Police, military police and forestry officials evicted 100 families in Koh Kong province’s Smach Meanchey district yesterday, shooting into the air during the forcible removal to disperse villagers with the threat of violence. …
It was the second day of evictions in an area authorities say is state-owned land.
But Sam Serey said she and 40 families had lived there for five years and possessed documents signed by local authorities that had been upheld in a temporary court injunction ruling in their favour. …
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 Chinese New Year – from Choeung Sopheap, the powerful owner of controversial land development firm Pheapimex and the wife of CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin.
Pheapimex holds a number of economic land concessions around the country, most notably a 316,000-hectare site in Pursat province’s Krakor district where villagers have staged several protests alleging that their land was illegally cleared. Armed military police officers have been deployed to guard the concession. …
Rights groups have long accused government security forces, especially the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, of protecting the private land concessions of well-connected families in a clear conflict of interests. …
Chea Vannath, an independent political analyst, said this practice of private business owners providing money to state employees would inevitably raise questions. “What you see now is the result of the [informal] policy for the higher-ranking [officials],” she said. “So if there is any change, there needs to be a policy from the top that the military and the police have to be independent and not have…financial transaction whatsoever from the business or private sectors.” …
The government has publicly issued lists showing the costs of fees that businesses must pay to authorities for various services, in an effort to help companies avoid making informal payments made illegal by the anticorruption law.
The lists were drafted during the past year after Cambodia adopted articles in its Penal Code that stipulated that all informal payments made to officials were illegal. Foreign businesses here responded by informing the government that it was simply impossible to do business without paying such fees.
According to a proclamation signed by Finance Minister Keat Chhon on December 27, the list of fees covers 134 payments businesses often make to the ministry’s departments of customs and taxation—two bodies that investors have long cited as problematic due to their high levels of graft.
The proclamation also covers 175 different fees charged by the Ministry of Commerce and its CamControl department, which regulates the country’s imports and exports. …
The government is beset with high-level corruption, a lack of transparency in public procurements, poor auditing practices and political interference in the country’s main anti-corruption body, a report produced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) sent to the media yesterday states.
In a 66-page report that looks at how the government is managing its finances and fighting corruption, the ADB says that many of the country’s laws on public finances are simply not being implemented and that public procurement of goods and services needs to be improved at all levels of government, especially at a national level. …
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. …
Police in Banteay Meanchey province detained 298 people for trying to illegally cross the border to Thailand last week in Thma Puok district’s Kork Romiet commune, police said yesterday.
During questioning, all 298 detainees admitted that they were trying to cross the border in order to find jobs on farms or construction sites in Thailand, as they were currently unemployed while waiting for the rice harvest season to start next month. …
With an estimated 1 million people- 10 times more than Phnom Penh authorities had expected- lining the streets yesterday for the arrival of Norodom Sihanouk’s remains, legions of police, medics, and street sweepers were working behind the scenes to make sure everything went smoothly.
National Police spokesman Lieutenant General Kirth Chantharith said that more than 5,000 police officers, including municipal police, traffic police, military police, and royal bodyguards, were deployed to keep order. …
But if police successfully kept the crowd and dignitaries safe from arm, a relentless afternoon sun resulted in a series of faintings that ensured medical personnel stayed busy. …
PM Hun Sen’s September 20 cri de couer beseeching powerful officials and their friends and families to not fire or wield their weapons in restaurants and other public places, especially those haunts frequented by foreigners, threatens to spoil the sport most enjoyed by the Kingdom’s well-heeled elite. …
Indeed, little more than a week after Prime Minister Hun Sen’s edict, Preah Vihear police chief Mao Pov was charged for allegedly firing four to five shots in Siem Reap’s Lok Yen Hotel after a boozy Sunday night dinner on September 30. …
But when it comes to displays of pistol packing displeasure, the undisputed Hall of Fame candidate is Teng Bunma, once described as the “trigger happy tycoon.” He was the first president of Cambodia’s Chamber of Commerce, and he also owned the InterContinental Hotel in Phnom Penh and Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper. …
Forestry administration officials in Battambang province have stepped in to stop the destruction of a community forest area by military and police, officials said yesterday.
Over two past months, soldiers, police and military police have destroyed part of the 1,335-hectare Prey Tralach forest in Rokha Kiri district, which has been recognized as a community forest by the Ministry of Agriculture and therefore protected since 2004.
On Tuesday, a group of local officials halted the deforestation and dismantled a small dwelling being used by workers in the forest, said Rokha Kiri governor Pich Malay. …
“I don’t know who did it,” said Ly Choubeng, director of the Forestry Administration’s Battambang cantonment. …
A 75-year-old man living near the former site of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake was detained by police on Thursday after he was found collecting thumbprints from villagers for a petition calling for the release of jailed independent radio station owner Mam Sonando, villagers said Friday.
