Sri Lanka firm to plant rubber in Cambodia [-Even Sri Lanka is partaking in the illegal land concessions in Cambodia]

April 10, 2012 (LBO) - Sri Lankan plantation company Kotagala Plantations plans to plant 20,000 hectares of rubber in Cambodia, it said in a stock exchange filing.

The total value of the project is 70 million US dollars, it said.

The move comes at a time Sri Lankan rubber manufacturers have had to import rubber because of inadequate local production and rising costs.

Families of beaten teenagers in Kg Cham rubber plantation call for justice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNmRoLLBg9w

Rubber plantations in Ratanakiri increases

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiR7GvB9MsQ&feature=channel_video_title

[Malaysia] Top Glove to invest RM160mil in Cambodian rubber plantation

Wednesday January 12, 2011
By DANNY YAP
The Star (Malaysia)

KUALA LUMPUR: Top Glove Corp Bhd, the world's largest rubber glove manufacturer, is investing RM160mil in Cambodia to plant rubber trees to reduce its dependency on latex which is bought at market prices.

Chairman Tan Sri Lim Wee Chai said the company was targetting to obtain 20% of its latex requirement from the plantation over time.

“We have about 8,000 ha of net plantable land for rubber trees,” he said at a briefing for analysts and reporters on Top Glove's first quarter results ended Nov 30, 2010 here yesterday.

Villagers say Mong Reththy project threatens their land

Mong Reththy seen being decorated by Hun Xen

Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Tep Nimol and Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

VILLAGERS in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district said Monday that surveyors over the weekend had begun measuring off land in two of three villages that stand to be affected by a concession granted to a rubber company owned by business tycoon Mong Reththy.

Local villager Gos Saly said surveyors had first appeared in Keo Seima district earlier this year on behalf of the Rithy Kiri Seima Rubber Plantation company, and that this past weekend they had ramped up measurement work for a proposed plantation that he said would occupy about 40 percent of the 8,000 hectares of land in the district’s O’Am, O’Rorna and O’Sneng villages.

“It is our land because we bought it in 1997. We have letters to prove this to local authorities, but we don’t have land titles,” he said.

Eng Neang, 51, another Keo Seima resident, said local authorities had assisted the rubber company in securing the concession, but had not bothered to assist local residents in securing land titles.

“We are not happy with the development company because they are oppressing us poor people. They have never helped us, and they are robbing our rice pot,” Eng Neang said.

“I think that the authorities have taken bribes from the company,” she added.

Mong Reththy said Monday that the government had granted the 5,000-hectare land concession to his company in 2007. The surveyors, he added, had measured off territory both for the rubber plantation and for a social land concession for the villagers, who he said were living on a protected wildlife preserve.

“The villagers are confused because this will benefit them and the authorities will provide them with land titles,” Mong Reththy said.

“They live in a wild animal shelter, and it would be easy for someone to pursue a complaint against those villagers with the authorities.”

Keo Seima district Governor Sin Van Vuth said Monday that local authorities would provide the villagers with land titles after the surveying process concluded.

“About 60 percent of those villagers cooperated with us, and there are two more villages that we will survey next time,” he said.

Mong Reththy was named in a report released on Monday by the watchdog group Global Witness, which linked him to sand mining projects in Koh Kong province that the group says are destroying the livelihoods of local fishermen.

Land Dispute: Villagers in Svay Rieng demonstrate

Tuesday, 04 May 2010
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

About 200 residents of Svay Rieng province’s Romeas Hek district staged a protest in front of the district police office on Monday to demand the release of a representative who was arrested in the morning in connection with a land dispute involving a rubber company. Pao Chhat, one of the protesters, said Yea Yeoung had been arrested one day after he and 100 residents of Tras commune gathered in front of the Peam Chaing Rubber Company in an effort to convince the company to reopen a road that had been cut off for five days. “We want to ask district police why they arrested him. They should arrest all of the villagers because we went together. It wasn’t just him,” he said. Roughly 400 families in Romeas Hek have accused the company of impinging on their cassava and cashew plantations. Representatives said they filed a complaint with the district governor against the company in December 2009 but have yet to receive a response. District police chief Chum Ry accused Yea Yeoung of threatening military police during Sunday’s protest. Company owner Neang Sarin could not be reached for comment.

