Duch’s neighbours reflect on his life

Sebastian Strangio and May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Kampong Thom province
THESE days, life in Chaoyot village, a collection of stilt houses nestled along the banks of the Stoung river, proceeds in much the same way it did 68 years ago, when Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was born to parents of Khmer-Chinese extraction. It was here, in a small concrete home shaded by bamboo groves and mango trees, that Duch spent his childhood years, cycling each day the short distance to the local primary school.

The rustling palms and rutted village track are worlds away from Tuol Sleng, or S-21, the secret Khmer Rouge facility that Duch moulded into an efficient machine of interrogation, torture and death. As head of the prison, Duch is thought to have overseen the torture and killing of as many as 16,000 people, creating a nihilistic whirlwind from which only 14 or so emerged alive.

As the Khmer Rouge tribunal prepares to deliver its verdict against the 68-year old today – perhaps the only one it will ever issue – the proceedings have not gone unnoticed in Chaoyot. But the desire to see justice served means different things to different residents; whereas some are unsure how to relate Duch’s crimes to the abuses they personally endured during the regime, others seem to feel their effects acutely.

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Brick attacks plague riverside

By Cameron Wells and May Titthara 
The Phnom Penh Post

 AMES Grant didn’t see it coming. Literally. As he was walking in Daun Penh district with some friends one night last month, a chunk of rock “about the size of my fist” struck him in the back of the head, causing him to black out for a few seconds.

“It was me and three girls walking along the riverside. We were just talking, and all of a sudden something hit me in the back of the head,” he said. “It felt like someone just punched me.”

He said one of the girls saw that the rock had been thrown from “a gold 4x4 Lexus”.

“Because we were walking in a line, it bounced off my head, hit my friend’s stomach and then came across my other friend’s foot,” he said of the attack, which occurred on June 16.

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Publisher accused of fraud and extortion

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

THE publisher of a monthly newspaper in Kampong Thom province has been arrested and sent to court on suspicion of using an illegal press licence plate, and police have also accused him of illegally trying to extort money from wood vendors.

Horn Dara Huol was arrested this week and sent to the provincial court, said deputy provincial prosecutor Seng Meng Sruong. The 47-year-old publishes the monthly Chhanteak Kuon newspaper.

Seng Meng Sruong said Horn Dara Huol was charged with using a press licence plate that had not been registered with the Interior Ministry, and that he faced between two and five years in prison and a fine of up to 10 million riels (US$2,383) if convicted.

Khuon Bunhuor, the military police chief in Baray District, said police had been investigating Horn Dara Huol for some time, and accused the publisher of setting up illegal checkpoints where he would stop wood vendors and demand money. He said Horn Dara Huol told the vendors that he would write damning stories about them if they did not pay. 

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HIV/AIDS evictees get new homes

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

GROUP of 44 HIV/AIDS-affected families that were evicted from their homes in Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community in June 2009 and forced to live in green metal sheds in Dangkor district received replacement housing yesterday.

Rights groups had long bemoaned conditions at the Tuol Sambo relocation site, which is about 20 kilometres from the capital, complaining in particular about poor infrastructure and the “oppressively hot” 3.5-by-4.5-metre green metal sheds the families were forced to occupy.

Suon Saren, 30, said yesterday that she was pleased to move to one of the new 4-by-7-metre concrete homes provided by the NGO Caritas Cambodia.

“When I first arrived at Tuol Sambo and was forced to live in that green metal house I could not sleep at night, and it affected my heath, but now that I have received a new house I think I will get better,” she said.

“The high temperatures in the metal sheds used to damage our medicine, but with the new houses we hope this won’t be a problem,” she added.

Mann Chhoeun, former deputy governor of Phnom Penh, said yesterday that despite the wave of criticism triggered by the eviction, the government remained committed to helping affected families establish and support themselves.

“We will manage this village and provide the people with a vocational centre, which will in turn provide them with jobs sewing clothing, producing soap and growing flowers,” he said. “And we will construct a small market where they can run a business, and also allow them to sell their products at the night market near Phsar Chas.”

Kim Ratana, director of Caritas Cambodia, said his group would continue to support livelihood development at the site. “We will help them operate small businesses such as bottling water, producing soap and making other products by hand so they can enhance their standard of living and develop Tuol Sambo into a small industry area,” he said.

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Government: Jail crowding a tough issue

By James O’Toole and May Titthara 

THE Interior Ministry’s General Department of Prisons said in a report this week that “significant progress” has been made in the Kingdom’s prison reform effort, though it acknowledged the daunting challenged posed by overcrowding.

