Suon Kanika, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
20/04/2007
Residents of the beach town Sihanoukville say they clashed with security forces loyal to the city governor Friday in a land dispute that led to shots fired and huts burned.
Yim Yorn, who heads the local branch of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom organization, said 10 people were wounded by about 100 armed police, military police and soldiers.
Twenty huts were torched in the dispute, Yim Yorn said.
"I am very hurt that the authorities from all departments mistreat people who are living peacefully," one villager told VOA. "They were all armed. We would like to appeal to Prime Minister Hun Sen, [Senate President] Chea Sim and [National Assembly President] Heng Samrin to help us have land for ourselves and live peacefully."
Hul Vantha, a local deputy police chief, said his forces acted according to the orders of Sihanoukville Governor Say Hak.
The governor could not be reached for comment.
Yim Yorn, who heads the local branch of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom organization, said 10 people were wounded by about 100 armed police, military police and soldiers.
Twenty huts were torched in the dispute, Yim Yorn said.
"I am very hurt that the authorities from all departments mistreat people who are living peacefully," one villager told VOA. "They were all armed. We would like to appeal to Prime Minister Hun Sen, [Senate President] Chea Sim and [National Assembly President] Heng Samrin to help us have land for ourselves and live peacefully."
Hul Vantha, a local deputy police chief, said his forces acted according to the orders of Sihanoukville Governor Say Hak.
The governor could not be reached for comment.
12 comments:
Violence against those who are unarm. I hope the FBI is watching this, Hok Lundy is the Police Chief and that is how is policy is run.
Ah Khmer-Yuons again? Damn, I hope
Vietnam will take them back.
Obviously, they can't stay here. We
all will be destroyed like them
soon if this keep up.
To knung phoap lok nis mian chiat na del chol kbod protes nung bong paon klun rbos klun chron chiang ke? Ku mnus chiat doch 6:05 cheng hoi.
This is a cruel and inhuman act, and deputy police chief Hul Vantha cannot not excuse his forces on the ground that they have acted according to the orders of Sihanoukville Say Hak.
Article 5 of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials which Cambodia has incorporated in its criminal law says:
No law enforcement official may inflict, instigate or tolerate any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, nor may any law enforcement official invoke superior orders or exceptional circumstances such as a state of war or a threat of war, a threat to national security, internal political instability or any other public emergency as a justification of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment .
Say Hak, Hul Vantha and his forces should be prosecuted for battery with injury and arson. If the prosecutor fail to arrest and bring them to court, then victims of such cruel and inhuman act can make a compleint against the Cambodian government to the Committe Against Torture which is based in Geneva. They need to collect all evidence of such a cruel and inhuman act to submit to that committee.
On the other hand this forced eviction fles straight in the face of our Prime Minister Hun Sen who had reseived full power for his party on 3 March 2007 to address the land grabbing issue and has since wage a war against land grabbers. He said that land grabbers are CPP officials and people in power.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
Nope, all law enforcer officers
have the right to self-defence from
animals like Ah Khmer-Yuons.
Mr.5:40AM
Self-defence must be proportional to the force used. Using 100 police and military officers and soldiers to beat up victims of eviction and set their houses on fire are not proportional to the force used by those victims who had resited the eviction.
All these forced evictions and the violence used there remind me of the reaction of Nuon Chea to such an eviction in Battambang province, an eviction that contrubited to pushing him to start off a revolution. He told me of a young couple with a few months old baby who had been forced by the police to vacate the field they had cleared and on whcih they had grown crops. The land belonged to a person living in Battambang town and had secured a title deed on the land through corruption.
Nuon Vhea had had hated the french colonialists who ill-treated his fellow Khmers. Yet Khmer officials, after the country's indepdendence, ill-treat their people just like the French colonialists, he said.
That ill-treatment and other developments eventually sparked oof a "peasant revolution" of which Samdech Hun Sen has repeatedly warned when facing increasing land grabbing. He is now waging a war against land grabbing, is he not?
It is not right to claim for instance that this land or that land is state land and the state need it to sell to private land developers. The people and the state are the same.
There is a need to proceed with thorough investigation by a court of law for registered land or by a cadastral commission for unregeristered land to find who are the rightful occupants or owners of the land. How and when the title deed was issued? if itwas a state land, whether there was any open bidding and when? Was there any law declaring that such land would be conficated for the purpose of public interest as stipulated in our Constitution? Was there any independent commission to determine fair and just compensation?
