal Land Title

Residents of an ethnic minority village in Mondolkiri’s Seima Protected Forest on Monday became the first community in the province to receive a communal land title, land management officials said yesterday. About 500 indigenous Bunong families from Andoung Kraloeng village in O’Reang district’s Sen Monorom commune ...

As Plans for Dam Gain Traction, Villagers Balk

For hundreds of years, the ancestors of Vam Sovann have lived in Koh Kong province’s remote Araeng valley. Some 70 km from the nearest national road, Mr. Sovann’s village has no electricity or phone coverage, no paved roads or running water; instead, it has access ...

R’kiri Villagers to March Without Permission

Rights group Adhoc said yesterday that a large-scale march in Ratanakkiri province involving hundreds of ethnic minority villagers caught in land disputes would go on as planned later this month despite the government’s refusal to approve the march. The provincial coordinator for Adhoc, Pen Bonnar, said ...

Farmers to Sue Rubber Company, After Land Clearing

Five cashew farmers in Ratanakkiri province will file a lawsuit against Hong An Mang Yang K Rubber Development Company today at the provincial court after the company mistakenly burned down 13 hectares of cashew trees last week, a human rights official said on Friday. With cashew ...

Minorities Seek Land Dispute March Approval

Local human rights group Adhoc has requested provincial approval to stage a large-scale march later this month involving hundreds of indigenous minorities embroiled in a land dispute in Ratanakiri province. The demonstration is being organized to bring attention to what minority villagers claim is judicial ...

Indigenous land exploited

The Royal Government of Cambodia and private land developers were exploiting indigenous communities in Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri provinces by signing concession deals for the communities’ land without prior consultation, advocates said yesterday. “We urge the government as well as the private sector to respect [indigenous peoples’] ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012030254821/National-news/indigenous-land-exploited.html

Villagers Appeal to Halt Stung Treng Dam

Eleven village representatives from Stung Treng and Ratanakiri provinces traveled to Phnom Penh yesterday to meet with National Assembly lawmakers and appeal for an end to the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam. The hydropower project, funded by Vietnam Electricity, will flood tens ...

Prayer Ceremony Held In Attempt to Stop Dam Construction

About 400 indigenous Lao villagers prayed and sacrificed chickens to a powerful local spirit yesterday in Stung Treng province, seeking supernatural help in halting the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam, villagers and commune officials said yesterday. The hydropower projects, funded by Vietnam ...

Hundreds Protest Dam Plans

More than 500 ethnic minority residents of riparian communities in northeastern Cambodia held a peaceful protest Tuesday against the construction of a Vietnamese-led hydroelectric dam that will relocate them from their ancestral land. The villagers, who live along the Se San River in Stung Treng and ...

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/dam-02282012135535.html

Protesters try new tactics

Rocks were hurled, fires lit, hostages taken and the message delivered in no uncertain terms last week: Cambodians are increasingly willing to use violence against companies that intimidate them or ignore their demands. Twice – in Svay Rieng and Kampong Cham provinces – garment workers pelted ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022754739/National-news/protesters-try-new-tactics.html

Authorities Downplay Hostage-Taking in Land Dispute

Two days after Ratanakiri province villagers took hostage a group of local officials who were clearing land for a rubber plantation, authorities downplayed the incident, saying they had no plans to press charges and that “the problem has been settled.” A representative of the rubber company, ...

Bulldozing stopped, for now

Ethnic minority Tumpoun villagers yesterday delivered a thumb-printed petition to commune, district and provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri demanding intervention in a Lumphat district land dispute after villagers held five rubber plantation company employees hostage on Tuesday. Five employees of Jing Zhong Ri Cambodia Co Ltd were ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022454706/National-news/bulldozing-stopped-for-now.html

Villagers take hostages

The clearing of land for a Ratanakkiri rubber plantation had been frozen after more than 300 Tumpoun ethnic minority villagers captured a quartet of company security guards and another staffer, tied them up and held them hostage on Tuesday, company officials said yesterday. Jing Zhong Ri ...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022354691/National-news/villagers-take-hostages.html

Work to begin on controversial dam in Stung Treng next week

Workers will begin clearing forestland in Stung Treng province as early as next week in preparation for the controversial 400-megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam, district officials and villagers said yesterday. The hydropower project, funded by Vietnam Electricity (EVN), will flood tens of thousands of hectares of ...

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 ...

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