Svray Rieng villagers under death threat for protesting land dispute

26 December 2009
By Sok Serey
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Villagers from Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province, indicated that they are threatened with arrest and death when they stood up to protest against a company that cleared lands and destroyed the villagers’ crop.

About 100 Cambodian villagers from Ta Suos village, Tros commune, Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province, claimed that a number of villagers where threatened with shooting and killing, arrest, and sending to jail when they prevented machineries from the Peam Chaing rubber plantation company from clearing lands and destroying large number of hectares of their cassava and cashew crops.

Yea Yeng, a Ta Suos villager, declared that large number of hectares of cassava and cashew crops were destroyed from the rubber plantation company’s land clearing operation.

Yea Yeng said: “This morning, 70 to 80 villagers went to protest, to stop them from continuing their land clearing. They did not agree, they scorned us and they wanted to shoot us. They threatened to handcuff us.”

Chhum Chham, another villager, indicated that the situation is very tense right now: “Nowadays, it is very difficult. The villagers are not allowed to take their animals out for grazing. Where should we go look? There is no place for our buffaloes to graze, all our lands are gone, the villagers have nothing now. Our meager vegetable crops were destroyed, that’s why the villagers cannot take it anymore.”

Another villager chimed in: “Our cassava crops are destroyed, that was why we went to stop them. They wanted to beat us up. We surrounded them, not allowing them to beat us. They said that they will beat us and they will handcuff us and send us to jail.”

Regarding the villagers’ accusations above, Pen Ny Den, the deputy director of the Svay Rieng-based Peam Chaing rubber plantation company, said that he did not know about this case.

Pen Ny Den said: “I was actually near there, but I did not know the details. I don’t know if the land was cleared or not because I am in Kampong Som now.”

Nget Nara, a facilitator for the Adhoc human rights organization, said: “We call on the local authority to pay attention and provide appropriate safety to the villagers.”

Victims of the destruction indicated that they came to live in this area since 1979. In 2007, the Peam Chaing rubber plantation company came and laid claim to the ownership of the villagers’ lands.

The company brought in 3 mechanical land clearing equipments to clear the land and to destroy numerous hectares of grown cassava and cashew crops belonging to the villagers.

The villagers and the local authority indicated that the company laid claim to 3,960 hectares of land for rubber plantation. Several hundreds of families from 5 villages are currently concerned about the grabbing of their lands in the near future. The five villages include: Ta Suos, Boeung, Tros, M’reak Teab and Trapaing Peay villages. They are all located in Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province.

Kathen Worshippers Barred from Remote Pagoda [... due to land concession for a rubber company]

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 October 2009

Police in Kampong Thom province have blocked villagers from participating in a Buddhist ceremony at a remote pagoda on disputed land for the past two days, officials said Thursday.

Celebrants of the Kathen ceremony, in which the faithful bring offerings to sequestered monks, were stopped 15 kilometers outside the pagoda, in Santhouk district, which the provincial governor called “illegitimate.”

“We blocked them, but it does not mean we’re preventing people from holding the ceremony,” the governor, Chhun Choan, said. “That place is part of a land concession given to a company for the investment of rubber.”

Villagers from the provinces of Kandal and Kampong Cham had meant to travel to the Meakea Prachea Hema Voan pagoda, with gifts for monks who must remain on the premises for three months. The Katen ceremony ends Nov. 2.

“Yesterday, they blocked one convoy, and today another,” said Leng Chea, a monk’s assistant. “If they claim that the pagoda is illegal, they must wait until the ceremony is finished.”

The pagoda, located 100 kilometers from Kampong Thom town, was built by an association assisting debilitated soldiers. It is little more than a small house where two monks live.

Khun Sok Kea, head of the association, said he had acquired the land legally in 2004.

Plantation highlights struggle of development and preservation

Khaou Pallaboth, former son-in-law of Chea Xim, brother-in-law of CPP minister Sun Chanthol and son of tycoon Khaou Chuly. Khoau Chuly is a businessman who has been wheeling and dealing with several regimes: Sihanouk's Sangkum Reastr Niyum, Lon Nol's Khmer republic, Hun Sen's regime.

Ethnic Phnong houses sit on recently cleared rubber plantation land in Mondulkiri's Bou Sra commune. (Photo by: SEBASTIAN STRANGIO)

Monday, 25 May 2009
Written by Christopher Shay and Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post

Ethnic minority community says a giant rubber conglomerate is destroying its traditional culture, as plantation officials insist that the company is bringing much-needed work to the area.

