Land
Public land lease
In coverage of land dispute, a publisher’s interests served
In this sparsely populated area along the eastern fringe of Bokor National Park in Chhuk district, villagers are scrambling to claim sandy, arid land as an international company surges ahead with its palm oil plantation. As in many of the hundreds of unresolved land disputes playing ...
Matt Blomberg and Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/in-coverage-of-land-dispute-a-publishers-interests-served-82523/
Ministry to auction Sand-dredging licenses
The Ministry of Mines and Energy will hold an auction next month putting up for sale four licenses to dredge sand along a stretch of the Mekong River, according to a statement posted to the ministry’s website on Tuesday. ...
Khuon Narim
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/ministry-to-auction-sand-dredging-licenses-82457/
UDG issuing eviction threats again: villagers
Security guards armed with axes, clubs and hammers have reportedly threatened villagers with eviction at the Union Development Group (UDG) site in Koh Kong province just weeks after the Chinese company pledged to peacefully resolve the dispute. About 50 security officials arrived at the villagers’ homes ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/udg-issuing-eviction-threats-again-villagers
Gov’t settles land dispute after Hun Sen’s visit
Just two days after Prime Minister Hun Sen promised to resolve a 20-year-old land dispute in Siem Reap City, the government on Friday issued a subdecree that divides 115 hectares of the contested plot between more than 700 families. ...
Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt-settles-land-dispute-after-hun-sens-visit-82132/
Fishermen claim victory against sand dredgers
An environmental activist and a fisherman said Sunday that about 70 residents of Koh Kong province had worked together over the past few days to chase away sand-dredging barges they accused of operating illegally around Koh Kapi island and damaging vital fishing grounds. ...
Hul Reaksmey
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/fishermen-claim-victory-against-sand-dredgers-81942/
Boeng Kak families accept swap to end land disputes
At least 16 more families that have been locked in a bitter and lengthy dispute with the municipal government over land in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood accepted municipal governor Pa Socheatvong’s offer of a land swap Thursday morning. ...
Mech Dara
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/boeng-kak-families-accept-swap-to-end-land-disputes-81780/
Armed guards forcibly evict residents from village in Cambodia’s Kratie province
Armed guards evicted residents from their homes from a village in Cambodia’s Kratie province on Thursday as rival villagers burned their houses down when local authorities tried to hand over their land to the first group, local witnesses said. ...
Prach Chev
http://bit.ly/1HY84pr
Tires torched by angry Chroy Changva families
Angry locals burned tires on the Chroy Changva peninsula Friday to protest the building of a road through their village, which is at the center of a land dispute with the Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC). ...
Sek Odom
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tires-torched-by-angry-chroy-changva-families-81404/
Justice minister seeks briefing over years-old land dispute
The justice minister on Wednesday wrote to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court requesting that the judge in charge of a case surrounding a long-running land dispute report to the ministry, following intervention from the National Assembly’s human rights commission. ...
Ben Sokhean
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/justice-minister-seeks-topic-over-years-old-land-dispute-81308/
In Mondolkiri, police return to raze remaining shelters
After overseeing the destruction of all but six of 172 temporary shelters that had been erected on farmland claimed by an ethnic Bunong community in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday, authorities returned to destroy the remaining structures Wednesday, again on the grounds that the land belonged ...
Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/in-mondolkiri-police-return-to-raze-remaining-shelters-81241/
World Bank may be blind to harm of financial investments: Oxfam
The World Bank’s private sector arm may be doing more harm than good when it invests in private equity firms, banks and other financial intermediaries, global development group Oxfam said in a report on Wednesday. In one project indirectly sponsored by the bank’s International Finance Corporation ...
Anna Yukhananov
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-worldbank-investments-idUSKBN0MS5IJ20150401
Meeting between Koh Kong families, development firm fruitless
Representatives for some 200 families in a yearslong land dispute with the Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province met for the first time with both company and government officials Tuesday but left with little to show. ...
