Troubled Village Embroiled In New Land Disputes

A year after a massive military raid here that left a 14-year old girl dead and hundreds of families evicted, there remains little sign of the original land dispute that turned this rural village into a hotbed of agitation. But a new firm and a government-issued social land concession for other evictees in the province are creating new problems in the area. Four months before the military raided Broma on May 16, 2012, hundreds of families had been protesting against a local rubber plantation owned by the private firm Casotim for allegedly encroaching on their farms. … But old land disputes are giving way to new ones here, thanks to yet another agri-business firm’s plans in the area and the government’s own designs to turn nearly 19,000 hectares on the edge of the village into a social land concession for families across the province either without land or displaced by land disputes. … [Technical officer for the provincial government’s department of land management] Mr. [Chan] Kong said the government had plans to clear 18,838 hectares of land and would eventually move 3,000 families who had been displaced by other land disputes across the province. He rejected the families’ claims that the concession would take over any long-standing farms and said those claiming otherwise were opportunists hoping to stake out land they had never farmed. … Contacted by phone, village chief Chea Chin said there was also more than farmland at stake. He said that hundreds of ethnic Cham families the government has sent to the village to move onto a new social land concession have already started clearing a 580-hectare government approved community forest the entire village and its 600 families rely on. … The village chief said another 74 local families were also accusing a new rubber plantation in the area of encroaching on their farms. … Mr. Kong…. confirmed that there was a 5,000-hectare concession in the area. …

http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/troubled-village-embroiled-in-new-land-disputes-25184/