Commune authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have allegedly banished a local resident for persisting with a lawsuit that accuses them of selling 500 hectares of community forest to two Cambodian developers for $300,000.
Romas Svang, who is a member of the ethnic Jarai minority, filed the suit in 2011. The 45-year-old said most villagers living near the forest received $200 to $300 for allowing developers to use the area. …
Ya Tung commune chief Rocham Vin said 199 families had agreed to sell the land, and received the money.
Provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri have warned ethnic Jarai villagers that they will be arrested if they continue to stop bulldozers belonging to a Vietnamese company from clearing forest in O’Yadav district’s Paknhai commune, community leaders said yesterday.
Sav Finh, leader of Lom village’s forestry protection committee, said provincial and forestry administration officials visited the cleared area late last week to warn villagers not to take direct action against the company again. …
O’Yadav district governor Dork Sar said the forest belonged to the state and that, if the company had been granted the land, the villagers had no right to stop the company’s activities. …
Three members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) on Monday filed a complaint with police in Kompong Chhnang province, accusing irate villagers of torching a wooden shelter built for them by the well-connected KDC agro-industry firm.
The soldiers have accused local residents, who have been involved in a years-long land dispute with KDC, which is owned by the wife of Industry Minister Suy Sem, of burning down a wooden shelter on Saturday where the soldiers were stationed on the disputed land in Kompong Tralach district. …
Contacted yesterday, residents in the area said they were provoked into starting the fire when groups of unidentified men showed up on Friday and Saturday and began to measure and install demarcation posts on the 145 hectares of land over which 51 families have fought with KDC for ownership rights since 2007. …
The newly appointed Kompong Thom provincial governor on Tuesday promised more than 500 families who were forcefully evicted by a Vietnamese rubber plantation more than three years ago that they would be given replacement land to farm on early next month.
Security forces evicted villagers from Santuk district’s Kraya commune in December 2009 to make way for the Tan Bien-Kompong Thom Rubber Development Company, which was granted an 8,100-hectare land concession in the area. For the past three years, the families have been living at a relocation site with no farmland, about 5 km away. …
Food shortage is a major problem for the evicted villagers, said Nhem Sarath, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc. “This matter caused by the provincial authorities, for not helping the villagers on time, has caused them food shortage and some families have moved away,” he said.
“I don’t know how to protect the territorial integrity [of the nearby Cambodian-Thai border] – even my three hectares of land I cannot protect,” said Bun Chanthorn, 54, one of hundreds of retired and active soldiers who since 2010 have been battling the local authorities and a rubber company over thousands of hectares of land in Pursat’s Veal Veng district. …
“When the country has a war, they need us, but when it is peaceful, they threaten to seize our land without considering our seniority, without considering how we sacrificed our lives for the nation,” he said.
Though Chanthorn has long farmed this land, he has been barred from continuing to do so in the past year by Oknha Try Pheap’s MDS Import-Export Co, Ltd, which was granted a 4,373-hectare concession in the area in December 2010. The new commune chief, said Chanthorn, refused to accept a receipt of ownership issued by his predecessor on the pretext that the area lay inside a conservation zone.
When volunteer students came to the area starting last June, they measured the company’s land, avoiding the villagers, locals told the Post. …
Khoy Sokha, Pursat provincial governor, insisted that the government was working on a solution to the dispute. …
“If they are really soldiers’ families, they will get their social land concession. I will find it for them,” he said. …
Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav are all subsidiaries of HAGL, according to the company’s 2012 annual report.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas and Hoang Anh Lumphat’s concessions lie inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which rights groups have said is being decimated by illegal loggers who then bring the wood onto company land.
Very similarly named companies – including one called Hoang An Andong Meas, which has a 9,775-hectare concession inside Virachey National Park – operate elsewhere in the province.
Article 59 of the Land Law stipulates individuals or legal entities controlled by the same person cannot hold more than 10,000 hectares of ELCs, even if it is spread over multiple concessions. …
When activists Mom Sakin and Sorn Siyan took a stand against illegal logging in Kratie province last month, they were allegedly threatened with violence and lawsuits from officials.
“Powerful people who wanted to intimidate us shot their guns into the air to prevent us from going into the forest,” Sakin, a member of the provincial branch of the Community Peace Network, said yesterday. …
Stories like these are becoming more frequent among human rights defenders and activists, particularly those seeking to counter illegal logging, rights group Adhoc said yesterday.
