New land titles not recognised: villagers
March 27th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, News Source
Ten families locked in a long-standing land dispute with the Pheapimex Group in Pursat provinces’s Krakor district said yesterday that the company was refusing to recognise titles recently granted to them and blocking them from the land.
“We 10 families have been given more than 30 hectares of land on which each family has more than three hectares, but the company has given only one hectare, and they said the land belongs to them,” said Kbal Trach commune villager Loeung Tho. …
More than 500 families in the area received titles after land measuring, added Sothea, but a number of certificates had been withdrawn or only partially recognised.
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032764723/National/new-land-titles-not-recognised-villagers.html
Forestry Administration Fights Logging with Wedding Gardens
March 27th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense.
“Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are encouraged to plant a sapling in order to promote the protection of the country’s forests- have been opened in Stung Treng province and another in neighbouring Kratie provinces.
In Stung Treng, the forestry administration has set up a nursery that contains saplings including those which produce luxury wood such as the rosewood trees Beng, Neag Nuon, and Karki. …
Camboda’s estimated forest cover-a blunt indicator, which does not detail the quality of the forests records- has declined from about 73 percent in the 1960s to about 57 percent currently.
Kuch Naren, P.20
www.cambodiadaily.com
Construction begins at bloody eviction site
March 27th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, News Source
More than four years after the violent forced eviction of about 800 families from Dey Krahorm in the capital’s high-rent Tonle Bassac commune, small-scale construction is finally beginning on the site.
In the past month, the skeletons of a future barbecue restaurant and a beer garden have risen up on the eastern side of Dey Krahorm, while on the site’s south side, on a plot sold to another company, foundations are being laid for a Sou Sou Suki Soup restaurant.
But this is not much to show given the time that has passed since the heavily criticised eviction of the 3.7-hectare site’s residents in January 2009 to make way for real estate company 7NG, which once promised large-scale development of the site, activists said. …
Staff in 7NG’s office on the eviction site said yesterday they believed the land next to the office had been sold to other companies but could not say when, or for how much. …
Phnom Penh Municipality spokesman Long Dimanche said he was unsure of the land’s status, adding that the city required the company to submit a master plan for the site’s development but 7NG had not submitted any such plan.
Dey Krahorm community member Chan Vichet said yesterday he was not surprised the land where he used to live had been divided and rented to small businesses, despite 7NG’s claims before the eviction that it would build a 52-storey, income- and investment-generating commercial building. …
Chhay Channyda and Justine Drennan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032764726/National/construction-begins-at-bloody-eviction-site.html
Strongman’s hand in BHP deal
March 26th, 2013, The Sydney Morning Herald, Business & Commercial Development, Extractive Industries, Foreign Investment, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Land Tenure, Mining, Social Concerns
A BHP Billiton mining deal being investigated for alleged corruption was personally overseen by Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, diplomatic cables reveal.
The miner’s aborted attempt to establish a bauxite mine in Cambodia, and its hospitality program for Chinese officials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, are at the centre of a foreign bribery investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the US Justice Department. …
Diplomatic cables, several marked ”sensitive” and ”protected”, show for the first time Prime Minister Hun Sen’s close involvement in 2006 negotiations with BHP executives that led to him announcing to a private audience he would give ”BHP 1 million hectares of land” weeks before an agreement was signed and ”a possible tax holiday”.
They also reveal how BHP stopped all mineral exploration in Cambodia just months after a British non-governmental organisation published a 2009 report highlighting the company’s payment of $US3.5 million to Cambodian government departments and concerns it could not be accounted for.
There is no evidence suggesting any of the money went to Mr Hun Sen or his associates, and he has dismissed reports suggesting BHP was involved in bribery in Cambodia.
Richard Baker
http://www.smh.com.au/national/strongmans-hand-in-bhp-deal-20130325-2gqae.html
British Man Faces Lengthy Jail Term After Phnom Penh Arrest
March 26th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Energy, Industry, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
The British chairman of a Biofuel firm is facing up to 15 years in jail after he was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) in Phnom Penh on Saturday and charged with forgery, a court official said yesterday.
Gregg Fryett’s company, Sustainable Agro Energy, has been under investigation in the U.K since February 2012, when the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) froze the firms assets, alleging a fraud worth more that $54 million.
