In Speech, Hun Sen Implicated His Cousin in Land Grabbing

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday implicated his cousin as being behind an attempt to sell land in Svay Rieng province that was set aside by the government in 2009 to provide hundreds of land titles to villagers on a social land concession. Speaking at a ceremony in Romeas Hek district where he handed out 510 land titles to 298 families, Mr. Hun Sen said that authorities should investigate why just 36 families in the area had been provided with land titles despite an order from the Ministry of Land Management to convert the land into a social land concession. … As part of government’s policy to hand out land titles, Mr. Hun Sen also announced that 1,500 hectares of land has been removed from an economic land concession belonging to the local agriculture tycoon An Marady and would be redistributed to local villagers.