Villagers in Pursat Ask Spirits To Curse Pheapimex Company
About 70 villagers in Pursat province’s Krakor district held a daylong prayer ceremony yesterday to request help from spirits to curse the powerful Pheapimex company for destroying their farmland, villagers said. Pheapimex, owned by the wife of CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin, has maintained a 316,000-hectare economic land concession for growing cassava and acacia in Pursat since 1997. Since then, villagers have been locked in a land dispute with Pheapimex, which came to a head recently when more than 300 villagers protested the use of armed military police to guard the concession and the clearing of their farmland. …