In January, two employees of Mr. Fryett’s local company, International Green Energy, were arrested and charged with forging land documents relating to two economic land concessions measuring more than 6000 hectares that the company attempted to buy in Banteay Meanchey province’s Svay Check district from companies owned by Mao Malay, the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan, who was previously commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. …
The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court on Saturday charged Mr. Fryett with forging public documents under Article 49 of the UNTAC Law- which carries a penalty of between five and 15 years in jail- as well as for using forged documents under Article 628 of the Criminal Code- which can carry one to three years in jail and a fine of up to $1,500. …
Kuch Naren and Simon Lewis, P. 20
www.cambodiadaily.com
Rubber firm is felling state forest: villagers
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Villagers who confiscated land-clearing equipment during a forest patrol yesterday in Khsuem commune in Kratie province’s Snuol district are claiming the equipment belongs to a rubber concessionaire attempting to expand into state land, an allegation local authorities denied.
Villager representative Mom Sokkin said the Binh Phuoc Katrie Rubber II Company has been attempting to clear a pocket of state land located within its concession. …
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664681/National/rubber-firm-is-felling-state-forest-villagers.html
Evictees back on land
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Disputed Land, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
Dozens of families at Borei Keila have moved back on to land they were evicted from last year, despite intimidation and threats of arrest by security forces employed by developer Phan Imex.
Earlier this month, security guards tore down the shelters of 12 families who had returned to the site.
Since then, despite more tents being pulled down by security forces, 45 families have settled on the site, saying they will not leave until the adequate housing they were promised on adjoining land is delivered. …
Villagers signed a deal with Phan Imex in 2004, agreeing to vacate the land in exchange for the construction of 10 high-rise apartment blocks for 1,776 families on an adjacent site.
Only eight blocks were constructed and the remaining families were violently evicted in January last year, leaving hundreds homeless or forced to live in remote relocation sites. …
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664678/National/evictees-back-on-land.html
Largesse and threats ahead of election
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Infrastructure, Labor, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
Prime Minister Hun Sen warned thousands of villagers yesterday that his most popular initiatives, including his far-reaching land-titling scheme, will simply disappear if he is not re-elected in July’s national election – amid suggestions his campaigning has unofficially begun.
In a marked shift from his apparent generosity of last week, which included returning land to evictees in Preah Sihanouk province and adding $2 to a monthly garment wage increase, the prime minister used a ground-breaking ceremony for a bridge to predicted regression should the CPP fall from power. …
As well as intervening in the wage issue and overturning a sub-decree that wrested land in Preah Sihanouk back from tycoon Cheam Phen – sparing 49 families from permanent relocation – Hun Sen also publicly declared last week he had sacked Yean Sina, an undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Justice, over his alleged part in the beating of 10 journalists.
Koul Panha, executive director of election-monitoring NGO Comfrel, did not consider Sina’s sacking a strategic move to sway voters, but believed Hun Sen’s land and wage moves were.
Shane Worrell and Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664688/National/largesse-and-threats-ahead-of-election.html
Ethnic Jarai villagers defend claim at court
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns
Jarai ethnic minority villagers appeared at Ratanakkiri provincial court yesterday, demanding compensation from a Vietnamese company they say illegally cleared 30 hectares of community land in November last year. …
Chea Chanrith was granted a licence from the Ministry of Agriculture last year to clear land in Bakeo and O’Yadav districts to plant rubber trees. …
In response to the allegations, Chan Mab, a translator from Chea Chanrith, said the company had cleared the land in accordance with a map acknowledged by the forestry administration and other authorities.
“We cleared with our map. Sometimes villagers think the forest is their own, but actually it is granted to a company,” he said, adding that compensation will depend on negotiations between the community and the company supervised by authorities.
Chea Chanrith was granted 659 hectares of land to plant rubber trees and some 600 hectares have already been cleared and planted.
The Jarai community forest had been recognised since 2010 by provincial authorities, which had maps clearly delineating their claim of 481 hectares. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664679/National/ethnic-jarai-villagers-defend-claim-at-court.html
British Businessman Arrested over Alleged Land Fraud
March 25th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Foreign Investment, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
The British chairman of an embattled agricultural investment firm was arrested Saturday by Cambodian authorities over charges of forging documents and using them in an attempt to illegally purchase thousands of hectares of land, a court prosecutor said.
