Military police enforce eviction

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

ABOUT 80 families from O'Tres commune, in Preah Sihanouk province’s Stung Hav district, held a brief protest at the city’s new Freedom Park yesterday, requesting official intervention in a land dispute with a local company.

Villagers claim military police surrounded the community following a Supreme Court ruling on Friday, which handed the land to the Ly Hong Sin Company, a local developer.

Mon Sina, a village representative, said the residents travelled to the capital because local authorities had shown no desire to address their concerns.

He said the land ceded by the Supreme Court lay in commune 1, which lies inside Sihanoukville town, but that military police were instead deployed in neighbouring Outreng.

After spending more than an hour at the Freedom Park without any visits from the authorities, the protesters then gathered in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s villa near the Independence Monument.

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Authorities demolish 78 homes

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Nearly 80 homes in Preah Sihanouk province’s Stung Hav district were demolished by authorities over the weekend following a Supreme Court verdict announced on Friday awarding the land to a development company.

Lou Vannaret, a resident of Lek Muoy commune, said residents have been banned from returning to their dwellings since
Friday, when the verdict was announced declaring the land the property of the Ly Hong Sin Company.

“Residents dared not come out and complain against them because they have military forces guarding them,” he said.
Village representative Mon Sina said that 149 families had been living in the area since 1999.

Kim Eng, deputy chief of the provincial court, said yesterday the demolitions were in accordance with the Supreme Court verdict.

“They are not homes,” he said. “They just built them up in the wild, and no one lives there. We have dismantled 78 cottages so far and we will leave the villagers to dismantle the remaining 43 huts by themselves.”

Representatives of the Ly Hong Sin Company could not be reached for comment

Villagers freed over land violence

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

AFTER hours of questioning yesterday, Kampong Speu provincial court officials decided not to detain three villagers summoned to appear in connection with the burning of a sugar company office earlier this year.

“We decided not to detain these people because they have many small children and another woman is a widow,” Judge Keo Mony said after the hearing yesterday.

But he said the villagers would have to present themselves at the Omlaing police office each month until further notice.

In March, angry villagers torched a makeshift building belonging to the Phnom Penh Sugar Company, a firm owned by Cambodian People’s Party’s Senator Ly Yong Phat. Local anger has been stoked by the company’s claims on 9,000 hectares of land in Thpong district’s Omlaing commune, a dispute that remains ongoing.

More than 300 villagers travelled to the court on Tuesday and waited outside the courthouse as yesterday’s questioning took place.

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The Building put on notice

By May Titthara and Sebastian Strangio 
The Phnom Penh Post

CITY authorities have warned that residents of the iconic Bassac apartment block in Chamkarmon district could be forced to vacate the building if it is deemed "unsafe" by municipal housing experts.

In a letter dated last Thursday, Governor Kep Chuktema described the 1960s-era apartment complex as "ruined" and said residents might be forced to relocate.

"To avoid danger, City Hall orders all villagers who are living [in the building] to stop repairing the building or adding onto the existing building without permission from expert officials," the letter said.

Residents should also "prepare to leave the building to find a new place to live" once experts made a final announcement about the state of the structure, it said. It did not say when such a decision was expected.

The grime-streaked apartment block, designed in the early 1960s by Russian architect Vladimir Boliansky and then-municipal planning director Lu Ban Hap, is one of the few remaining examples of the Khmer modernist architecture that transformed the capital during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Today, the Bassac structure – better known as The Building – is home to about 2,500 families, many of whom have lived there since moving into the abandoned edifice in the 1980s.

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Employee of sugar firm sues villagers

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

A REPRESENTATIVE of the Phnom Penh Sugar Company has filed a complaint accusing five villagers in Kampong Speu province of illegally detaining her for several hours last month during a confrontation related to an ongoing land dispute.

Chheang Kimsruon said yesterday that she had filed the complaint with the provincial court last Friday, though she refused to provide the names of the accused.

The complaint stems from an incident that took place on August 23, when about 300 villagers from Omlaing commune, located in Kampong Speu’s Thpong district, blocked National Road 52 for about 10 hours.

