Land policy and administration

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has launched an internal investigation into a complaint lodged against the institution for investing in a Vietnamese rubber firm accused of illegal logging and land grabbing in Ratanakkiri, an NGO and villager said yesterday. Earlier this month, representatives of the IFC’s ...

A familiar figure has popped up atop a building that authorities in Phnom Penh ordered demolished in October for violating height restrictions around the Royal Palace: a statue of late King Father Norodom Sihanouk. “I have built a King statue on the top of my building ...

More than two dozen NGOs have written to the head of the Asian Development Bank demanding the immediate release of a draft plan the ADB has drawn up to help Cambodian families evicted to make way for a bank-funded railway rehabilitation project. They also want ...

Eight families involved in a land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with Chea Kheng, the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, on Wednesday walked away from a meeting that was set up at their local district administrative office to resolve the dispute, an ...

Families evicted for a rail project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) threatened to demonstrate if the bank does not show them its plan to improve their living conditions within one week. About 1,000 families who built homes over the country’s long-neglected train tracks were ...

Property has seen a boost in Sihanoukville city in the first quarter of this year, underpinned by increased tourist numbers year-on-year. Cheng Kheng, director of CPL Real Estate Company and president of the Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, said the outlook on property in Sihanoukville ...

About a dozen Tuol Kok district security guards in Phnom Penh on Tuesday blocked three families involved in a long-running land dispute from building a fence around the disputed property in Boeng Kak I commune, an official said. Deputy district governor Saing Sopheak Vichet said the ...

Representatives of 50 families in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday alleging that a Vietnamese concessionaire is responsible for destroying about 50 hectares of cashew plantations. Sorl Penh, 58, a representative for the villagers from Nhang commune, said yesterday that ...

In 2011, Oeun Phirun took out a $450 loan from the Asian Development Bank, using half to buy a used motorbike and spending the rest on a small flock of ducks and chickens he hoped to raise. His family and about 1,000 others have been evicted ...

The government yesterday accused Licadho of producing wildly misleading figures on land grabs, following the rights group’s announcement earlier this week that land conflicts in Cambodia have affected more than half a million people since 2000. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Sar Sovan, secretary of ...

Sixty-eight Khmer Krom families in Takeo province allege they are being forcibly evicted, charged by fishery authorities with illegally occupying a nature preserve. Yesterday, three representatives from the Borei Choslar district, Sangkum Meanchey village, were summonsed to court. ...

Preah Vihear provincial governor Oum Mara has sent a letter to inform Interior Minister Sar Kheng that he is ordering an NGO to close its local offices, on the grounds that the organization is inciting villagers to destroy sugarcane farmed by a Chinese company. In the ...

A villager involved in a dispute over 684 hectares of land with Pailin provincial governor Y Chhien claimed Thursday that in 1999 Mr. Chhien and a senior military officer distributed axes and farm tools to the families now on the land. Pailin Provincial Court on Wednesday ...

Police in Preah Vihear province say they have uncovered more evidence of child labor on a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation and will send the case to court if further investigation confirms their preliminary findings. A former employee of the Lan Feng plantation filed a complaint last month ...

Villagers involved in a long-running land dispute with a company alleged to be owned by Pailin Governor Y Chhien were arrested Monday for failing to heed an order from Mr. Chhien to vacate the disputed land, rights workers said. Pich Sothea, 47, Orm Sam Ath, 44, ...

A wildlife sanctuary in Takeo province may provide refuge for birds, but it’s a source of contention for 68 Khmer Krom families who stand to lose their livelihood. The local fisheries administration wants to evict villagers from the state-owned sanctuary in Borei Cholsar district, but the ...

More than half a million Cambodians have been affected by land conflicts involving the government since 2000, with more than 2,000 families across the country subjected to largely violent land grabs during the first few months of this year, local rights group Licadho said Tuesday. The ...

Ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri province have once again accused the Vietnamese owners of a rubber plantation of illegally logging their ancestral forests in a complaint filed with rights group Adhoc. A district official, however, said the plantation owner, Company 72, was granted an extension on ...

A company in Mondulkiri’s Sok San commune has been gradually cutting down a community forest, pushing more than 100 families off their land, villagers said yesterday. “That land belongs to us, the government granted it to us in 1999. But the company invaded and let us ...

A Chinese developer with a “family-like” relationship to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit has accelerated construction at its $5 billion resort – ostensibly cancelled by royal decree in 2010 – in a protected national park in Preah Sihanouk province. The 3,300-hectare Golden Silver Gulf resort ...

On the shore of Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district overlooking a cluster of islands, a flourishing new golf course lies vacant but for a handful of workers tending its empty greens. The Romanesque hotel behind it, replete with a bold central dome, luxury VIP suites ...

Fifty families who have lived in squalid conditions at Borei Keila in the capital’s Prampi Makara district since they were evicted and their homes destroyed have accepted City Hall’s offer of temporary shelter at the site, their representatives said yesterday. Evictee Sar Son said the 50 ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday heard the case of a woman charged with defaming mining magnate and RCAF Lieutenant General Nim Meng in relation to a land dispute in Preah Sihanouk province. Presiding Judge Kim Dany said that Sok Neang Gek was being charged ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said he has no plans to launch an investigation into Cambodia’s much-criticized sugarcane plantations after a meeting with Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. Bottom line: Cambodia’s free trade benefits to Europe are safe for ...