The ministry’s report comes as rights group Licadho this week published its own document detailing the problem of overcrowding in the Kingdom’s jails and warning that Cambodia could have the most overcrowded prison system in the world within a decade if inmate population growth continues near current levels.

Released at a conference with government officials and development organisations on Sunday and Monday, the report from the prisons department cites improvements in areas including healthcare, rehabilitation and infrastructure. Such gains are threatened, however, by “severe overcrowding” nationwide, the report adds.

“Overcrowding has impacted upon the capacity to maintain the physical facilities, provide adequate healthcare and other services such as water supply, the sewage system, staff roster and routine,” the report states.

The prison department pegs Cambodia’s inmate population as of June at 13,944, a 4 percent increase from December and well beyond the system’s official capacity of 8,000. Prisoners held prior to sentencing formed almost a third of this group.

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Sky-high prisoner numbers a concern

May Titthara and James O’Toole 
The Phnom Penh Post

CAMBODIA’S prisons could be the most overcrowded in the world inside a decade without broad-based reform of the Kingdom’s criminal justice system, according to a new report from rights group Licadho.

The report, scheduled for release today, says that even substantial increases in capacity over the next few years will do little to stop the overcrowding that plagues penitentiaries.

“It really needs to be a systematic approach,” said Licadho consultant Jeff Vize. “It’s more of a criminal justice issue that the prisons alone can’t handle.”

Heng Hak, director general at the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons, declined to comment at length on the report.

He said, though, that his office was working on a “master plan” for penal reform that he said would be finalised and submitted to ministry officials at a still-undetermined date.

The department hopes to address the overcrowding issue in part through the construction of Pursat province’s Correctional Centre 4, which government officials say will eventually house 2,500 prisoners. CC4 opened in January and housed 154 prisoners as of last month, Licadho said.

Even with the construction of a new CC4-sized prison every year, however, the Kingdom will be unable to properly accommodate its prisoner population if inmate growth levels continue apace. If the prison system adds 400 beds per year over the next decade, which Licadho says is “roughly the current growth rate”, the prison system will be at 165 percent of capacity in 2019, assuming 5 percent annual growth in the inmate population.

This estimate, Licadho says, is conservative. If the average annual growth rate of the past five years, 14 percent, continues, Cambodia could add 400 beds per year and still end up with the most overcrowded prison system in the world by 2018, the report says.

Bjorn Rahm, head of office for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Cambodia, said that his organisation was working with the government on an assessment of prisoner population growth .

“It is likely that there will not be one solution to the problem, but a combination of different actions that could or should be taken,” Rahm said.

Court summons Omlaing trio

By May Titthara and Will Baxter

The Phnom Penh Post
 

THREE village representatives linked to a land dispute involving a sister of Prime Minister Hun Sen have been called to Kampong Speu provincial court to answer to allegations that they tried to kill employees of a developer, two rights groups said yesterday.

HLH Agriculture, which is jointly controlled by Hun Seng Ny and Singaporean Ong Bee Huat, has accused the representatives – Min Pek, Suong Davin and Hang Boeun – of attempting to kill several of the company’s employees during a November 2008 protest over 450 hectares of disputed land in Omlaing commune, located in Kampong Speu’s Thpong district, said Ouch Leng, a land programme officer for the rights group Adhoc.

The three village representatives, who have not been charged with any crime, dismissed the allegations as baseless yesterday.

“On that day in 2008 we were walking back from our rice fields carrying machetes,” said Hang Boeun, 46.

“We only wanted to see the other villagers protesting against the HLH Agriculture staff because they were preventing them from clearing our farmland.”

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On that day in 2008 we were walking back from our rice fields carrying machetes. We only wanted to see the other villagers....

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Hang Boeun said five other villagers were summoned for questioning in 2008 in connection with the incident, but no arrests were ever made.
Min Pek, 45, expressed concern that the court would reflexively side with the company.

“I know that poor people never win in court against the rich, but I have to appear at the court because if I don’t go I will face arrest,” he said.

Hun Seng Ny has been cooperating with Ong Bee Huat since March 2009 to develop agro-industrial corn plantations in Kampong Speu, Ouch Leng said, and added that the company had a history of impinging on land claimed by villagers.

In March 2009, HLH Agriculture was also awarded a 9,985-hectare concession in nearby Oral district.

According to its contract with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the company is required to pay just US$1 per hectare in annual rent.

