Suspects Sought in Battambang Shooting

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 April 2009

Police are searching for three businessmen in Battambang province, following the near-fatal shooting of a villager in Bavel district Wednesday night, in possible relation to an ongoing land dispute.

Bun Sophoas, 32, was shot outside the home of a representative for families who say their land is under threat by business interests in Knarch Romeas commune, local authorities said Thursday.

Bun Sophoas remained in serious condition in Battambang provincial hospital late Thursday.

Bun Sophoas is married to the sister of Kong Chan Mony, who represents 38 families of the Ovar Preng community, which spans 160 hectares of mostly rice fields. He had spent the night in their home Wednesday and was roused by the barking of a dog, around midnight. When he went outside to investigate, he was shot in the back.

Kong Chan Mony told VOA Khmer Thursday that the shooting was likely related to a dispute over the community, which he said has been under threat from three local businessmen—Nhiek Oeun, Mon Nika, and Moek Heng—since 1999.

“Before the shooting, the community received a verbal threat from [the businessmen], that they would be killed if they didn’t provide 160 hectares of land to them,” he said.

Police are searching for the three men to question them over the shooting, Knarch Romeas Commune Chief Lam Vanny said Thursday.

None of the suspects could be reached for comment Thursday.

Parties Seek to Help Battambang Settlers as Kandal Candidates Debate

Battambang police force confront the protesters from Boeng Pram area, Ampil Pram Deum commune, Bavel district, Battambang province. The protesters demand a resolution on the grabbing of their lands, as well as issuing voting registration cards for them. (Photo: Samay, Koh Santepheap newspaper)

VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
21/03/2007

[Editor's note: For full audio to VOA Khmer's coverage of this story, scroll throughout. (Real Media Player required)]

Opposition party members said this week they were trying to help thousands of displaced rural settlers who want to vote out land-grabbing officials but can't, as voters in Kandal province saw open, organized political debate in the run-up to commune elections.

More than 3,000 settlers on land in Bovel village, Battambang province, have had their land sold out from under them, according to group representatives in Phnom Penh. They can't vote out land-grabbing officials because they are not registered to vote in the new communes.

Election officials have said the settlers will have to return to their home communes to vote and wait until the next commune elections, five years from now, to re-register.

But so many potential voters could mean a lot in politics so local, and representatives from the Norodom Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy parties told VOA they were working to help the settlers.

Norodom Ranariddh Party spokesman Muth Chantha said the National Election Committee should create rules where people can vote at their current residences.

"The important fact is that we know the Bovel authorities are preventing them from settling there," he said. "If they leave the area, they will lose important benefits. They can choose between leaving and losing their land and farms or their right to vote."

He suggested the NEC send registrations from the original residences to the new one.

The Sam Rainsy Party was also looking for ways to help the settlers vote in the upcoming elections.

"We will… help them to be able to vote, to use their voting rights to determine their own destiny," SRP legislator Eng Chhay Eang said. Voter registration took place last year, and it is likely too late for people to change now, election officials have said. "We are sorry that the people lost their rights to vote," Hang Puthea, director of the Neutral Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections said. "Voter registration should have been solved."

To listen to Ratana Seng report in Khmer, click here.

Nearly 8 million Cambodians are registered to vote in the commune elections, which will take place across 1,621 communes, or clusters of administrative areas. Thousands on thousands of candidates from 12 different parties have been stumping for votes for nearly a week during the official campaign season, which ends March 30.

Some irregularities have continued, party officials told VOA Wednesday.

SRP officials said they were concerned about the ability of some workers to leave their jobs in order to vote in their home communes.

Senior SRP member Heng Chanthuon said Wednesday that party leader Sam Rainsy had visited a group of fishermen in Krakor town, Pursat province, Tuesday who were being prevented from voting by their boss.

"He did not allow them to go home to participate in the voting and [told them] they should first finish their contracts," Heng Chanthuon said.

To listen to Mony report in Khmer, click here.

SRP representatives also said an opposition candidate in Phnom Penh, Im Sokunthea, was removed from his living space in Kandal Market this week in an act of political oppression by authorities.

The market's head, Kruy Sovan, said Im Sokunthea and his family moved out on their own accord.

To listen to Thida Win report in Khmer, click here.

Meanwhile, voters in Kandal province Tuesday watched as candidates from the Cambodian People's, Funcinpec, Norodom Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy parties partook in political debates hosted by the National Democratic Institute.

Onlookers in Ang Snuol, many of them wearing T-shirts from different parties, watched as candidates offered solutions to problems like drugs and gangs. Similar debates, which NDI representatives moderate, are scheduled in 10 provinces.

To listen to Kong Soth report in Khmer, click here.

UXO killed three in Battambang

Onlookers are watching the three persons who died from an UXO (Photo: Samay, Koh Santepheap Newspaper)

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Three people died while riding a makeshift trailer and driving over an unexploded ordnance, causing an explosion at 5:30 PM on 05 March. The incident took place near Prey Thom, Kdol Ta Hen commune, Bavel district, Battambang province. The Koh Santepheap newspaper reported that the dead persons included the driver of the makeshift trailer, and a couple of father and son. Another man escaped death because he was guiding the trailer driver by foot ahead of the trailer. The trailer was hauling fire woods from the forest. It was learnt that the father and son who died, the father is blind and he was working a laborer collecting dead woods and tossing them into the trailer. The 10-year-old son was guiding his father during the wood collection in the forest. The dead blind man did not even earn his daily salary yet when he died on his way back home.