Mondulkiri Province

FIVE months after an angry mob smashed and burned machinery belonging to a local rubber company in Mondulkiri province's Bou Sra village, ethnic minority residents in the area say their culture and livelihoods remain in danger from new plantations that have displaced them from their ancestral farmlands.

"They've lost hope," said Bill Herod, an adviser for Village Focus Cambodia who works with Phnong youth in the provincial capital Sen Monorom.

"We in the West talk negatively about slash-and-burn, but this is slash-and-burn by the company."

According to an article in Science, the expansion of rubber plantations in Southeast Asia could double or triple by 2050, doing far more damage than traditional farming methods.

And while the Bou Sra plantation owners say they seek to balance their interests with those of the local communities, residents and advocates say the situation is symptomatic of the unrestrained development that is harming other indigenous populations.

Residents in Mondulkiri say more than 800 families in seven villages - the majority of them from the Phnong ethnic minority - have had plots of land taken by the rubber plantation, claiming there was no consultation prior to the granting of the concessions.

"They just came and took my land," said Umbarup Sherup, a Bou Sra village resident who said he received no compensation from the company.

"When we came to meet the company [they] said they would take the land whether we agreed to it or not."

Another resident, who declined to be named, said the villagers were not given a choice.

"When we came to meet the company, [they] said they would take the land whether we agreed to it or not," the resident said. "Now we have nothing."

In late 2007, government authorities granted 2,500 hectares in economic land concessions to a joint venture between the local Khaou Chuly Group and the French rubber conglomerate Socfin.

In early April, Khaou Chuly Group President Khaou Phallaboth signed an agreement with Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun granting his company a further 2,705 hectares in the area.

"We hope to receive a total economic land concession of over 20,000 hectares from the government by 2010 to grow rubber trees," Khaou Phallaboth told the Post at the time.

After clearing began last year, village representatives travelled to Phnom Penh in June to deliver a personal plea to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The dispute came to a head in December, when a frustrated group of villagers destroyed machinery belonging to Khaou Chuly Group.

"No one is happy with them. They do whatever they want, and they don't care about the people," said one Phnong community representative, who declined to give her name for fear of reprisals. "In the future, the Phnong people will die out because we have no forests."

Chith Sam Ath, executive director of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, said an investigation by his organisation found that the rubber project had led to the loss of traditional agricultural land, water supplies and spirit forests, and had impeded access to schooling for some village children.

"Socfin or Khaou Chuly [should] focus strongly on consultation with the community regarding environmental impacts and impacts on their livelihoods ... and find a solution with the community before they start their project implementation," he said by email.

When contacted by the Post, Kao Phallaboth declined to comment in detail, saying day-to-day management was in the hands of Socfin officials.
Reversing the damage

Socfin sources say that following the burning of the tractors, managerial control was assumed by their company, which says it has adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Socfin General Manager Philippe Monnin said the company was doing all it can to help the community and offset the impact of the plantations.

At Socfin's invitation, Monnin said Medicins du Monde, a French NGO, had helped construct a local hospital, and that the company hoped to bring in the French governmental development agency AFD to revitalise the community.

"Our plan is to get NGOs to work with us to take care of the community and ensure what we are doing is a model," Monnin said during an interview in Bou Sra village. "We want to do something proper, but it will not be easy."

He said that of the 10,000 hectares planned for the rubber plantation, 3,000 hectares would remain as spirit forests for the Phnong. He also added that Socfin was now conducting an environmental and social impact assessment of the plantation as part of its master plan, as well as sending an ethnologist and sociologist to study the situation.

He said the plantation would provide regular employment for Phnong. From May until August, he said, the company would double its daily manpower to 1,000 workers, who would earn 20,000 riels ($5) per day on the plantation.

Mondulkiri Deputy Governor Yim Lux told the Post that Socfin was paying US$15,000 a month in wages for local workers, and said it was providing "fair" compensation to the villagers affected by the plantation.

"The company agreed to compensate the people whose farmland was impacted, either with a plot of land or with cash," he said, but added that negotiations were still in progress.

Monnin said that Socfin, as a French company that needs to maintain a positive global image, was more vulnerable to criticism than other rubber companies in Cambodia.