Greg Fryett, the main shareholder of Sustainable Agro Energy PLC, which is being investigated by the U.K’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over its investments in Cambodia, was arrested at a cafe in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, said Phan Thannarot, provincial chief prosecutor in Banteay Menachey province, where the land deals were made. …
Through International Green Energy (IGE), Sustainable Agro Energy was meant to use an estimated $11 million in Funds to invest in the cultivation of jatropha , a tree whose seeds can be used to make biodiesel, and return a healthy profit to its investors. However, not a single drop of biofuel has been produced. The SFO has said that it suspects Mr. Fryett of continuing to procure investment after it became clear that operations in Cambodia would not be profitable. …
Mr. Fryett … wrote a personal letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen outlining what he called “considerable issues” regarding his attempts to purchase more than 6,000 hectares of land owned by Mao Maly, the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan, who was previously commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. …
Aun Pheap,
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/british-businessman-arrested-over-alleged-land-fraud-15882/
Thumbprint dubious: court
March 25th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, News Source
The legitimacy of a lawsuit filed by prominent businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary, also known as “Crocodile Grandmother”, accusing Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema of abusing his power by stealing some 34 hectares of privately owned land is being called into question by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, a court official said yesterday.
According to court president Chiv Keng, the court is investigating whether or not Sokountheary’s thumbprint on the lawsuit is genuine, given that she is currently on the run after being sentenced in absentia last December to four-and-a-half years in jail on charges of encroaching onto state land, land she maintains in her lawsuit was lawfully purchased. …
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032564664/National/thumbprint-dubious-court.html
Vietnamese firms eye overseas investment
March 23rd, 2013, Vietnamnet, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Foreign Investment, International Relations, Land Tenure
Vietnamese enterprises are increasingly investing overseas, especially in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, it has been announced. …
Elsewhere in the region, the Viet Nam Rubber Group has invested in growing rubber plantations in Laos and Cambodia since 2007 and aims to own 100,000 hectares by 2014, following a total investment of $1 billion. To date, the group has planted 70,000 hectares of rubber.
The military-run Viettel Group is also among the pioneers investing overseas, with a portfolio of projects spanning Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, Peru, Mozambique, East Timor and Cameroon. …
Vietnam News Staff
http://vietnamnews.vn/economy/237176/vietnamese-firms-eye-overseas-investment.html
Banong Families Close to Communal Land Titles
March 22nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Land Tenure, Protected Areas
An indigenous ethnic Banong community in Mondolkiri province yesterday began the final stage in acquiring a communal land title, setting it up to become only the sixth community in the country to secure one of the coveted documents.
Established by the 2001 Land Law, communal land titles were designed specifically to protect the ancestral land of the country’s minorities from outside developers by making it harder to sell. …
Em Sopheak, provincial coordinator for the Community Legal Education Center, worried that the dozens of other communities in various stages of the application process would remain at risk from developers once funding for such work from donor countries dries up. …
Kuch Naren, P.19
www.cambodiadaily.com
Council Of Ministers Backs Hun Sen’s Plan To Rebuild Homes
March 22nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
The Council of Ministers yesterday backed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s plan to rebuild the flattened homes of 49 families who were violently evicted earlier this month in Preah Sihanouk province’s Stung Hav district.
In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Hun Sen dismissed the Council of Ministers’ decision to give 352 hectares of land in Keo Phos village to local businessman Cheam Phen, and said the land should be given back to the villagers, with CPP Senator Mong Reththy overseeing the rebuilding of the 17 houses.
Mr. Hun Sen’s statement followed a letter released by the Council of Ministers and signed by Deputy Prime Minister Sok An to the Sihanoukville Provincial Court last month stated Mr. Phen was the rightful owner of the land.
But yesterday, the Council of Ministers called for the case in which Mr. Phen was awarded the 353 hectares to be fully reinvestigated, using letters from Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Mr. Hun Sen. …
Kaing Menghun, P.18
www.cambodiadaily.com
Evicted Railway Families Facing Debt ‘Crisis’
March 22nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Banking & Finance, Borrowing, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Debt Servicing, Disputed Land, Economics, Foreign Aid, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
Debt levels among the more than 1,000 families being evicted by a $142.6 million railway project bankrolled by Australia and the Asia Development Bank (ADB) have reached “crisis” proportions and require major intervention, according to a U.S resettlement expert who was hired by the ADB to study the impact of the project. …
In his recommendations, Mr. Cernea, said that evicted families were in many cases at risk of losing their new government-issued plots of land to moneylenders and that families falling into debt was “the single most dangerous risk” facing the resettled families. …
Among his recommendations was an immediate stop to evictees being able to swap their new land for loans, a thorough census of the families and their debts, and that the ADB and Ausaid work with the government on a “full, project-scale” solution.
