Economic land concessions and plantations

Dramatic new video footage of the January 18 Kratie province land dispute shooting has been released on the internet, depicting TTY rubber company security guards opening fire on a crowd of unarmed villagers. The 48-second video, recorded by a villager on a mobile phone and uploaded ...

More than 300 demonstrators yesterday marked the third anniversary of the forced eviction of Phnom Penh’s Dey Krahorm community, one of the city’s most violent land evictions. Five international rights groups also sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen urging the government to stop land ...

A deadly land dispute in Pursat province ended over the weekend with a victory for the villagers, but they said yesterday this might have more to do with the upcoming commune elections than a change of heart within the company owned by the wife of ...

The director of TTY rubber company, whose guards shot four land protestors in Kratie province last week, said he will give land back to the protesting villagers, backtracking on his vow Friday not to give up any of the land granted to him by the ...

Villagers from Kratie province, who blocked National Road 76a last week after four of their own were shot by guards working for agro-development firm TTY, appear to be on their way to receiving farmland they lost to the company in an economic land concession. A statement ...

The number of criminal charges meted out to villagers embroiled in land disputes rose by more than 50 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year, according to figures released by the rights group Adhoc yesterday. The rights group found that the courts charged 475 villagers ...

Violence erupted yesterday in Kratie province’s Snuol district where six people were shot and injured when RCAF soldiers working for a rubber company opened fire on a crowd of villagers who were trying to stop the company from clearing land in the area, police and ...

More than 11,000 families were affected by government-granted economic land concessions in 2011, nearly 3,000 more families than were affected the previous year, according to figures released yesterday by local rights group Licadho. A total of more than 2 million hectares of the country’s forests and ...

The owner of development firm Phan Imex Company said yesterday that 64 families from the capital’s Borei Keila community who were demanding compensation for houses demolished on January 3 did not have the documents to prove they had owned a house on the site. Phan Imex ...

About 200 villagers, who have been embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the well-connected agro-business Pheapimex over a 316,000-hectare economic land concession in Pursat province, staged a protest yesterday against the company’s continued efforts to clear their farmland. The protests came just three days after ...

Just over a year since the World Bank froze its funds to the government, the bank yesterday reiterated that a decision on whether or not it would start providing loans again remains nowhere in sight. In August, the World Bank announced that it would not provide ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered an end to all private land deals inside the country’s protected areas and warned local businessmen and officials against making such illegal deals. “All official paperwork in connection with natural protected areas is invalid,” he said while speaking at the ...

A woman summonsed to Kampong Speu provincial court over a land dispute yesterday returned home without being arrested after about 150 protesting villagers turned out to support her. Rath Thavy, provincial monitor for human rights group Adhoc, speculated that the court decided not to arrest Khem ...

Years after their eviction from central Phnom Penh, families continue to trickle back into the city from their relocation sites on the city’s outskirts. They search for cheap rental rooms instead of houses like the ones they were driven out of, in some cases, by ...

Military police in Battambang province shot three villagers in the legs during a confrontation between local farmers and a private company that was granted a land concession, a police official said. Phnom Penh district police chief Song Sopheak said employees of Suon Neang Sambath company, a ...

Roughly 100 villagers were allegedly threatened by soldiers brandishing AK-47s yesterday, while attempting to block a company from bulldozing their farms in Kratie province’s Snuol district. Soun Vicheka, a representative of 136 families in Snuol commune’s Krasaing village, said villagers formed a human chain to prevent  Horizon ...

More than 250 villagers blocked National Road 48 yesterday in Koh Kong province while protesting against their eviction from their Kiri Sakor district homes, slowing traffic for more than eight hours, officials said Prom Sann, a representative for the villagers, said the protesters represented 250 families ...

Villagers accused of illegally occupying state land in Kompong Thom province protested outside Santuk district hall yesterday to ask for land titles, residents and authorities said. Sue Nhaunh, a villager and representative of 160 families in Kraya commune, said that more than 100 residents had gathered ...

Hundreds of people whose land has been swallowed by a giant Chinese tourism project on the coast of Koh Kong province will attempt to demonstrate their grievances today by blocking national roads 4 and 48, villagers and human rights workers said Protesters have been resisting China’s ...

Police and military police stopped about 200 villagers from entering rice fields in Battambang province yesterday, saying they had no right to harvest in the 100-hectare area because it belonged to well-known businessman Song Thon, villagers said. Chhut Mao, a 64-year-old village representative of Lvea commune, ...

Cambodia aimed to become one of the region’s main rubber producers over the next few years despite the industry’s low international recognition, officials said during the second Global Rubber Conference, held in Phnom Penh on Friday. To that end, the Kingdom had encouraged companies and investors ...

A mother whose family face eviction from their home at Boeung Kak lake was farewelled at a funeral on Saturday evening, hours after her body was found in the Mekong River. Chea Dara’s body was identified by family members on Saturday in Samraong Thum commune, Kien ...

Cambodia has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation, ranking ninth among 180 countries in terms of forest loss during the past decade, according to a new study, which said that economic land concessions and illegal logging were the primary cause for the demise ...

The Ministry of Land Management and Urban Planning announced yesterday that it will soon complete a new draft sub-decree that aims to guide and regulate urban development in towns and cities. Land and human rights groups, however, criticized the ministry for failing to consult them on ...