"It [development] is inevitable.... If we were not here, it would be the Vietnamese, and then for the Phnong it would be the end," he said.

But many of the Phnong villagers said the Vietnamese state-owned Daklak Rubber Co, which has a plot adjacent to Socfin, has treated the Phnong more equitably.

"If people disagree with the Vietnamese company, they don't destroy the land. When the Vietnamese company does [harvest] the land, they give half [the profits] to us," one villager said.

Officials at Daklak's Mondulkiri headquarters declined to comment in detail about their rubber operations.

Too little too late

Critics of Socfin say the company's actions come too late and that irreparable damage has been done.

"Mistakes have been made by all key partners involved, including the Cambodian government and the company. ... Forest was destroyed, a Phnong graveyard was bulldozed, and [these] can't be undone," Herod said.

According to Cambodian environmental law, Herod said, an impact study should have been completed before the concession was awarded. He also noted an increase in drunkenness and other disorders related to social disintegration among the underemployed Phnong.

But despite indigenous land protections existing under the country's 2001 Land Law, villagers insist the Phnong community was not consulted.

While there is intermittent work on the plantations, the Phnong representative said the loss of rotational farmland forests meant that local communities faced an uncertain future.

"Now that the company has come here, they are very strict and will not allow the Phnong to cut wood on company land," she said. "Before they had the freedom to cut the forests and grow crops. Now they say the land is French; the sky is French."

Is the rubber market dangerously tickling the financial Meltdown monster?

Phlau Bek Kang Lek (Cambodia), 26/12/2000. Children collecting rubber on the plantation. (Photo: John Vink / Magnum)

19-12-2008
By Ros Dina
Ka-set in English
Click here to read the article in French
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Cambodia's rubber producers broke the news in November at the Forum gathering Government representatives and private investors: the plummeting of latex prices makes them fear the worst for the rubber industry. In a matter of weeks, pressurised by the world financial crisis, the prices of certain raw materials derived from rubber trees have collapsed and reached a value that is now three times cheaper than before, forcing producers to sound the alarm and demand a rebate on export fees imposed by the state. For the time being, the government do not wish to accede to the request, when observers have advised that the situation of the main Cambodian rubber tree growers, although not as juicy as it was a few months ago, is far from being desperate.

Plummeting latex prices

Mak Kimhong, director-general of the Chup rubber plantation in the province of Kampong Cham, quoted figures to illustrate the downturn that has recently taken place on the latex market in just a few weeks: in October, the price of a tonne of solid rubber amounted to US$3,300; the second week of December saw it go down to US$900. Cambodia, just like the rest of the world, owes this decrease to the repercussions of the global financial crisis and its first negative consequences on consumers' buying power. To Mak Kimhong, if the situation keeps worsening, entrepreneurs linked with the rubber market will definitely not be able to cope.

“The buying price of concentrated rubber latex is already fluctuating , with a tonne selling between US$1,200 and US$1,300. Despite the decrease in oil prices and general costs, our company's profit is already melting down”, the director complained, adding that he did not “dare” cutting the wages of some 4,400 people working on his plantations. The company's wage bill represents a monthly total of US$500,000 (i.e. an average salary of US$113 per month and per employee, according to him). “If we cut down salaries, workers will refuse to work for us. And this will lead the company to suffer even more losses. Therefore, we do not have any other choice, in these circumstances, than to lose money”, he explained, before acknowledging that his firm could afford to act so, “because we have earned a great deal of money in the past”...

Export fees: from 10% to 30 dollars per tonne?

Reacting to price drops and anticipating the crisis' repercussions on the rubber industry, rubber tree growers and Cambodian latex producers formulated a “proposition” to the government at the end of November and backed it up with a line of argument, so as to obtain a rebate on export fees applying to rubber by-products. They are asking for the fees to be cut down from 10% of the selling price of concentrated latex – approximately US$100 per tonne – to a fixed amount of US$30 per tonne. Mak Kimhong, for his part, asserted that for every tonne sold, his company was currently losing US$200 to US$300, and that considering production costs, cutting export fees would be an effective measure to relieve the sector from the glue it is stuck in. He put forward what is to him evidence: other governments of ASEAN country-members, like Thailand and Malaysia, have decided to enforce similar measures.