Ong Bee Huat could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Naly Pilorge, director of the rights group Licadho, said the company “has publicly admitted that the prime minister’s sister is [its] local partner”.
“So any concession this company has is linked to her,” she said.

Kampong Speu provincial Judge Keo Mony declined to comment on the Omlaing case yesterday.

Prison farm may face a rough road

By May Titthara and James O’Toole 
The Phnom Penh Post

Pursat Province
THE road to Pursat province’s Correctional Centre 4 narrows as it wends past rice paddies and into the forests of the Cardamom Mountains, stretching less than two metres across at some points over rocky, loosely-packed earth.

Prison officials hope the facility will one day house 2,500 prisoners who will receive agricultural training as they serve their out sentences. Observers say, however, that there is more rough terrain ahead before these ambitious plans can be realised.

Prisoners first arrived at CC4 in January, and 154 were housed there as of last month, according to local rights group Licadho. As part of what the government says is a nation-wide rollout of vocational training programmes in correctional centres, inmates at CC4 spend their days farming corn, cassava and other crops.

This arrangement is in stark contrast to other detention facilities, which rights groups have criticised for confining prisoners to their cells for days on end, with little opportunity for work or exercise.

As prisoners passed behind him carrying buckets of water and farming equipment last month, CC4 director Hin Sophal extolled the virtues of the agriculture programme and spoke of his ambitions for the facility.

“I want this prison to be run according to international standards, with five branches that can house 2,500 prisoners in total,” Hin Sophal said, surveying the grounds from his temporary office.

Prisoners, though perhaps fearful of voicing complaints, said CC4 was a clear improvement over the prisons where they had previously been held.

“When we work we can see the clouds, and that makes us feel happy,” said Heng Chamroeun, 23, who was previously housed at Pursat provincial prison.

This sentiment was echoed by 26-year-old Nou Rotha, formerly of Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, who alluded to the abuse of prisoners that rights groups say is widespread.

“I don’t have any desire to try and escape from this prison because it doesn’t have a punishment room like Prey Sar,” he said.

Nevertheless, if CC4 is to expand to accept offenders serving long sentences, it will need to add concrete walls to ring the facility, Hin Sophal said.

CC4’s proposed expansion – which has not been finalised by the government – has already drawn concern. Christophe Peschoux, the country representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said a planned juvenile wing at the isolated site would be extremely difficult for parents to visit. In a report set to be released today, meanwhile, Licadho says previously floated plans for commercial agriculture at CC4 could violate Cambodian and international law.

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Hundreds of families block land-clearing

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Kampong Speu Province

AROUND 256 families from Kampong Speu province’s Trapaing Chor commune held a sit-down protest in Phlout Leu village yesterday to prevent a sugar firm from clearing their farmland, villagers said.

Villager Lot Sovan, who claims to have occupied the land since 2000, said the company began clearing the land at 3:30pm Wednesday. Villagers asked the company to stop, insisting that the dispute over the concession had not been resolved. The villagers then prevented further clearing by protesting yesterday, he said.

Kampong Speu Sugar Company, which is registered in the name of Kim Heang, the wife of Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat, received a 9,053-hectare land concession in 2009 to plant sugarcane.

In the same month, Phnom Penh Sugar Company, owned by Ly Yong Phat himself, was granted more than 9,000 hectares in the adjacent Omlaing commune, home to more than 2,000 families. This, the villagers say, is in violation of Article 59 of the Land Law, which limits the size of concessions to 10,000 hectares.

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Companies will continue to evict us in the future. We prefer to die on our own land.

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Villager Koy Hak, 43, said 49 families from his village, which covers 89 hectares of disputed land, came to join the protest yesterday morning to prevent Kampong Speu Sugar Company from clearing the any more ground.

“We did not allow them to begin clearing the land because they did not talk to us; they just want to take over our land and have us move on,” he said.

He said that the company wanted the villagers to relocate to an area about 7 kilometres from their homes, a solution residents see as untenable.

“How can we get ownership of that land? That land belongs to [the military]. Companies will continue to evict us in the future. We prefer to die on our own land,” he said.

However, Chem Sarim, the governor in Oral district, downplayed the dispute, saying that there were no issues with the sugar companies.

Ouch Leng, land programme officer for rights group Adhoc, said the two companies were both guilty of the same transgressions. Both, he said, were taking over villagers’ land without providing fair compensation.

“They have shown complete indifference to the government policy on land concessions,” he said.

“The government tries to make ways for companies to get a lot of land, but it causes villagers to lose their farmland, their main resource for support their livelihood.”

