Villager travels to Parliament over land row
A representative of villagers involved in a land dispute in Mondolkiri province appealed to the government Tuesday to address their displacement after their shelters were destroyed by police and soldiers in a forced eviction Monday. Chan Rithy stood outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on Tuesday with a letter he said he wanted to deliver to National Assembly President Heng Samrin calling for the release of two village representatives he said were wrongly arrested on the same day as the eviction. … “We have many documents involved with the dispute and we want the National Assembly to know about the dispute with the company,” Mr. Rithy explained. “The authorities cooperated with the company to evict the villagers from their homes and took the land to give to the company without providing compensation.” He said another village representative, who was arrested with her husband, was wrongly accused of having illegally sold families plots of land on the disputed rubber plantation. … Sam Nhor, a village representative, said that at least 100 families from the Banong, Prov, Tumpuon and Kreang indigenous groups “have lived in this area since their grandfathers’ generation.”
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villager-travels-to-parliament-over-land-dispute-59795/