He also questioned whether it was legal for the money lenders to take the families’ new plots of land as collateral and urged the partners in the project to see what they could do to nullify the loan deals or at least punish the lenders. …
Nhean Leang, who sits on the government’s resettlement committee, claimed that of the more than 4,000 families affected by the rail project, only 25 were actually being hurt and shifted any blame to the ADB and the families themselves.
“You should ask the ADB about the design, how they designed it. We just follow the designs of the Ministry of Transportation and the ADB,” he said. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/evicted-railway-families-facing-debt-crisis-15618/
Titles closer, but ‘land damage done’
March 22nd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Social Land Concessions
Three ethnic Jarai minority communities passed a crucial hurdle on the way to obtaining communal land titles in government-sanctioned ceremonies this week. But a human-rights activist tempered the celebration, saying mass deforestation in the province had already stripped most of the land the villagers are claiming.
Chhay Thy, co-ordinator for the human-rights group Adhoc, applauded the Ministry of Interior for recognising the O’Yadav district communities as legal entities, the second of three application steps on the road to communal land titles.
But after attending a ceremony yesterday in Korng Yu village, he said 70 per cent of the forests in the province had disappeared since 1979. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032264629/National/titles-closer-but-land-damage-done.html
Last Three Kratie Province ‘Secessionists’ Released from Prison
March 20th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
It was not the hero’s welcome that greeted Mam Sonando when more than a thousand boisterous supporters cheered his release from Prey Sar prison Friday and lifted the popular radio station owner onto their shoulders for an impromptu parade.
But for the three unheralded farmers caught up in the same allegations of rebellion that saw them convicted with Mr. Sonando in October in a court case denounced as baseless and political, their much quieter release from prison was just as sweet. …
Along with fellow villagers Kan Sovann and Phorn Sroeun, Mr. [Touch] Ream was arrested in May and soon charged with taking up Mr. Sonando’s alleged call for an armed rebellion against the local authorities in rural Kratie province. …
At the appeal hearing, Mr. Ream and Mr. Sovan confessed to helping monitor a makeshift roadblock on the village outskirts but insisted they were only protesting against a rubber plantation, which many of them accused of grabbing their farmland.
Since the police raid in Broma, a handful of police have remained permanently stationed just outside the village in a newly constructed post. …
Zsombor Peter and Khuon Narim, P.18
www.cambodiadaily.com
Another complaint in Sen Sok
March 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, News Source
Yet another resident of Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district came forward yesterday to join “Crocodile Grandmother” Chhin Sokoutheary in accusing city and district officials of issuing a false sub-decree to acquire land in the vicinity of Pong Peay Lake in Phnom Penh Thmey commune.
Chea Savean, 62, a retired education official who is now the vice-president of the Cambodian-Asean Engineering and Technology Academy, said that despite assurances to the contrary from deputy district governor Chea Khema, Sen Sok and Phnom Penh municipal authorities included his land – which he maintains he bought with the knowledge of the government, and inhabited since 1989 – in a sub-decree that unlawfully reclassified it as state land. …
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032062038/National/another-complaint-in-sen-sok.html
Villagers say soldiers blocking land
March 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, News Source
Twenty-seven families in Oddar Meanchey’s Trapaing Prasat district filed a complaint with Hun Sen’s cabinet and the rights group Adhoc on Monday, maintaining that soldiers have been preventing them from farming since October 2012.
A representative of the villagers, Soeung Sophea, 59, said yesterday that troops from the Number 6 Intervention Brigade have threatened the families and prohibited them from planting on a 150-hectare plot of land, a charge the army denies. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032062035/National/villagers-say-soldiers-blocking-land.html
1.5 mln hectares of land concessions granted
March 19th, 2013, The Cambodia Herald, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, Land Tenure
Hun Sen announced that 1.5 mln hectares of Economic Land Concessions were granted to private companies.
1.2 mln hectares, 80 percent, of the concessions are used for rubber plantation sector. …
He said, that Cambodia still maintain[s] 9.2 mln hectares of forest land even though 1.5 mln hectares of land concessions were given. …
This action reflects an equilibrium which has to be done in order to provide jobs for citizens to reduce poverty, migration, and as well as for environmental protection and sustainability of natural resources. …
The Cambodian Herald Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=OWU3Nzc3ODg4YjY