Kampong Speu Deputy Governor Pen Sambou declined to comment yesterday. Chhean Kimsuon, a representative for the two companies, could not be reached.

Tracing a trafficking journey

By May Titthara and Irwin Loy 
The Phnom Penh Post

LESS than two years after Prum Vannak, a migrant worker, crossed into Thailand via Poipet, he returned to Cambodia a victim of human trafficking.

The 36-year-old Banteay Meanchey province native followed his friend into Thailand in 2008, lured by the promise of a lucrative job in a factory.
His friend’s contacts were waiting for them at the border. They took him to the coast and put them on a boat.

“People in the boat told us that we were cheated by a broker,” Prum Vannak recalled this week.

“They sold us to work on a fishing vessel in the middle of the sea, so we had no choice. We had to work on the boat.” Conditions on the boat, he said, were “like hell”: Work was gruelling and nonstop, the food was never enough, and he never got paid.

When he saw an opportunity to flee as the boat made a rare stop in Malaysia, he took it. He had spent more than a year working for nothing on the vessel.

“When we escaped from the boat, we asked Malaysian police to arrest us,” he said. “We wanted to be held in prison more than working any longer on the fishing boat.”

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We wanted to be held in prison more than working any longer on the fishing boat.

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Prum Vannak is among the thousands of people who become victims of human trafficking every year in the Kingdom.

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Farmers to plant crops despite RCAF claims

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

TWENTY-FIVE families in Battambang province plan to begin planting a section of land that has been claimed by a military unit as soon as today, a representative said.

Soeun Soth, 34, said local officials had encouraged the families to plant on 390 hectares of land in Samlot district that is at the centre of a dispute with Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Military Region 5.

On July 4, villagers said they had been shot at by the soldiers, an allegation military officials denied. Three days later, villagers said 53 of 78 families that are party to the dispute received permission to plant on the land, but that the other 25 did not receive anything.

“We will go to plant the crops tomorrow, and we don’t know if violence will happen or not,” Soeun Soth said yesterday.

Military Region 5 deputy commander Tuy Bun Ly said he would not negotiate with the families.

Deputy district Governor In Savrith said he did not know how the military would respond to the planting attempts.

Five vets arrested after protest for land

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

 FIVE disabled veterans who this week pressed authorities to grant them a 4,000-hectare land concession were arrested as they tried to return home from a protest yesterday, representatives said.

Yan Yoeuk, director of Association Cripple Development, said roughly 160 demonstrators had agreed to end their protest, which began Monday, by yesterday morning. But he said five men were arrested near Wat Phnom as they were making their way home.

He said representatives from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet had earlier taken thumbprints from the protesters and vowed to resolve the issue.
But the subsequent arrests cast doubt over the promise, he said. “The authorities cheated my people by forcing them to give thumbprints to get the land,” he said.

Ouch Leng, a land programme officer for the rights group Adhoc, said he visited the five men at the Daun Penh district police office.

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Land Dispute: Farmers get permission to use land

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Farmers who on Sunday said they had been shot at by Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers for trying to cultivate 390 hectares of disputed land in Battambang province’s Samlot district were granted permission yesterday to plant on some parts of the land, villagers and a military official said.

Seak Nal, a village representative, said district officials had granted 53 of the 78 families involved in the dispute permission to plant crops on 5-hectare plots of the land in Kampong Lpov commune. Tuy Bun Ly, deputy commander of RCAF’s Military Region 5, which is involved in three land disputes in the area, denied that his soldiers had shot at the farmers, but confirmed that force had been used in the effort to stop them from cultivating the land.

He added that the soldiers were required to do everything in their power to recover the land, which officials say is protected, and that they were not trying to claim it for themselves.

“Now we allow them to plant on some part of land that they have cleared already to prevent them cutting down more trees for making their farms,” he said. District Governor Hen Sophan declined to comment.

City selects ‘freedom park’

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

MUNICIPAL officials have selected a site near Phnom Penh City Hall for the capital’s first “freedom park”, drawing criticism from some observers who say the move will do little to encourage free and open demonstrations.

Sok Penh Vuth, deputy governor of Daun Penh district, said officials had chosen a public park along Streets 106 and 108 to be designated as a demonstration zone. The zone is part of the government’s effort to enforce the new Law on Nonviolent Demonstrations, which critics have slammed for placing size limits on public protests.

Selecting the 50-by-210-metre area near Canadia Tower on Monivong Boulevard and the Spean Neak, or Dragon Bridge, serves multiple purposes, Sok Penh Vuth said.

