Land
Land tenure and land titling
Oxfam accuses Coke and Pepsi of taking land from the poor
Land covering an area the size of Italy has been taken from indigenous communities around the world by suppliers to the biggest names in the food and drinks industry, according to a major new report. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are among the companies criticised by Oxfam for ...
Jamie Merrill
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/oxfam-accuses-coke-and-pepsi-of-taking-land-from-the-poor-8852161.html
Housing Activist in Washington To Push for Cambodian Policy Reforms
Cambodian housing rights activist Tep Vanny is in Washington this week, seeking to increase international pressure on Cambodian authorities to end forced evictions and find resolutions to longstanding land disputes. Tep Vanny, a housewife who has emerged as a leader for Cambodian victims of forced evictions, ...
Men Kimseng
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/housing-activist-in-washington-to-push-for-cambodian-policy-reforms/1760036.html
Activists Doubt Cambodia Pledge to Stop Land Concessions
Activists are skeptical that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will follow through on a pledge to stop a contentious practice of appropriating rural land for commercial use, an issue that hurt the leader and his party in elections in July. In its new five-year political platform ...
Chun Han Wong
http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-341290/
Complaint Lodged Against Commune Chief
Villagers have accused a CPP commune chief in Ratanakkiri province of threatening four ethnic minority Tampoun men after they filed a complaint against him for allegedly selling off community land to a local businessman. Rocham Norng, a Tampoun villager in Bakeo district, has alleged that Soeung ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/complaint-lodged-against-commune-chief-44004/
Former Boeng Kak Residents Demand More Compensation
More than 200 former residents of the Boeng Kak community protested Thursday outside City Hall to demand more compensation to the original amount they received when forcibly evicted from around the lake in 2009. The protesters—who accepted payouts from the private developer Shukaku to make way ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/former-boeng-kak-residents-demand-more-compensation-43692/
Latest ELC plan draws scepticism
The government’s latest five-year strategy calls for a complete halt to economic land concessions (ELCs) and an inquiry into those still in the pipeline. But the plan has drawn scepticism from conservationists and rights groups, who pointed out that loopholes have been liberally applied after the ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/latest-elc-plan-draws-scepticism
Intimidation charges levelled
Three officials from Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district were charged on September 10 for threatening and intimidating a villager after he filed a lawsuit related to the corrupt sale of community land in 2011, according to a letter obtained by the Post yesterday. Romas Svang, 47, of Yatung commune, received ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/intimidation-charges-levelled
Clashes renewed at cordon
Frustrated Boeung Kak and Borei Keila community members flooded past a Daun Penh road barrier yesterday after attempting to lodge complaints with district authorities in connection with Sunday’s violence at Wat Phnom. On Sunday night, a brutal raid on a peaceful vigil of about 20 protesters ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/clashes-renewed-cordon
Illegal Construction Rampant in Angkor Heritage Site
In the months leading up to Cambodia’s national election on July 28, authorities in the Angkor Archaeological Park allowed dozens of land owners to build new houses and develop plots of land inside highly protected areas of the world heritage site. Villagers interviewed last week said ...
Phorn Bopha and Simon Marks
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/illegal-construction-rampant-in-angkor-heritage-site-42860/
EU Under Fire for Policy Linked to Land Grabbing in Cambodia
KAMPONG SPEU PROVINCE— Three years ago, Pao had a farm and a charcoal stove near a stream in a community called Omlaing in western Cambodia. The farm gave her rice, charcoal sales gave her extra income and the nearby forest provided edible and medicinal plants. Pao ...
The Irrawaddy News Magazine Staff
http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/44202
Siem Reap’s Secret Multimillion Dollar Land Swap
Inside the grounds of this city’s old provincial hall, past a green corrugated iron fence, municipal street cleaners and their families are squatting in what was once a bustling government office filled with civil servants. Across the road, the former department of rural development is a ...
