Old Soldiers Won’t Fade Away
“I don’t know how to protect the territorial integrity [of the nearby Cambodian-Thai border] – even my three hectares of land I cannot protect,” said Bun Chanthorn, 54, one of hundreds of retired and active soldiers who since 2010 have been battling the local authorities and a rubber company over thousands of hectares of land in Pursat’s Veal Veng district. …
“When the country has a war, they need us, but when it is peaceful, they threaten to seize our land without considering our seniority, without considering how we sacrificed our lives for the nation,” he said.
Though Chanthorn has long farmed this land, he has been barred from continuing to do so in the past year by Oknha Try Pheap’s MDS Import-Export Co, Ltd, which was granted a 4,373-hectare concession in the area in December 2010. The new commune chief, said Chanthorn, refused to accept a receipt of ownership issued by his predecessor on the pretext that the area lay inside a conservation zone.
When volunteer students came to the area starting last June, they measured the company’s land, avoiding the villagers, locals told the Post. …
Khoy Sokha, Pursat provincial governor, insisted that the government was working on a solution to the dispute. …
“If they are really soldiers’ families, they will get their social land concession. I will find it for them,” he said. …http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050765451/National/old-soldiers-won-t-fade-away.html