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Scores of evicted families flout orders and return, citing disease

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

TOTAL of 173 families evicted in May from protected forest in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng commune have moved back, villagers said yesterday.

Villager Sam Sileang, 40, said that former residents of O’Ampil village had decided to return on June 29, after a protest staged in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Takhmao home did not spur official intervention.

“We could not live in the new relocation site just waiting to die,” Sam Sileang said. “Many families got sick, and we have no clean water.”

He said that about 16 villagers had become sick with malaria, typhoid and diarrhoea since moving to a relocation site in O’Rumchek village, 10 kilometres from O’Ampil.

On May 25, around 103 houses in O’Ampil were burned down by local authorities after Siem Reap provincial court ruled that the villagers were living illegally on the protected land.

Anlong Veng district governor Yim Phanna said that authorities had already tried to assist the villagers at the relocation site and would not allow them to stay on the protected land.

“We will force them to move to the new relocation place. I don’t know why they say it’s impossible to live in O’Rumchek, when others have been living there without problems,” he said.

Chhaom Chhoeun, 42, said the villagers were living in temporary housing in their old village, and that no authorities had forced them to leave again as of yesterday.

He said that if officials attempted to evict them, the villagers would appeal again to Prime Minister Hun Sen for intervention.

Prison accused of land-grabbing

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Twenty-seven families from two villages in Pursat province yesterday confronted prison officials accused of annexing 78.5 hectares of farmland to accommodate a planned expansion.

Nov Pheoun, a representative of Phteah Rong village in Phnom Kravanh district, said yesterday that a brief, nonviolent altercation took place with officials at Correctional Centre 4 (CC4) who he said had prevented residents of his village and Chungrok village from cultivating land they had occupied since 1998.

“Authorities have recognised us as legal [owners], but the agriculture prison guards did not allow us to plant and said that the land belonged to them,” he said.

CC4, which opened last year, operates vocational agricultural training and rehabilitation programmes for inmates.

Prison director Hin Sophal referred questions concerning the expansion to district officials, who he said had researched the affected area before granting the land to his facility.

“While conducting research, they found only 60 affected families, and our authorities have prepared 190 hectares for them already, so other villagers who are affected are the local authority’s duty,” he said.

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Deum Ampil divided by financial spat

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

THE chief financial backer of the Deum Ampil News Media Centre, which announced last week that it would be halting operations due to a funding shortage, said yesterday that she may launch a new newspaper with a different name as soon as this week.

Sieng Chanheng, who also owns the Heng Development Company, said the newspaper would need to begin publishing soon so that her staff could remain employed.

“Just wait and see tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. The new newspaper will come out,” she said.

Her daughter, Dim Sopheavy, the deputy director general of the media centre, also said the newspaper would launch soon. She declined to disclose its name.

“I will run a newspaper soon with the new name, and it will run as a daily, but I cannot tell you the specific name,” she said.

“You will see when the newspaper prints and we are on sale at the market.”

Soy Sopheap, the director general of the media centre, said last week that he had been forced to shut down its popular newspaper, magazine and radio programming after Sieng Chanheng demanded that he cut operating costs in half by firing many of its 110 employees, an allegation Sieng Chanheng has denied.

He said yesterday that he, too, planned to launch a new newspaper soon, though he added that he would need financial backing.

“I have no money to relaunch the newspaper on my own, so I am looking for a financial supporter to help publish it,” he said.

He added that he believed most of the centre’s employees would choose to work for him, though several said yesterday on the condition of anonymity that they were concerned he would not be able to finance a new project.

Yem Noy, director of the Information Ministry’s Media Department, said he had received no recent requests for newspaper licences, and referred additional questions to Information Minister Khieu Kanharith, who could not be reached yesterday.

Land dispute flares in Kandal

By Chhay Channyda and May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

TWO residents of Kandal province’s Kien Svay district have been arrested and briefly detained following a violent altercation with police related to a land dispute pitting a former deputy provincial governor against a sitting provincial councillor.

The altercation occurred Friday morning after about 50 police and provincial officials attempted to enforce a 2001 Appeal Court ruling that awarded 40 hectares of disputed land to Prak Savuth, a provincial councillor in Kratie province.

Rum Tekhamony, a former deputy governor of Kandal province, had also claimed the land, prompting the court case.

Chorn Phally, 49, said yesterday that she and her son were arrested after residents tried to block the authorities from approaching the disputed land in Samrong Thom commune’s Prek Treng village.

