Teenage Girl Shot Dead by Security Forces

Government security forces shot dead a teenage girl in Kratie province yesterday morning in a coordinated operation to arrest protesters locked in a long-running land dispute with a rubber company accused of stealing their land. The provincial governor said the joint forces opened fire to defend themselves from villagers armed with axes and other farm instruments, and called the girl’s death a regrettable accident. The shooting comes amid a trend of increasing violence across the country against villagers by government forces and security guards driving them from large parcels of land being granted to private firms in the country’s rush to develop. Heng Chantha, 14, was shot in the abdomen while hiding from the soldiers with her mother and brother under the family’s house in Broma village, Chhlong district, said her brother, Heng Sokleang. … Nuon Bunthy, another villager, said he saw at least 15 armed soldiers sweep in at about 8:30 a.m. before rushing into his home for shelter and soon heard a long burst of automatic gunfire. “They are very cruel,” said Mr. Bunthy, one of about 1,000 villagers who accused the private firm Casotim of turning their farmland into a rubber plantation. “They shot an innocent person dead. This is injustice for the people.” Provincial governor Sar Chamrong defended the operation, accusing the villagers of attempting to secede from the state, and labeled the incident a successful operation against their alleged ringleaders, who escaped. …