By Pin Sisovann
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
Police shot into the air with automatic rifles, fired tear gas and baton-charged hundreds of land protesters who fought running battles with riot police on Phnom Penh's Street 598 on Monday evening, officials said.
The fighting broke out at around 5 pm when heavily armed police stopped 10 trucks carrying land protesters from Kandal province's Ang Snuol district as they were attempting to reach the National Assembly to implore lawmakers to assist in resolving their dispute.
Earlier on Monday, the protesters were stopped by police in Ang Snuol district and told to return to their village after authorities would only permit a symbolic group of 30 to submit their grievances to Kandal provincial officials. The group was later allowed to travel on to the Assembly and three of them met with Funcinpec lawmaker Khieu San, deputy president of a toothless national authority for resolving land disputes.
When the main body of villagers made a second attempt to reach Phnom Penh, police used weapons and excessive force, Adhoc monitor Chan Soveth said, adding that 29 men and women were injured during the street fighting, five seriously.
"The villagers only waded their way peacefully through the police roadblock but police beat them first before they threw stones in retaliation," Chan Soveth said on Tuesday. "It was a serious violation of their right of assembly," he said.
Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Ho Vann said that police attacked the protesters using tear gas and electric batons and then opened fired with AK-47s above the heads of the villagers.
The protesters, from eight villages in the district's Punsaing commune, claim that local authorities took 239 hectares of land farmed by villagers since the early 1980s and now claim that it belongs to a private company.
Phnom Penh Police Commissioner Touch Naruth said that eight of his officers were slightly injured during the confrontation with protesters, who he suspected of being drunk and belligerent and of attacking police with machetes, knives, a bayonet and stones.
"Who was violent?" Touch Naruth asked. "They should have sent five representatives and not hundreds with machetes who were drunk," he added.
Khieu San said he empathized with the villagers, who had planted rice on their confiscated land for decades.
"I feel hurt for those people," he said, adding that he was preparing a letter to inform Prime Minister Hun Sen of the villagers' plight.
The fighting broke out at around 5 pm when heavily armed police stopped 10 trucks carrying land protesters from Kandal province's Ang Snuol district as they were attempting to reach the National Assembly to implore lawmakers to assist in resolving their dispute.
Earlier on Monday, the protesters were stopped by police in Ang Snuol district and told to return to their village after authorities would only permit a symbolic group of 30 to submit their grievances to Kandal provincial officials. The group was later allowed to travel on to the Assembly and three of them met with Funcinpec lawmaker Khieu San, deputy president of a toothless national authority for resolving land disputes.
When the main body of villagers made a second attempt to reach Phnom Penh, police used weapons and excessive force, Adhoc monitor Chan Soveth said, adding that 29 men and women were injured during the street fighting, five seriously.
"The villagers only waded their way peacefully through the police roadblock but police beat them first before they threw stones in retaliation," Chan Soveth said on Tuesday. "It was a serious violation of their right of assembly," he said.
Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Ho Vann said that police attacked the protesters using tear gas and electric batons and then opened fired with AK-47s above the heads of the villagers.
The protesters, from eight villages in the district's Punsaing commune, claim that local authorities took 239 hectares of land farmed by villagers since the early 1980s and now claim that it belongs to a private company.
Phnom Penh Police Commissioner Touch Naruth said that eight of his officers were slightly injured during the confrontation with protesters, who he suspected of being drunk and belligerent and of attacking police with machetes, knives, a bayonet and stones.
"Who was violent?" Touch Naruth asked. "They should have sent five representatives and not hundreds with machetes who were drunk," he added.
Khieu San said he empathized with the villagers, who had planted rice on their confiscated land for decades.
"I feel hurt for those people," he said, adding that he was preparing a letter to inform Prime Minister Hun Sen of the villagers' plight.
4 comments:
OOOOH BoY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Cambodian cops and soldiers are a disgrace to their own country. They are only good for beating up, torturing and killing their own people and each other!
They exist to serve the interests of their masters who treat them even less than their pets. Their bestiality is beyond my understanding.
For whatever regimes they serve under, they have never been able to fulfill their noble duties and obligation of defending their motherland against Cambodia's ambitious and rapacious neighbours. Their behaviors are egregious and hopelessly doomed.
How pusillanimous and vicious they are to gang up on one poor unarmed Khmer as shown in the second picture!
Shame on them!
Anonymous 5:54AM,
You hit the nails on the head. I strongly agree with ya! I am proud to be Khmer, but at the same time I don't disclose myself very much in my current environment because what craps going on in Cambodia. I just feel sad for those people to have to endure the suffering. I just wish that all the people would stand up and have a civil war against these bastard government.
It doesn't look like the government do anything to improve society as whole, except corruption. That is why I wish the US government would a Leash on Hun Sen government.
Sihanouk's polices jailed, turtures, and killed KR movements. Later KR soldiers killed Khmer civilians like animals. Now those who blamed the cruelty of KR are themselves acting cruelly to the poor people. The only way to end this suffering is to stop believing in any Khmer leaders.
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