Phorn Bopha and Simon Marks
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/selected-features/siem-reaps-secret-multimillion-dollar-land-swap-42375/
Buffalo holders seek owner’s restitution
Jarai ethnic minority villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district are demanding compensation from a villager they claim illegally cleared a sizeable portion of their community forest this year. The villagers seized two carts transporting rosewood – and the four buffaloes pulling them – out of the forest ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/buffalo-holders-seek-owner%E2%80%99s-restitution
Boeng Kak Women March for Activist’s Release
More than 50 supporters of jailed anti-eviction activist Yorm Bopha marched through central Phnom Penh on Tuesday to demand her speedy retrial, acquittal and release, visiting the Supreme Court, the Royal Palace and the European Union and World Bank offices. Ms. Bopha has consistently professed ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/boeng-kak-women-march-for-activists-release-42147/
Apsara Authority Moves to Offices Far From Siem Reap City
Apsara Authority officials on Tuesday began moving to their new offices far outside of Siem Reap onto land within the Angkor Archaeological Park as part of a swap with the city’s provincial government, officials said. The move comes after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered Siem Reap’s ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/apsara-authority-moves-to-offices-far-from-siem-reap-city-42132/
Tanks sit between villagers, farmland
Villagers in Oddar Meanchey province’s Samroang town filed a complaint to Adhoc yesterday after local authorities repeatedly failed to budge a nearby military unit, which the villagers say has stationed six tanks on their farmland and refused to grant residents access to their crops, or ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tanks-sit-between-villagers-farmland
Rice plots blocked at dam site
In a first step toward clearing villagers from land intended for a planned Koh Kong provincial hydroelectric dam, a Chinese development firm has blocked a road leading to plots where villagers have continued to harvest rice. Officials from Tianjin Union Development Group, which was awarded a ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rice-plots-blocked-dam-site
Contractor Says Senior Official Approved Siem Reap Land Swap
The head of a construction firm that was involved in a massive land swap with Siem Reap’s provincial government in 2010 defended the deal on Friday saying orders for the move of government offices and civil servants—which is now being reversed—came directly from the national ...
Dene-Hern Chen and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/contractor-says-senior-official-approved-siem-reap-land-swap-41909/
‘Land for vote’ deal backfires
Before casting their ballots, residents in three communes in Kulen district carefully mulled their options. On one hand, many have found themselves locked in a land dispute with the government – forced to farm their land in secret from the forestry administration. On the other, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98land-vote%E2%80%99-deal-backfires
After Land Swap, Siem Reap Government Moves Again
Siem Reap’s provincial government apparatus, which in 2010 was relocated to a remote site 16 km outside of the city as part of an extensive and hugely controversial swap of government land and buildings, is moving back to its old home in the tourist city’s ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/top/after-land-swap-siem-reap-government-moves-again-41819/
Rubber Farmers Accuse Big Firm of Encroaching on Their Land
Roughly 100 rubber farmers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district blocked National Road 78A on Wednesday, demanding that authorities take action against a pair of laborers they accuse of stealing resin from their land. The laborers—Math Las, 40, and his wife, Nos Yas, 38—who are reportedly employed ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-farmers-accuse-big-firm-of-encroaching-on-their-land-41712/
Police block Bopha march
Phnom Penh Municipal Hall yesterday defended the actions of police and security guards who blocked protesters as they tried to leave the capital’s Boeung Kak area before they stopped and searched an NGO’s vehicle. Dozens of Daun Penh district police, security guards and military police blockaded ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-block-bopha-march
Evictees sick as rubbish piles up
Evictees of Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community appealed yet again to municipal authorities for alternative housing yesterday, saying garbage and waste has inundated their current settlement and is making it increasingly difficult to enter and exit the area. Borei Keila residents were evicted from their land ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/evictees-sick-rubbish-piles
Calls for Boeung Kak Activist’s Release Renewed on One-Year Anniversary
Cambodian and international rights groups have renewed their calls for the release of Phnom Penh housing rights campaigner campaigner Yorm Bopha one year after her arrest, urging the public and national leaders not to forget her during the country’s current political deadlock. Global watchdog Amnesty International ...
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/yorm-bopha-09032013201419.html
Tycoon’s firm behind summons, soldier says
The Pursat Provincial Court has issued a summons to a soldier based on the Thai border for allegedly clearing protected land in Veal Veng district, a move the man believes was orchestrated by a company owned by tycoon Try Pheap, which is embroiled in an ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tycoon%E2%80%99s-firm-behind-summons-soldier-says