Oknha Mong Reththy, vice-president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce but also chairman of the agriculture and Agro-Industry Private Sector Working Group , mentioned the demand to the head of government on November 21st. However, the powerful Cambodian businessman's request was not met straight away, unlike the case of garment sector representatives, who were granted a 10% rebate on export fees after having requested a 30% cut.

The director of the Chup company Mak Kimhong continues for his part to argue in favour of the rebate since, according to him, the state has already and largely benefited from the bonus that export fees on rubber-related products currently represent. In the most prosperous times, he added, each tonne of concentrated latex brought in about US$300 in export fees for the government. And according to the director, the Chup company alone exports some 9,000 tonnes of concentrated latex every year.

Income cut by 60%

But Vannak, who owns a 30-hectare rubber tree plantation in Chamka Leu in the Kampong Cham province, also reckoned a state intervention would be useful since the price drops have led him to lose 60% of the company's income compared with August this year. “Today, I almost have no money to bring to my family. A 30-litre drum of latex only brings in 20,000 riels (US$5) when not so long ago this price went as high as 90,000 riels (US$22). What we earn at the moment is just enough to pay for workers' wages”, he complained, adding that the company had already had to wait 6 years for the plantation to actually produce rubber latex.

The crisis also affects the extraction sector

The decrease in rubber prices does not just affect rubber growers but also workers in charge of extracting and collecting rubber latex, like Seiha, who works on a family rubber plantation in the village of Ta Ong, in the Chamka Leu province. He earns a fixed income of 200 riels per litre of latex, which allows him to earn an average of 10,000 riels (US$2.50) per day. He tops up these meagre savings by collecting the dried latex stuck on utensils and around the rubber tree cuts in his free time, before the start of the early afternoon collection. “My employer told me to do this, and he takes half of it for himself. Ten kilos of dried latex used to sell for 40,000 riels (US$10), which meant 20,000 riels for my employer and 20,000 for myself. But today, the same quantity of product only sells for 6,000 riels (US$1.25), that is 3,000 each”, he deplored, arguing that above this, increasing everyday living costs were not here to help.

No bankruptcy for rubber producers?

An expert in Cambodian rubber industry, who wished to remain anonymous, rejected for his part alarmist stances. With a tonne of concentrated latex selling for about US$1,000, to him, the sector seems far from going bankrupt and companies are unlikely to close down... According to him, rubber investors are still earning money even though the income at stake is far from being what it used to be. The expert used his own experience in that matter as an argument: in 1998 and 1999, facing the collapse of rubber prices, when an oil barrel sold for an average of US$65, he still managed to make a profit of 2% to 3% . The return on investment was definitely much less important than the interest rate of a placement on an interest-bearing account, he said, but still allowed to a certain activity in the company without major difficulties. Nowadays, considering production costs and the fact that oil prices have dropped to nearly US$45 a barrel, investors in the sector can generate profit that would almost be equivalent to bank interest rates, the expert concluded.

The Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun made a similar calculation on the situation. On Monday December 15th, after a seminar on rural training, he estimated that the plummeting of rubber prices did not threaten Cambodian companies and also gave the example of the 1998 crisis, which the sector strongly resisted. “The way is not blocked. Latex will keep running inside the trees, even if we don't cut them open. We know that the situation is hard for investors at the moment, because of the world crisis. But I reckon the price of rubber will go up again, simply because this raw material is needed every day in the world”, the Minister declared, without yet setting aside the possibility of a rebate in export fees. Indeed, Chan Sarun explained he was willing to discuss the matter more deeply with the Minister of Economy and Finance, who is “responsible” for that.

With or without a fee rebate, there is still a market for Cambodian concentrated latex, especially in the region. According to Mak Kimhong, China is one of the Kingdom's main customers, followed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and, to a lesser extent, European countries like Germany and Belgium. “Khmer rubber latex ends up being exporter to China anyway”, he analysed. “Even when we sell our production to Vietnam, they transform it and export it to China themselves... China is the biggest rubber consumer in the world...”

In order to take advantage from the the growing appetite of the Chinese mammoth and be less vulnerable to price fluctuations, the Cambodian rubber sector might have to jump onto another phase, like its neighbouring countries: transforming rubber latex into products involving a high profit margin. According to the Minister of Agriculture, Cambodia might soon benefit from the technological help and advice of two foreign companies, a Chinese one and a French one, Michelin. According to the Minister, they expressed their interest in Cambodia and are actually studying the possibility of establishing tyre production facilities in the country. These projects should come as a bonus for the Cambodian rubber sector.

