News
Two ‘secessionists’ to face press
Bun Chhorn and Sok Tong – fugitives accused of orchestrating a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province – are refusing to admit their guilt, and will hold a press conference Friday in Phnom Penh to say as much, despite Hun Sen’s recent promise to drop their ...
Accused secessionists to testify
Two more of the five accused secessionists from Kratie province’s Pro Ma village turned themselves in on Friday, Ministry of Interior officials said, just days after Hun Sen declared that he would drop charges against them if they testified against the plot’s masterminds. [Bun] Ratha ...
Bail for Kratie land activists
Five of the eight villagers arrested during a bloody crackdown last month on what the government alleged was a secessionist movement in Kratie province are out on bail. Chuk Nguon, an investigating judge at Kratie Provincial court, said five menwere released on May 31 because ...
Five People Released in Kratie Insurrection Case
The Kratie Provincial Court has released on bail five of the eight people charged after a military-style operation by security forces on a small village alleged to be the home of a secessionist movement, a court official said yesterday. On May 16, a 14-year-old girl was ...
Commune Chief Collectors’ Scam Follows Election
The commune election had only just ended on Sunday when the scam had started. On Tuesday, a well-dressed man claiming to be the brother of one of Phnom Penh’s newly reelected commune chiefs visited a business to present an invitation. It was convincing: The father of the ...
SRP Says Rural Gains Coincide With Land Grabs
While preliminary results from Sunday’s commune elections indicate that the SRP took a thumping in urban centers—the SRP lost all three of their commune chief positions in Phnom Penh—the party appears to have made gains in rural areas locked in land disputes. Though the figures are ...
‘Outsiders’ denied right to vote
Just under three weeks ago, residents in Pro Ma village were running for their lives as security forces opened fire on them with automatic weapons, killing a 14-year-old girl. About 1,000 police, military police and soldiers stormed their village, fired at them indiscriminately, evicted hundreds of ...
Ahead of Vote, Hun Sen Breaks Silence to Make Land Promises
Just days ahead of Sunday’s commune elections, Prime Minister Hun Sen again broke his pledge to remain silent during his party’s campaign period and sought to ease the concerns of communities whose livelihoods have been threatened by land disputes. Speaking to villagers through a mobile telephone, ...
Protest Becomes Secession When Liberties Are Taken With Words
This month’s eviction of villagers in Kratie province that resulted in the death of a 14-year-old girl was one of many such violent incidents over land that have erupted in Cambodia in recent years. But what set the May 16 violence apart was a word: ...
Families Forced Out of Homes Ahead of Gov't Deadline
Security forces and employees of a Vietnamese-owned rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province continued to drive families out of their homes yesterday ahead of today’s government-imposed eviction deadline. Officials and villagers say most of the roughly 200 families have already left. With more than 300 security personnel posted ...
Police Surround Homes in Search of Alleged Secessionists
Dozens of police in search of two Kratie province “secessionist ringleaders” surrounded the homes of two of their relatives in Kompong Cham province for nearly 12 hours yesterday while threatening those inside, a relative of the two men said. The alleged secessionist movement has been used ...
Police raid home of ‘secessionist’s’ mum
Scores of security forces yesterday stormed the house of alleged secessionist leader Bun Ratha’s mother in Kampong Cham province yesterday, confiscating mobile phones and memory cards, his relatives told the Post. Bun Ratha, the alleged leader of Democratic Association, has been on the run since security ...
Eviction force’s garb curious
Observers on site in the aftermath of a Kratie province military operation last week that lead to the shooting death of a 14-year-old girl noticed something odd about the attire of some soldiers. It was their helmets. Crude replicas of what appeared to be American flags ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052356332/National-news/eviction-forces-garb-curious.html
Alleged Secessionists in Kratie Charged With Insurrection
Eight villagers arrested in connection with an alleged uprising in Kratie province in which government security forces shot one girl dead have been charged with inciting insurrection, rights workers said yesterday. “All eight have been charged by the prosecutor already of committing insurrection against public authority. According ...
Security forces strip, handcuff women in Kratie amid eviction
Villagers detained during a bloody crackdown in Kratie province last week in which a 14-year-old was shot dead have accused security forces of brutal acts of cruelty, including forcing pregnant women to stand naked in the sun for hours. The villagers from Pro Ma village in ...
Accused secessionist in Kratie to meet with the press
The man police allege was behind a so-called secession plan in Kratie province – an accusation used to justify a crackdown in which a teenager was killed last week – plans to hold a press conference to defend himself in the next two days, his ...
As Soldiers Leave Kratie Village, Problems Remain
After a three-day blockade, soldiers pulled out over the weekend from the Kratie province village where a teenage girl was shot dead last week by government security forces, officials said yesterday. However, human rights workers denied a report by a provincial official that freedom of movement ...
Mondolkiri Villagers Fear Imminent Eviction
In a land dispute with overtones of last week’s deadly eviction in Kratie province, villagers in Mondolkiri province yesterday said dozens of police were surrounding their houses and threatening to force them out of a private land concession. Sen Sophon, one of about 200 families in ...
As Soldiers Leave Kratie Village, Problems Remain
After a three-day blockade, soldiers pulled out over the weekend from the Kratie province village where a teenage girl was shot dead last week by government security forces, officials said yesterday. However, human rights workers denied a report by a provincial official that freedom of ...
No Access to Kratie Village After Killing
The village in Kratie province where a teenage girl was shot dead by government security forces on Wednesday remained completely sealed off to independent observers on Friday, drawing concerns from human rights workers that the government had imposed a state of martial law in the ...
Mourning villagers flee
Hundreds of people fled in fear yesterday from the village in Kratie province where a bloody security forces crackdown the previous morning left a 14-year-old girl dead. Joint police and military police forces locked down the area where a land dispute has raged this year, and ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012051856248/National-news/mourning-villagers-flee.html
Cambodian troops seal off village after land clashes
Security forces have sealed off a village in eastern Cambodia and denied entry to human rights workers after the fatal shooting of a teenager in the latest violent eviction aimed at clearing land for development. Soldiers said they needed to secure the area around Proma village, ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/17/cambodian-troops-land-clashes
Teenage Girl Shot Dead by Security Forces
Government security forces shot dead a teenage girl in Kratie province yesterday morning in a coordinated operation to arrest protesters locked in a long-running land dispute with a rubber company accused of stealing their land. The provincial governor said the joint forces opened fire to defend ...
UN urges Cambodia to hold companies to account over land disputes
Companies that have seized land, confiscated livestock and destroyed homes and property have gone unpunished, the UN special rapporteur for Cambodia has said. Surya Subedi, professor of international law at Leeds University, said all the communities he had met raised the issue of misconduct by ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/may/14/un-cambodia-companies-land-disputes