Land
How Cambodia’s secretive timber auctions are fueling the illegal logging trade
In the predawn hours of May 6, a flatbed truck packed with lengths of illegally logged timber sped past a checkpoint in Ratanakkiri province, knocking aside a police car and racing off. Police later tracked down the truck to a house in Banlung City. In the ...
Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/how-cambodias-secretive-timber-auctions-are-fueling-the-illegal-logging-trade-63919/
Work continues at contested KDC site
A company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem forged ahead with its construction of a concrete wall around a swath of disputed land in Kompong Chhnang province Friday, despite a call from the U.N.’s human rights envoy on Thursday that ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/work-continues-at-contested-kdc-site-63906/
Explosion injures one
An anti-tank mine exploded in Battambang province’s Bavel district on Saturday, injuring an agricultural worker and damaging machinery, an official said, marking the latest in an upswing of explosions this year. The victim, identified only as Sok, 46, of Bavel’s Kdol Tahen commune, and was hired ...
Kim Sarom
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/explosion-injures-one
Villagers hold ceremony to curse minister’s wife, officials
Villagers in Kompong Chhnang province involved in a long-running land dispute with a minister’s wife took their grievances to the spirit world this weekend, staging a two-day ceremony during which they cast traditional curses on company officials and local authorities they say have wronged them. The ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-hold-ceremony-to-curse-ministers-wife-officials-63928/
Police officer charged with intentional killing
Mondolkiri Provincial Court charged a national police officer with intentional killing on Friday, the latest in an increasing trend of violent disputes over timber in the restive province. Pheng Sokheng, who was sent to the Seima Protected Forest to stifle the work of illegal loggers, on ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-officer-charged-with-intentional-killing-63908/
Kandal villagers refuse to give up land
More than 60 people in Kandal province on Thursday protested the provincial court’s questioning of seven villagers who refused to thumbprint documents handing over their land to a dealer who claims to own it. Lim Kea, the land dealer, says she bought about 155 hectares of ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-refuse-to-give-up-land-protest-court-action-63877/
Envoy calls out KDC firm
United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights Surya Subedi has called on politically connected development company KDC International to halt its project in Kampong Chhnang province. Following violent clashes between KDC security guards and protesters on Monday, Subedi released a statement yesterday that calls on all ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/envoy-calls-out-kdc-firm
Military police officer accused
A military police officer has been arrested and will be sent to court, while two others remain under questioning, after an unarmed man was shot dead on Wednesday night while travelling in a car through protected forest in Mondulkiri’s O’Raing district, officials said. Two military police ...
Sen David and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/military-police-officer-accused
Casualties from UXO accelerate
Casualties from mines and unexploded ordnance are on track to outpace last year’s count, according to new government data. In the first five months of this year, 89 people were either killed or injured by the deadly remnants of war, Cambodian Mine Action Centre director-general ...
Pech Sotheary
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/casualties-uxo-accelerate
B Kak factions file competing lawsuits over clash
Rival factions in the increasingly bitter dispute over land in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood filed lawsuits against each other at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over a clash late last month. The two sides, in what once was a unified front against the neighborhood’s ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/b-kak-factions-file-competing-lawsuits-63868/
Land concession woes aired
Village representatives in Ratanakkiri yesterday shared their land grievances with the European Union ambassador, requesting he relay to the government their appeal that no further 99-year land concessions be granted to private companies. Although the Post was not permitted to attend the full two-hour meeting, NGOs present at ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-concession-woes-aired
Companies regrow ‘forests’
More than 100,000 hectares of forest have been replanted across the country since 2008, according to a government report – but about 90 per cent of that amount can be chalked up to private plantations. Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the report, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/companies-regrow-%E2%80%98forests%E2%80%99
EU gives park protection
A huge area of Ratanakkiri province’s Virachey National Park has been declared a protected area under a European Union-funded plan that government officials say will shift forest communities away from dependence on depleted forest byproducts. Chhay Samith, head of protected natural areas at the Ministry of ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/eu-gives-park-protection
Activist takes KDC buyout
A community representative who has played an active role in the long-running land dispute between residents of Kampong Chhnang province’s Lorpeang village and a politically connected company has agreed to back down after accepting compensation. In a deal reached with KDC Company on Monday, Reach Seyma ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activist-takes-kdc-buyout
Extra forces dispatched as KDC walls off land
A company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, with the backing of a mounting police force, pushed ahead Tuesday with walling off a swath of land in Kompong Chhnang province that has been at the center of a seven-year land ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/extra-forces-dispatched-as-kdc-walls-off-disputed-land-63590/
Wealthy residents protest lake reclamation
About 30 residents of a planned community on the eastern outskirts of Phnom Penh gathered around the picturesque lake that forms the center of their neighborhood Monday to prevent its developer, a former opposition lawmaker, from reclaiming the land to construct condos. The residents, many of ...
Khuon Narim and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/wealthy-residents-protest-lake-reclamation-63474/
Tensions flare in minister’s wife’s land dispute
About 100 military and provincial police descended upon the rural village of Lor Peang on Monday morning, acting on what they said was a court order to arrest three villagers standing in the way of an agro-development project. More than 70 local residents involved in a ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tensions-flare-in-ministers-wifes-land-dispute-63446/
Companies warned over slow development of ELCs
Provincial government officials in Stung Treng have warned companies granted economic land concessions (ELCs) in the province to fulfil their promised development plans or face losing their rights to the land. Touch Thea, director of the Stung Treng provincial department of agriculture, said the call for ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/companies-warned-over-slow-development-elcs
Boeng Kak families ask ACU to probe Senator’s land sale
Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood lodged a formal complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Monday, asking it to investigate 12 current and former government officials and Senator Lao Meng Khin over the senator’s plans to sell land they say was stolen from ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/boeng-kak-families-ask-acu-to-probe-senators-land-sale-63453/
Company ‘destroyed rice field’
Representatives of a Chinese firm embroiled in a land dispute in Preah Vihear province have destroyed a hectare of rice fields to drive a farmer away, villagers alleged yesterday. According to 45-year-old villager Tem Song, on June 28 six Cambodian and Chinese employees of Roy Feng ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/company-%E2%80%98destroyed-rice-field%E2%80%99
Violence breaks out in land dispute with minister’s wife
A long-simmering land dispute between a group of villagers and a high-ranking minister’s wife turned violent this weekend as 10 people were injured while trying to block the KDC company from building a warehouse on contested land in Kompong Chhnang province, villagers and police said ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/violence-breaks-out-in-land-dispute-with-ministers-wife-63298/
Protest continues as company fills in lake, threatens livelihoods
More than 300 villagers who live around Boeng Samraong lake in Phnom Penh’s Prek Pnov district protested for a third day straight Sunday against a private company they say has been filling the lake with sand, threatening the livelihoods of local rice farmers and fishermen. The ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protest-continues-as-company-fills-in-lake-threatens-livelihoods-63310/
Land battle leads locals to protest
About 100 villagers in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district who allege two powerful families are trying to push them off their land protested yesterday after workers fenced off more than 3 hectares of the land they claim in Kouk Rokar commune. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-battle-leads-locals-protest
Chemicals in war-era barrels tested and confirmed as tear gas
The head of the Cambodian Mine Action Authority (CMAC) said Thursday that field testing of a pair of war-era barrels found by villagers in Mondolkiri province earlier this week identified the contents as CS, a tear gas-like powder or aerosol that was used by the ...
Zsombor Peter and Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chemicals-in-war-era-barrels-tested-and-confirmed-as-tear-gas-63226/