More disastrous land concessions by Hun Sen's regime

60,000 hectares of land ceded to private company for rubber

Saturday, 13 September 2008
Written by Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

LAND ON ITS HANDS
The government signed contracts with 90 private companies between 1992 and August 2007, ceding 1.178 million hectares of land in 16 provinces. Of these, 37 contracts have been cancelled, with 300,000 hectares reclaimed.

The PM has signed off on the deal for K Thom and Kratie, which is part of the government's vast 'economic land concession' scheme

PRIME Minister Hun Sen has conceded nearly 60,000 hectares of government-owned forests in Kampong Thom and Kratie provinces to a private business owner, according to a letter from July.

The letter, dated July 10 and signed by the prime minister, outlined the government's plan to transfer control of 58,658 hectares of forest to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for its Economic Land Concession program.

The identity of the private company expected to invest in the land has not been revealed, but Kampong Thom Governor Nam Tum said he has received a development proposal from the Thimas Resources Co, which hopes to invest in the land bordering Kratie province.

"We have not yet discussed details of the investment plan with the company," Nam Tum told the Post Thursday. "I'm not sure whether it is a local or foreign company, but they want to invest in rubber production."

Nam Tum said provincial authorities have more than 200,000 hectares of land reserved for concessions to private business owners. Some 66,000 hectares have already been offered to companies producing rubber, cashews and acacia trees, and employing more than 2,000 local residents.

Ny Chakrya, head of monitoring for the human rights group Adhoc, expressed concern that recipients of land concessions will try to steal additional land from local farmers.

People living near the development areas always suffer from such projects.

He said many residents have already tried to protest unlawful land seizures by companies but that local and military police have threatened or assaulted them on behalf of the companies.

Problems for residents

"Past experience shows that people living near the development areas always suffer from such projects," Ny Chakrya said. "Before concessions are given, the government should evaluate the impact on local residents and clearly demarcate the area given to the companies."

An agriculture ministry official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorised to speak to the press, said seven companies have received concessions in Kratie province, while four others have received concessions in Kampong Thom.

"Any company that does not follow the terms of their contract will lose their concession and the land will be reserved for social concessions [to benefit local residents]," the official said.

Chan Sarun to clarify the National Assembly

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Chan Sarun, minister of agriculture, forestry and fishery, said that he will provide clarifications at the National Assembly floor on 18 October (tomorrow), regarding plans for administering forests, and for the development of rubber plantations. Chan Sarun’s clarification visit to the National Assembly was requested by opposition MP Son Chhay in a letter dated 11 June 2007, sent to prime minister Hun Sen through the president of the National Assembly. Son Chhay said in his request that the invitation issued to Chan Sarun to come and provide clarifications is necessary, and is very important to allow the MPs to ask him directly about land concessions and plans for development of rubber plantations, as well as on the current administration of forests.

Svay Rieng land disputes: The land developper can't produce official documents proving they received the lands as concession

Land disputes: Svay Rieng villagers are protesting in Phnom Penh

16-10-2007
By Ung Chansophea
Cambodge Soir
Translated from French by Luc Sâr

On Monday 15 October, a group of demonstrators came to protest, in the streets of Phnom Penh, against their eviction from a plot of lands which they cultivate since the 90s.

A group of villagers, who claim to represent 500 families from the Tross commune, Svay Rieng province, came to demonstrate in Phnom Penh. The villagers are camping in front of the Wat Botum pagoda since Monday 15 October. The aim of their trip is to demand back their 1,500-hectare of lands which the Peam Chaing company – a company specializing in rubber plantation – had started to clear the lands for the past 6 months. The Peam Chaing company has also proceeded to plant rubber trees.

“This company came to destroy our plantations and our rice fields, they are supported by cops and military cops, and they argued that the government gave them the concession to these lands. But, this company never shows us the paperwork proving that they are authorized to develop a rubber plantation. We own there cashew trees, acacia trees, and cassava plantations. We live there since the 90s. We cannot live without these lands. In spite of our complaints to the commune, the district does not intervene. This is why we came to Phnom Penh, to ask for help from the prime minister, and to find if the government, indeed, gave our lands to this company. But, I believe that this is (only) an agreement between the local authorities and the company,” one anonymous representatives of the villagers said. The commune chief declined to comment in this case. He only replied briefly “that it must certainly be a project negotiated and granted by the State.”

