CNRP: Vietnamese Renting Land

The government is in a seemingly never-ending PR battle to prove its independence from Vietnam, but that battle took a turn for the worse yesterday when opposition members told government officials that local residents in Svay Rieng province were renting land to Vietnamese farmers, an act explicitly banned by Prime Minister Hun Sen last November. Farmers were not only found to be renting their land to Vietnamese nationals, but many said Vietnamese tenants colluded with local authorities, who used Cambodian names on official documents to flout the government ban and hide the information from their superiors.

Five Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) members sent a letter to Interior Minister Sar Kheng and National Assembly President Heng Samrin on Tuesday, asking them to look into and potentially stop people living along the border with Vietnam in Svay Rieng province from leasing nearly 500 hectares of land to Vietnamese farmers. Mr. Hun Sen banned Cambodians living along the country’s border from selling or leasing farmland and residential land to people from neighboring countries Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in an edict released on November 17, 2015.

The main purpose of the directive was to help residents use their own land for cultivation, but government officials also said demarcating border posts would be more difficult if foreigners occupied land inside Cambodia. The letter says that in Chantrea district, residents reported that people were leasing 200 hectares of land to Vietnamese farmers. In Tuol Sdey commune, 196 hectares of land were being rented to Vietnamese nationals and 40 hectares were in Bavet City’s Prasat commune.

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