Hundreds of Villagers Block Road to Protest Land Clearing

About 400 villagers in Kratie province’s Snuol district blocked national road 76A for three hours yesterday to demand that authorities release a villager who had been arrested earlier in the day for allegedly inciting villagers embroiled in a land dispute, villagers and a district official said. Ples Sauth was briefly arrested at 9 a.m. after approaching several district military police officers in Pi Thnou commune to show a document from the National Assembly ordering authorities to solve the land dispute between villagers and three companies planning to plant rubber and cassava in the area. …