“So far in 2013, 48 [human rights defenders] and activists have been threatened for their work relating to the protection of environmental and natural resources,” Adhoc said in a statement. “Those working to protect poorer Cambodians against rights abuses have repeatedly found themselves threatened and intimidated by the authorities, often at the bequest of rich and well-connected business figures.” …
Jarai minority villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district protested in two locations yesterday against a Vietnamese company that community leaders say has been clearing their protected land and forcing villagers to accept inadequate compensation.
Community leader Sev Hem said 30 angry villagers directly confronted five Company 72 workers and their bulldozers in Yatung commune’s Ten village yesterday. …
Villagers and local rights group Adhoc claim Company 72 had forced 10 families in Ten village to give their thumbprints to an agreement accepting $200 per hectare in compensation. …
Authorities have demolished the homes of 25 families living on the site of an obsolete airfield in Preah Vihear province’s Choam Ksan district, a rights group and the families said Sunday.
The families were ordered to move off the land on Wednesday, with the district governor Sok Hai saying they had no legal rights to the land but declining to say what the area was being cleared for.
On Friday and Saturday, the authorities tore down all the houses after families refused to obey the order to leave, according to Adhoc provincial coordinator Lor Chan, who said more than 30 police and military police arrived in the area to carry out the demolition. …
According to Adhoc, some of the villagers say they have lived on the land since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. …
“The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but nothing happens and Company 72 never stops,” said Chhay Thy, provincial co-ordinator for rights group Adhoc. Companies are not allowed to fell protected forest even if the forest overlaps with land granted to the company, he added. …
Company 72, for which no contact information was available, was allegedly caught clearing more than 40 hectares of protected forest in another part of O’Yadav district last week and was summonsed by the Ratanakkiri provincial court to face accusations of illegal logging in February. …
Human rights group Adhoc yesterday criticized a commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district for accusing one of its staff of incitement and spreading disinformation after villagers traveled to Phnom Penh in March to protest over a land dispute with well known businessman Try Pheap. …
As part of his work Mr. [Phuong] Sothea had provided the families with information on land rights and advocacy methods. On March 15, he had also helped a workshop in Pursat city with families and local authorities to discuss the situation.
Mr. Sothea said yesterday that he was innocent and had not incited the villagers. …
In its statement, Adhoc said that Mr. Sothea had merely provided the affected families in the land dispute with information on land rights and advocacy methods, and “at no time did he engage in legal activities.” …
More than 40 hectares of protected forest in Rattanakiri’s O’Yadav district was razed by a Vietnamese company over the course of six days before they were stopped yesterday by villagers and investigators from rights group Adhoc, a local official said.
Sav Hlin, a village chief in the district, said he had received news from villagers that the company – known to them as Company 72 – had been working in the area.
“After I found out they were clearing the forest, we went straight there to stop the vehicles immediately,” said Hlin, who added that more than 40 hectares of the forest land had been cleared by the time he got there with a group of villagers and two Adhoc investigators. …
A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. …
Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 logs had been discovered in the area and also rejected the $100 million estimate of logs’ worth. “I only said that the provincial Forestry Administration discovered more than 3,000 pieces of luxury wood,” Mr. Thy said. “I am not sure where this figure comes from,” he added, referring to the $100 million.
Although the timber was discovered on a concession held by the Hua Anh rubber company, Mr. [Phan] Phoeun [provincial Forestry Administration chief] said he did not believe the company was involved in logging. …
My Thy said … 29 families who had relied on the trees for resin had told Adhoc staff that they had no choice in the felling of the trees, but were compensated by Hua Anh company as well as Fib Rubber, a Chinese rubber firm. …
A rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of encroaching on communal land belonging to an ethnic minority in Ratanakkiri province has cleared 150 hectares of forest outside of its economic land concession (ELC) in the past month, according to the senior investigator for local rights group Adhoc.
A communal forestry committee formed by ethnic Jarai minority residents of Lom village in O’Yadaw district’s Paknhai commune has monitored the operations of Vietnamese-owned Company 72 over the past month and reported to Adhoc that, despite promises not to do so, the company has continued to clear land outside of its 6,000-hectare ELC. …
Mr. [Pen] Bonnar [Adhoc’s senior investigator] said that most of the wood that has been cleared by the company in the past month is of low value, and would probably be burned to allow the company to expand its rubber plantation.
Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law says indigenous communities should receive automatic protection of their forests, but Lom villagers have complained over the past five months that what’s left of their land is being systemically cleared by Company 72 and Day Dong Yoeun, another Vietnamese company. …
A commune official in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district has filed a lawsuit accusing a human rights worker of incitement and disinformation after villagers the NGO staffer spoke to traveled to Phnom Penh to protest over a land dispute involving a well-known businessman Try Pheap.
Pursat Provincial Court prosecutor Tan Seihak Dechak said that on Monday, Thma Da commune chief Prom Ngoy submitted a complaint against Adhoc provincial coordinator Phuong Sothea alleging that the human rights worker was guilty of criminal incitement and spreading misinformation. …
More than 25 families living on the site of the long-disused airfield in Preah Vihear province have been ordered to move off the land, a district official said yesterday. …
“The authorities are forcing residents to leave without compensation and this eviction is illegal because they have stayed for a long time [since 1979],” said Lor Chan, provincial coordinator at Adhoc, adding that 50 other families at the site have been left alone. …
More than 100 villagers living on a 20-hectare swath of a rubber plantation in Ratanakkirri province gathered outside O’Chum commune hall yesterday to protest their eviction at the hands of a Chinese company, local officials and rights activists said.
About 120 families from Trang Churng Village in O’Chum district, who are living on the land that was sold by locally owned Tay Seng Company to China’s Fib Rubber Co. Ltd. in 2010, called for authorities to intervene after they were informed by representatives of the company that they would be evicted. …
But commune chief Kham Sovy said that there was nothing that local officials could do to help, as the land was legally purchased by Fib Rubber Co., even though the villagers have been living on the land for nearly two decades. …
Cambodia’s land law stipulates that the state has an obligation to grant ownership to any Cambodian person who, for at least 10 years prior to the passing of Cambodia’s new Civil Code in 2011, had uncontested possession of the land.
But O’Chum district governor Pak Son said that the villagers must go.
“We explained that they are living here illegally . This is not an economic land concession, this is company land,” he said.
The villagers can apply for a social land concession through their villager or commune chiefs,” he added. …
Hundreds of indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province are being made worse off by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme which, rather than securing their property rights, is contributing to the loss of their ancestral lands, according to a new report.
The report supports complaints aired since last year by minority communities in the country’s northeast that the prime minister’s land-titling initiative, known as Directive 01 and launched in June, is depriving them of their rights to communal land titles.
Produced by seven organizations, including the Community Legal Education Center and the Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, the authors of the report surveyed 79 villagers in Ratanakkiri province where indigenous communities had started the application process for communal titles.
The survey found that 26 of those communities, or roughly 1 in 3, had all or parts of their land demarcated for private land titles under Directive 01, and 25 of those 26 communities were disappointed with the project and the private titles on offer.
“One of the their most common reasons for dissatisfaction was because the policy did not secure their communal land, and in fact caused them to lose more land,” the report says. …
Besides jeopardizing their traditional farming practices and very ways of life, Mr. [Chhay] Thy [Adhoc's Provincial Investigator] said, indigenous families were worried about making ends meet without their communal lands and on the low salaries offered at rubber plantations. …
Officials in Ratanakkiri province are investigating the provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc for incitement after he helped villagers organize a demonstration, ultimately canceled, against a Vietnamese rubber company in O’Yadaw district. …
Mr. [Chhay] Thy, [Adhoc's Provincial Investigator] said yesterday that he met with about 100 ethnic Jarai residents from Paknhai commune’s Lom village on Thursday morning preparing for a demonstration against Company 72. The villagers accuse the firm of encroaching on communal land and illegally exporting wood harvested on its 6000-hectare economic land concession (ELC) to Vietnam. …
Families in Ratanakiri province yesterday logged a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing a trio of economic land concession (ELC) owners of illegally logging outside of their concession areas and felling their vital resin and palm oil trees.
Chan Naroun said she was among 29 families in Kon Mom district’s Sre Angkramg commune who relied on tapping trees to make a living and accused the three firms of crossing over their boundaries- and into the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary-to cut them down since February. …
Chhay Thy, a provincial investigator for Adhoc who met with some of the families in their commune yesterday, identified the three firms behind the ELCs as Daun Penh Agri Co., Hoa Anh Andong Meas and Hoa Anh Lumphat. …
District governor Chhoeun Chanthean said the three ELCs cover about 15,000 hectares for growing rubber and palm oil trees. …