Governing a free people, unless our fellow Cambodians are slaves, needs to go though such a process however lengthy this process might be. This is one long term win-win solution. At the moment we are playing the zero sum game: a group of people (evictees) are made to suffer for the happiness of a tiny group of powerful and rich people, and our police, military police officer and soldiers are used to enforced the will of the powerful and the rich instead of protecting the poor and the weak. Where is our Khmer and human wisdom as inshrined in the saying: the rich look after the poor as woman cloth wrap around the body, scholars look after the ignorant as ships carry lifeboats(neak mean reaksa khsot doch sampot poit pi krau, neak prach reaksa khlau doch sampov nov sampan)?
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
Dr. Lao, you can't used one formula
for all. If that the case, well
mind have the computer and an
artificial intelligence software
to aminister all the laws for us.
And you know fair well, no one on
this planet would wanted that,
especially those hypocrites in the
west. They want to have their
"best lawyers money can buy" to
be able to manipulate and
interpret the law. Get it? Thus, it
make not send to argue about laws.
Just in good faith, let the court
handle it.
Mr. 10:22AM
Governing a fee people is a bit difficult for dictators. They prefer to rule slaves and become slave drivers. They don't like laws and courts either. The Khmer Rouge had none.
A free people has laws and courts that protect its freedoms as stipulated in our country's constitution. It is not above the law as Buddha was not above the Dhamma (also law) he himself had discovered and was preaching to others.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
Yeah, but you can't used Pol Pot
as a model for China, Burma, Laos,
or Vietnam. They are not the same,
Dr. Lao, despite there are some
common denominator between them.
The idea behind communist is
people unite to build their nation
by contributing equal shared amount
of works. If they are all rich,
they can have fancy court too to
help mediating despute among
people, but that is hardly the
case.
Anyways, most people who died
during an onset communist are those
who could potentially uprised
against them. That is the so called
educated people. So this forced
the communist to take preempted
selfdefense against them. Secondly,
the people died in communist is
due to their overwelming hatred
toward communist, and this show up
in your body language and facial
expression... . Other than that,
unless you're accused of being
spy or enemy, you should be
alright. Also, not everyone hated
communist either, their customers
are those who is extreme poor
who wanted a chance to survive,
and they will fight for it. So,
unless you can solve that problem,
communist will continue to
starre at you, hehehe.
As for your second paragraph, it is
a nice heavenly idea, but
regretfully, this is no heaven, Dr.
Lao. Free or not free people are
not equal as the stupid
constitution declared. The poor
will always serve the rich no
matter what. Sure they do have
choices, but a hell of a choices.
And in the legal battle against
the rich, the rich always have
the best lawyers that money can
buy, and what the poor has? ...
So if that is worth dying for,
count me out.
Mr.8:15AM
Your theory about the poor serving the rich is very interesting. But in some countries there are "from rags to riches" people, and the poor will not always serve the rich when they can become the rich as well. There are also self-employed people who serve nobody but themselves and their customers. In the several democratic and free countries where I used to live and work, I have noticed that people are more equal "socially": a minister going shopping, he or she is not treated by shop assistants any differently from other patrons. He or she does not any body guards or has mortocade to open the way for him or her. In Switzerland, the bpresident, ministers, MPs, government officials ride buses with ordinary people to go to work. In Denmark Ministers, MPs and top offials ride bicycles to go to work like many ordinary people. Anyway, I admit, those countries are western countries. They are demotracies and their people are or are born-free. But our beloved Cambodia is not a democracy yet, and we are not free people yet.
But what should be feared most is that our employment and livelihood depend on one single employer. We would become slaves. In the Khmer Rouge times, all were made to depdend on that single misterious Angkar and all were nobody but slaves. These days there are some people whose employment, power and wealth and livehood including status depend entirely on the ruling party or the government or Samdech Hun Sen. They are not far from being slaves when they cannot do and say anything disapleasing to them. This form of self-censorship make them lose their ability to think and then in the end their conscience. And they would do as told. This is a tragedy.
LAO Mong Hay,
Hun Sen's chidren read and tramslate Dr. Loa writing to your PHD father!
Learn something to be better as human! Stop being stupid!
Dr. Lao, don't let your perception
fool you. The bottom line, we are
not equal, in a legal dispute,
the poor has no chance. Another way
of putting it, people are not
legally equal, get it?
Anyhow, why are we putting so much
energy bickering about something
that doesn't cure any disease nor
stop hunger? It will do us a lot
better to channel our energy to
better our economy. Wouldn't you
think?
As for the Khmer Rouge's Regime,
there is no such thing as
employment, and they are not slaves
Your rhetoric is keeping you away
from the truth. In KR, people are
united to build the country by
contributing equal shared amount
of work, regardless whether or not
they are successfull at it. That
is the true intention behind all
communist regime. Stop adding craps
to it, will ya?
Post a Comment