The three land disputes of the day

[geovalin]

Evictees return to capital

Tue, 13 May 2014

Khouth Sophak Chakrya

Villagers representing hundreds of families embroiled in a land dispute in Kratie’s Snoul district returned to Phnom Penh yesterday to seek a resolution from a number of national government offices.

The same villagers handed over a petition to the prime minister’s Cabinet on May 3 after 200 houses were allegedly razed by Kratie provincial police.

On May 7, the authorities banned the families from returning to their Ksem commune homes because they have been living in a protected forest area, village representative Nguon Vibol said. “We were threatened with jail for between five and eight years,” he said.

More than 400 impoverished families living in the area since 2008 say that Bin Pheurk, a Vietnamese rubber firm, began clearing their farmland in 2012.

Kratie Deputy Governor Khan Chamnan said yesterday that 104 families had already been granted new land nearby and that a social land concession had been earmarked for others in a different district.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Court rules in tycoon’s favour

Tue, 13 May 2014

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday ruled in favour of a mining tycoon and convicted a Chinese-Cambodian widow of defaming the oknha during an embittered land dispute.

Sok Neang Gek, 46, an interpreter at a garment factory in the capital, was fined $1,000 and ordered to compensate Nim Meng, deputy commander of the prime minister’s bodyguard unit and a personal assistant to Hun Sen, $5,000.

“The court has found that Sok Neang Gek is not guilty of providing fake proof of owning about 10 hectares of land,” presiding judge Kim Dany said. “But the court has found that she is guilty of defaming Oknha Nim Meng’s honour.”

Meng’s defence lawyer, Bun Kong, said his client sued after Neang Gek made accusations in the Koh Santepheap newspaper that the tycoon grabbed 10 hectares of her Sihanoukville property in 2011.

“She has also reported this to [Hun Sen’s wife] . . . and asked [her] to tell it to Samdech Hun Sen,” Kong said.

Meng allegedly purchased 46 hectares in Otres commune, in Preah Sihanouk’s Stung Hav district, in 2005. But Neang Gek’s late husband owned a supposedly overlapping plot of land in Otres, purchased in 1998.

In 2009, after her husband passed away, Neang Gek had the plot measured and the title was put in her name.

“But when my client, the provincial prosecutor and other relevant authorities came to implement the provincial court’s decision at the site, many armed forces, who were General Nim Meng’s soldiers and also Prime Minister Hun Sen’s bodyguards, blocked them from entering,” defence lawyer Kea Chhay said.

According to the provincial cadastral department, Meng’s 46 hectares are not registered on the cadastral list.

“I think that this court’s decision was not justice for my niece. We will appeal it,” said Taing Kea, Neang Gek’s uncle who represented her in the court hearings, which she did not attend.

++++++++++++++++

‘Gangsters’ target rights worker

Mon, 12 May 2014

Amelia Woodside

A land dispute in the capital’s Tuol Kork district escalated further on Friday when a group of “gangsters” allegedly threatened the life of a human rights worker taking video footage for a documentary on the conflict.

“Six men pushed me off the site. One screamed: ‘I will not allow you to be free,’ and another swung an axe near my head. They were carrying axes, hammers and knives, and said they worked for the landowner,” said Vann Sophat, a project coordinator for the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR).

Three families continue to refuse to vacate the small piece of land despite allegedly enduring a daily routine of threats and intimidation from a group of hired thugs. The families claim the men have been ordered to make their lives unliveable by tycoon Khun Sear, a politically connected businessman.

“Khun Sear is so powerful that he can get away with just about anything without lower authorities getting involved,” Nan Ony, a legal officer with the Housing Rights Task Force, said.

The tactics used against the three families have allegedly included assaults and a bag of cobras being thrown into one house. And while the families have been living on the land for more than 30 years, the Council of Ministers issued a letter in October 2010 effectively signing the land over to Sear.

According to CCHR, residents have repeatedly tried registering their land but to no avail.

Representatives of Sear’s company, registered as Khun Sea Import Export, could not be reached yesterday.

Despite living in what many would describe as untenable circumstances, 60-year-old Ly Srea Khenh says his family isn’t going anywhere.

“I won’t bow to this company or take their compensation money because all we want is to live on our land. The company is acting like a thief.”

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHHAY CHANNYDA