Chey Lay said he was visiting homes in Daun Penh district’s Srah Chak commune when six police officers approached him and ordered him to stop asking villagers to put their name to Mr. Sonando’s cause. …
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 Saran, 44, about 25 families had lived in the area since 2008, and had been asked to leave before. …
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday charged two government officials and four farmers from Kampong Thom province’s Stoung district with encroachment onto protected land after they allegedly bulldozed a flooded forest that was designated as a protected fish hatchery, police and NGO officials said. …
About 10 workers were beaten by police and military police during a protest over severance payments yesterday in Kandal province, workers and union representatives said.
Protests at Tai Yang Enterprises—which supplies clothing to U.S. brands Levi Strauss and Old Navy—in Ang Snuol district have been ongoing since May, when workers learned that the factory had changed its name to Tai Nan and became worried that their severance payments would be lost.
A peaceful march to appeal to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet in Phnom Penh for help on July 11 turned violent when police officers started beating the protesters and badly injured a union representative. …
Police have been accused of punching and shoving garment workers from Tai Yang and Camwell factories in Kandal province as the month-long strike over bonuses continued yesterday.
Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, said 11 people had been slightly injured after being attacked by about 60 police who were trying to prevent them from standing near National Road 4 in Ang Snuol district. …
The Phnom Penh Municipality issued a statement yesterday accusing the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions of violating their agreement when a garment workers’ protest on July 11 turned violent.
Some 20 garment factory workers from the Tai Yang factory had marched to submit a petition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet, when a union representative was beaten by police. …
Police in Battambang arrested six villagers embroiled in a land dispute with a local businessman on Wednesday after 10 other villagers accused them of defrauding families in the area, deputy provincial governor Uy Ry said yesterday.
However, villagers and rights workers in Kors Kralor district said the arrests were merely designed to put pressure on the community, which has been locked in the dispute over land in Dounba commune for the past five years.
The arrests came shortly after more than 1,000 families in the area made a request for student volunteers to demarcate their land under the government’s new land-titling project. …
Beehive radio station director and accused “secessionist” Mam Sonando was sent to Prey Sar prison yesterday, where he will be detained until his trial on formal criminal charges including insurrection, a conviction that alone could result in up to 15 years behind bars.
After two and a half hours of questioning by investigating judge Sem Sakola, Sonando, the alleged mastermind of a so-called secessionist plot in Kratie province, was escorted by court guards from the court building directly to a police car for immediate transportation to Cambodia’s most notorious prison. …
After two hours of questioning, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sent independent radio station owner Mam Sonando to Prey Sar prison for pretrial detention, where he will await a hearing on allegations that he tried to foment a secessionist movement in Kratie province.
As Mr. Sonando was being questioned, dozens of his supporters protested outside, waving posters calling for his release and chanting about injustice. Speaking briefly with reporters after leaving the investigating judge’s office, Mr. Sonando, who owns the Beehive Radio station, reiterated his innocence.
“I didn’t do anything, they just charged me [without reason]…. I’m not involved with anything,” he said, before being hustled away by police.
The Kratie Provincial Court charged Mr. Sonando in early July while he was in the U.S. and issued a warrant for his arrest. The court case was then transferred to Phnom Penh yesterday. Sem Sakola, the questioning judge, could not be reached for comment, while his clerk, Sorn Kimsan, declined to comment.
“I don’t dare talk about this case because I’m afraid I might get something wrong,” Mr. Kimsan said. …
Police in the capital yesterday arrested the alleged leader of a “secessionist plot”, Beehive Radio station director Mam Sonando, who had already been abroad for two months when hundreds of security personnel stormed a Kratie province village in May.
Khieu Sopheak, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, told the Post that the Association of Democrats president, who arrived back in the country on Thursday after spending time in the US and France, was charged with plotting against public civil servants, insurrection, interference in the fulfilment of public duties and inciting people to use weapons against authorities.
Sonando’s wife, Din Phanara, said that police surrounded the house yesterday morning, and entered while her husband was dressing. …
A union representative who was beaten and detained by police during a protest Wednesday was released after being forced to sign a statement taking responsibility for starting a fight with authorities, union officials said yesterday.
A bloodied Rong Panha, a representative of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) —which forms part of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU)—was taken into custody after he and 20 workers of Tai Yang garment factory marched to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to submit a petition listing their demands.
According to a copy of Mr. Panha’s hand-written confession, the union representative states that he regrets “the scuffle” with the police on Wednesday and promises not to file a complaint. …