Hul Reaksmey
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/meeting-between-koh-kong-families-development-firm-fruitless-81149/
Police burn down Mondolkiri minority community’s shelters
Police in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday burned down more than 130 shelters belonging to a community of ethnic Bunong families in Keo Seima district that authorities accuse of squatting on a Vietnamese rubber plantation, a local official said. ...
Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-burn-down-mondolkiri-minority-communitys-shelters-81153/
‘Same faces’ protest against PM’s comments
Incensed by the prime minister’s assertion last week that the “same faces” always show up at protests, a group of Phnom Penh’s most prominent anti-eviction activists picketed City Hall on Monday to vent their anger. ...
Mech Dara
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/same-faces-protest-against-pms-comments-81088/
Villagers in Cambodia taught to fight back against land grabs
The barren land near Cambodian villager Ren Meas’ home used to yield cashew nut and root vegetable crops. Now the vast expanse lies bare and dry, levelled by bulldozers and set to become yet another rubber tree plantation. Australians are helping to combat the so-called land ...
Lauren Novak
http://bit.ly/1DhGhRg
Cambodian land grabs threaten traditional communities
Seoung Sarat survived several bloody Cambodian regimes and civil wars. But only when his country was at peace was he shot and lost a leg. The indigenous Tompuon man, now living in a borrowed home in the forest of Ratanakiri province, says he lost his right ...
Say Mony
http://bit.ly/1CszeV2
Khun Sear land dispute to be settled: lawyer
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court again delayed the trial of a woman whose family is locked in a land dispute with tycoon Khun Sear on Wednesday, this time at the request of her lawyer, who is advising the family to give up their five-year battle ...
Ben Sokhean
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/khun-sear-land-dispute-to-be-settled-lawyer-80753/
Khun Sear Land Dispute to Be Settled: Lawyer
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court again delayed the trial of a woman whose family is locked in a land dispute with tycoon Khun Sear on Wednesday, this time at the request of her lawyer, who is advising the family to give up their five-year battle ...
Ben Sokhean
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/khun-sear-land-dispute-to-be-settled-lawyer-80753/
Villagers dubious of thumbprint request
More than 100 ethnic Phnong families embroiled in a land dispute with Vietnamese firm Binh Phuoc Kratie Co in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district yesterday refused authorities’ requests to submit thumbprints as part of a suggested resolution to the issue, out of fear they would be ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/villagers-dubious-thumbprint-request
Salesman maimed by mine in B Meanchey
A traveling salesman lost his leg to a landmine on Monday after going hunting outside of a village with which he was unfamiliar in Banteay Meanchey province’s Thma Puok district, police said. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/salesman-maimed-mine-b-meanchey
Cambodia: local people risk everything to defend national park sold off to highest bidders
Botum Sakor national park is one of Cambodia’s biodiversity hotspots, where indigenous tribes have long lived in harmony with the forest and its wildlife, writes Rod Harbinson. But now they are being violently evicted as the park is being sold off piecemeal to developers for ...
Rod Harbinson
http://bit.ly/1NdKSoz
51% stake for private sector in SPV for four countries including Cambodia, Myanmar
The government plans to rope in private firms for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s big diplomatic push to ‘Act East Policy’, with its proposed special purpose vehicle for investment in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam set to offer up to 51 per cent stake to the ...
Deepshikha Sikarwar
http://bit.ly/1C6Hhpf
Khun Sear disputants to see court
Land dispute activist Ly Seav Minh will remain in custody ahead of her family’s trial on Wednesday after a judge at the Supreme Court postponed her bail hearing. ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/khun-sear-disputants-see-court
Eviction date draws nearer for Koh Kong villagers
Villagers in Koh Kong province involved in a land dispute with a Chinese company received notice on Saturday that the local government will soon implement a court order kicking them off their land, officials and a villager said. ...
Khuon Narim
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eviction-date-draws-nearer-for-koh-kong-villagers-80583/