News

Some 300 families from Bantey Meanchey province’s Preah Netr Preah district-embroiled in two separate long-running disputes with Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF)-yesterday submitted complaints to the provincial governor asking for permission to temporarily farm on the land until the ownership dispute is resolved, villagers and ...

A father whose three children were badly beaten by employees of a rubber plantation has accused a Ratanakkiri Provincial Court judge of threatening to send two sons, aged 14 and 21, to jail unless they accept $1,000 in compensation and drop the assault complaint. Ry Saron ...

At 9 a.m. yesterday, more than 200 soldiers, police and military police officers were gathered outside a large mansion on Street 55 in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district. All were waiting for their promised “ang pao” – red envelopes containing cash usually handed out during ...

Forestry Administrative officials in Battambang province have again halted logging and clearing inside a community forest and are attempting to prevent student volunteers deployed by the Ministry of Land Management from demarcating land in already cleared areas, local officials said last week. ...

A coalition of about 30 soldiers, police, forestry officials and military police armed with chainsaws razed some 40 houses belonging to villagers in Pursat province’s Santre commune yesterday, claiming the villagers were illegally living in a state forest, villagers and officials said. According to resident Chin ...

Banteay Ampil district, Oddar Meanchey province – The families of Beng commune have new neighbors: a battalion of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers building a military base inside one of 13 pockets across the province aiming to be the first forest-based carbon trading scheme ...

The State Department on Tuesday cited abuses in Thailand’s huge fishing industry as part of an annual worldwide report on Trafficking in Persons. The report noted that men from Cambodia and Myanmar, also known as Burma, are trafficked aboard Thai ships and forced to work ...

Opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua departed for the U.S. yesterday in hopes of pressuring Washington into suspending all military aid to Cambodia over the government’s use of soldiers to defend the land holdings of powerful business families. “We have enough evidence that soldiers are providing protection to ...

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 ...

Some of the 200 families evicted from a village in Mondolkiri province’s Koh Nhek district last week said yesterday that they were taking up temporary residence in nearby villages and forests because they could not afford to go home, or had no land to return ...

A combined force of police, soldiers and military police last night set a deadline of 8am this morning for villagers in Mondulkiri province’s tiny Rayum commune to leave their homes or face forcible eviction. Authorities, who have surrounded the village for a week, say the villagers’ ...

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 ...

Kratie city – Soldiers and military police yesterday blocked all access to a village where a 14-year-old girl was shot dead by security forces on Wednesday while the authorities launched a massive operation to evict hundreds of families from the area under a cloak of ...

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, ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has launched an investigation into an October 2010 incident in which three RCAF soldiers allegedly opened fire on Forestry Administration officials who had just confiscated a haul of illegal wood, one of the officials involved said yesterday. An RCAF official, meanwhile, said ...

Adding to a spate of similar incidents since October, Thai soldiers fired on a group of Cambodians who had illegally entered Thailand from Oddar Meanchey province on Saturday looking to log valuable rosewood trees and shot one in the hand, a provincial official said yesterday ...

A mining company owned by the wife of RCAF Major General Nim Meng has been ordered by the government to pay fines and unpaid taxes after the firm was found to have illegally exported minerals from Cambodia, a report released yesterday by the Cambodian Investment ...

Farmers who on Sunday said they had been shot at by Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers for trying to cultivate 390 hectares of disputed land in Battambang province’s Samlot district were granted permission yesterday to plant on some parts of the land, villagers and ...

A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks from the Embassy in Bangkok has provided evidence that Cambodian soldiers were providing assistance and protection to loggers along the Thai-Cambodian border. Some of the loggers were killed in clashes with Thai troops. The allegations have been denied ...