Try Pheap Bulldozers Return to Clear Land, Stopped by Protesters
About 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province’s Rovieng district on Saturday turned out in protest for the second time this week to prevent a bulldozer that belongs to well-known businessman Try Pheap from clearing their land next to his rubber plantation, local officials and residents said. One of the villagers, 52-year-old Seak Sokha, said that the district governor spoke to the affected families and told them that authorities were clearing the area to demarcate a 1,000-hecatare social land concession for 200 ethnic Kuoy minority villagers and that they planned to build a new village to relocate the people who lose their land. “We are not opposed to the district’s plan for establishing the village, but we have not agreed to be evicted from the land and have our houses removed,” Mr. Sokha said. … Asked whether the land being cleared on Saturday by the bulldozer was also part of the reported social concession land, [Rovieng district governor] Mr. [Ea] Saro said he did not know exactly where the concession land begins and ends. He then admitted that the area currently being cleared by the Try Pheap firm was probably about 1 km outside the proposed social concession. …