More than 2,000 families from Omlaing commune have been affected by a 9,000-hectare concession granted to Phnom Penh Sugar, which is owned by Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat.

Following the incident, Chheang Kimsruon claimed that her health had been at risk during the incident because she is diabetic.

“It is my right to protect myself, so I have filed a complaint against five village representatives,” she said. “I did not file the complaint on behalf of the company. I filed it on my own.”

Villagers say that they blocked the road in an effort to prevent the company’s employees from tearing down homes in O’Thmar Chruok village, and to force the company to negotiate. They contend that their intention was never to “detain” Chheang Kimsruon.

Phal Vannak, a village representative, yesterday said again that the villagers “just wanted to negotiate”.

Meanwhile, two other villagers involved in the same dispute are due to appear at the provincial court today to answer to allegations that they are living on the company’s land.

Chhuon Chuon, a 60-year-old teacher and one of the two men summoned, said yesterday that he planned to ask the court for a delay because he had been unable to find a lawyer.

PM accuses officials of eyeing park

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

PRIME Minister Hun Sen has accused officials of encroaching on land in Thma Da National Park, located in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, and warned that those who do so in the future would be subjected to “strict measurements”.

A statement issued on Friday afternoon by the Council of Ministers notes that Hun Sen raised the issue during its weekly meeting earlier in the day. It does not specify how many officials might have encroached on land in the national park, nor does it name any officials.

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan could not be reached for comment on the issue yesterday.

“I will take strict measurements against any people who do not respect this recommendation,” Hun Sen is quoted as saying in the statement.

Pursat provincial governor Chhay Sareth said yesterday that he had heard some officials were “preparing” to claim some of the land, but that he did not know what government bodies they worked for.

He said that some former Khmer Rouge families were permitted to live within the park.

Veal Veng district governor Chhe Chhiv said he did not believe any high-ranking officials were involved in plans to take over some of the park.
Because much of the park is dense forest and parts of it are contaminated with land mines, he said, the only threat to the land would likely come from soldiers looking to undertake small-scale farming.

“That land is covered by forest and mines under the ground, so there are no high-ranking officials involved in this,” he said.

Last year, a group of 195 families in Veal Veng district asked the Ministry of Environment to carve out a social land concession from the park. Math Osman, a representative of the families, said yesterday that the request had been denied.

Since then, he said, local environment officials have sold off sections of the land.

“They have sold the land to people who want to buy it – 1 hectare is from US$700 to $1,500 depending on its condition,” he said.

Thai Chinda, the head of the provincial Environment Department, declined to comment on the issue yesterday.

Omlaing men called to court

By May Titthara
The Phnom Phnom Penh

TWO residents of Kampong Speu province’s Omlaing commune said yesterday that they had been summoned to the provincial court to face allegations that they are living on land belonging to the Phnom Penh Sugar Company.

Chhuon Chuon said yesterday that he was convinced the summons was related to a complaint filed by the company, the recipient of a 9,000-hectare land concession affecting more than 2,000 families. The company is owned by Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat.

“The company wants to take over my land,” Chhuon Chuon said. “They asked me to move to a new area and said they would provide me with about US$500. But when I refused to move, they filed a complaint accusing me of living on the company’s land.”

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Kandal villagers demonstrate after representative’s arrest

By May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

AROUND 300 villagers in Kandal province gathered yesterday at the provincial court to protest the arrest of a representative involved in a land row with a local development company.

Officials say the Heng Development Company purchased 1,044 hectares of land in Kandal Stung district in 1996. But representatives of some 2,676 families say they have been farming the land since 1986 and thus are entitled to ownership.

Eang Yan, one of the representatives, said yesterday that military police arrested 45-year-old Vorn Vun while he was eating lunch on Saturday. He said he believed the officers had also intended to arrest himself and fellow representative Chea Hy, but that they had fled their homes and gone into hiding.

“The company tried to arrest three representatives, including me, but they could only arrest one because the two of us knew beforehand, so we ran away before the military police could come to our home,” Eang Yan said.

He said he believed that the company had filed a complaint accusing the three men of destroying company property during a protest last year.
But Sieng Chanheng, the director of the company, said yesterday that she had no knowledge of the arrest.

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