“They hit me and dragged me to the car,” she said, referring to police.

“My son was beaten with a gun until his ear was bleeding. They have guns and handcuffs, but we have no weapons.”

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Land concessions: $1/hectare

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

TWO companies linked to Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat are among five that were granted economic land concessions requiring them to pay only US$1 per hectare in annual rent in exchange for development rights, according to newly discovered agreements with the government.

The contracts with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries state that the five concessionaires must begin paying the “rental fees” five years after the concessions were awarded.

One of the firms linked to Ly Yong Phat, the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company, is at the centre of a land dispute that erupted in violence in 2006 when security guards fired guns to repel villagers protesting against the destruction of orchards.

The other, the Kampong Speu Sugar Company, is owned by Ly Yong Phat’s wife, Kim Heang. It borders a 8,343-hectare concession granted to another of his holdings, the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, which is embroiled in a heated dispute with more than 1,000 families.

That dispute has led to three arrests this year. According to a recent field report from the rights group Adhoc, more than 1,000 families are expected to face food shortages this year after being denied access to their farmland.

Ouch Leng, a land programme officer for Adhoc, which first obtained the agreements, said he believed it was a common practice for concessionaires to be charged what amounts to a nominal fee in exchange for development rights.

But he said the companies should be forced to pay higher rates, considering the costs incurred by villagers forced from their land.

“The government is not helping villagers get a better standard of living, but causing them to become poorer and poorer,” Ouch Leng said.
“No other country in the world is renting land at such a cheap price as Cambodia.”

Ly Yong Phat was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Chhean Kimsuon, a representative of the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, said she could not discuss the financial arrangements between the firm and the government.

However, she said the land concession would ultimately be beneficial for locals, providing jobs to 300 people.

“We will provide a lot of jobs for villagers when our company is operating,” she said.

Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Guards thwart Pursat jailbreak

By Mom Kunthear and May Titthara 
The Phnom Penh Post

A GROUP of 10 inmates has attempted to escape from a new prison in Pursat province that operates a vocational training programme aimed at teaching inmates agricultural skills, its director said Thursday.

Hin Sophal said the incident marked the second escape attempt at Correctional Centre 4 since it opened last year as part of a broader initiative to combat prison overcrowding. In March, the facility – designed to house 2,500 prisoners on 846 hectares of land – began growing sugarcane, rubber trees and potatoes as part of the vocational programme, which has been hailed as a potential model for reducing recidivism.

On Sunday, Hin Sophal said, the 10 prisoners – all of whom are between 19 and 23 and serving sentences for robbery or theft – began “to fight each other without reason” in their shared cell. Prison guards eventually broke up the fight and locked the prisoners in a room together.

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Activists warn: farm evictees face hunger

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

MORE than 1,000 families in Kampong Speu province face food shortages after being forced to give up their farmland without compensation to make way for economic land concessions granted to companies owned by Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat and his wife, rights activists said.

A field report released by local rights group Adhoc on Thursday accuses Ly Yong Phat and provincial officials of failing to compensate villagers affected by an 8,343-hectare concession granted to the senator’s Phnom Penh Sugar Company in Thpong district.

“We are concerned that in the coming year people will have no food and no rice to eat because it is already the rainy season, but they have no land where they can cultivate crops,” said Ouch Leng, a land programme officer for Adhoc. “The company has built a fence surrounding the disputed land, and is clearing and bulldozing land every day.”

San Thou, a village representative from Omlaing commune, said villagers do not know how they will support themselves in the coming year. “None of us have been able to plant any rice yet,” he said.

Mathieu Pellerin, a consultant for the rights group Licadho, said that the families could face “serious hunger issues”.

“It’s yet another example of [the government] pushing families into further poverty by granting a land concession that affects a large number of families and denies them access to land which represented their livelihoods for many years,” he said.

Kamimura Miku, a coordinator for the People’s Forum on Cambodia, Japan, which co-authored the report with Adhoc, said that in addition to the families still living in Omlaing commune, about 150 families that have moved to a relocation site near Pis Mountain in April are also facing food shortages.

Although villagers have managed to plant a few banana plants and some corn, the site lacks basic infrastructure and is difficult to access by road, she said.

But Pot Doeun, a Thpong district administrative official, dismissed the claims. “I don’t believe that our people will have no food to eat next year,” he said, and added that the people “still have some more land to farm”.

Ly Yong Phat could not be reached on Thursday. Thpong district governor Tuon Song declined to comment.