Land Protesters Go Missing En Route to Rally

Two land dispute protesters disappeared yesterday after being stopped by the police and detained while driving from Kratie province to Phnom Penh with a large group who intended to stage a protest in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house. About 200 villagers from Snuol district traveled to Phnom Penh in the hopes that Mr. Hun Sen would intervene in their long-running land dispute with two rubber companies.  But as they were driving through Kandal province’s Mok Kampoul district, police stopped a van carrying a group of protesters and ordered Sless Seth, 58, and Oeu Seth, 60, to disembark, according to villager representative Pit Sdam. … As the detained men had been in possession of the only copy of the villagers’ petition, which they had hoped to hand to a representative of Hun Sen’s Cabinet, the group protested only briefly in front of the prime minister’s house before giving up and heading back to Kratie. The villagers are part of a community of about 400 families who have been living in makeshift shelters near National Route 76A in Pi Thnou commune after being evicted in February from 750 hectares of disputed land claimed by the Sovannvuthy and Dai Nam rubber companies. …