Villagers take case to capital
Representatives from five communes in Koh Kong province engaged in a long-running land dispute with a private Chinese firm urged the government to issue them proper land titles during a press conference in the capital yesterday. Representative Chhai Beng Hout asked the government to instruct the company – Union Development Group Co, Ltd – to allow residents to remain on their land. The area could easily be carved out of the company’s 45,000-hectare land concession, he said. In 2008, Union Development Group received a 36,000 hectare land grant from the government to build a US$5 billion mega-tourism zone in Botum Sakor and Kiri Sakor districts. Such a concession breaches Cambodian land law, which limits government land concessions to private companies to 10,000 hectares.