National Assembly summons the Minister of Agriculture for clarification on the floor

Chan Sarun

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The National Assembly (NA) has summoned Chan Sarun, the minister of agriculture, forestry and fishery, to come provide clarifications on the floor of the NA on 18 October 2007, regarding a number of accusations leveled by SRP MP Son Chhay. According to RFA, Nguon Nhel, acting NA president, sent a letter to prime minister Hun Sen on 15 October telling him about the request made by MP Son Chhay for the NA to summon Chan Sarun to provide clarification on Thursday of this week, regarding the concession lands provided to rubber plantations, illegal logging, and a number of other issues related to illegal logging. Nhoun Nhel’s letter indicated that, based on Son Chhay’s request, the NA issued an invitation to Chan Sarun to come provide clarifications on the issues above, at the NA floor on Thursday of this week.

The “secret” 100,000 hectares of Cambodian rubber plantation granted for Viet soldiers

Summary of the declarations made by SON CHHAY, SRP MP, Chairman of the Commission of Foreign Affairs and the International Cooperation of the National Assembly, interviewed by Kem Sos, RFA Program of 25/09/2007

Summary and unofficial translation from Cambodian by Khemara Jati

Kem Sos (KS): - I knew that the Royal Government of Cambodia granted to Vietnam a concession of 100 000 ha of lands for the plantation of rubber trees, where are these lands?

Son Chhay (SC): - We also know it and I went with a delegation of the National Assembly to make an inspection on the land, in the region of Mondulkiri and even in the vietnamese provinces of Dac Lak and Dac Nong. What worries us is our neighbors country obtains concessions of our lands then come to cultivate its fields in our country. In fact, it is Vietnamese soldiers who having been partially evacuated of Cambodia (in 1989), formed military movements for the plantations of rubber trees or coffee trees ... and who settling now in very big number in front of our border provinces, with any kinds of equipments, and took place under the orders of their generals and officers - forming a real military staff.

KS: - Our fellow countrymen are very worried about of the Vietnamese schemes. In particular, in this affair of land concessions, what would be the profits for the Cambodians (Khmers)?

SC: - According to a report of the Committee for the Development, an organ of the Royal Government, Vietnam would have promised to create employments for our fellow countrymen of the ethnic minorities in the region, as it has already did the same thing in Laos.

Now, we went to see a rubber plantation by Vietnamese soldiers, on a Laotian concession of 10 000 ha, of 50 years, in the province of Champassak (of Laos) and learnt that really the Vietnamese promises were not held on the ground. First, the plantation is steered by 176 colonels and captains of the Vietnamese army, who called the "experts"; then, for 10 000 ha of plantation, one use approximately 1 000 Laotian workers, next to more than 3 000 Vietnamese workers. So, for our concessions of 100 000 ha for the same plantations, would be needed ten times more of these "experts" and workers (who form) the Vietnamese power (in our land). Besides, there is a problem affecting our environment. Our forests were destroyed by these companies without repairs and without compensation.

KS: - Where are these 100 000 ha granted to the Vietnamese?

SC: - Almost everywhere. There would be 20 000 ha in Mondulkiri, others 20 000 ha in Kratié, 10 or 20 000 in Stung Trèng, 30 000 in Kompong Thom and in Preah Vihear. The concessions of Kompong Thom are under the control of the Cambodian military, not under of the royal Government.

KS: - The Cambodians (Khmers) cannot obtain these concessions?

SC: - Many of our fellow countrymen invested a lot into the rubber tree plantation. During the last five years, Khmer entrepreneurs have already planted on at least 50 000 ha of lands. We would not even need foreigners for this fields; (I do not understand) why we grant no big concessions to our own fellow countrymen?

We have to ask also questions on our national sovereignty and on our security. No country has ever allowed to the armed forces of a neighbor country the possibility of coming to settle down on its territory and to administer it.

We should grant these concessions only to our national first; then, to the foreign companies (but) of not neighbor countries, and under certain precise conditions, especially on the duration - not too long - of these concessions, and the obligation to employ Khmers first as workers.

KS: - Why do not we grant these concessions to the Cambodians (Khmers)?

SC: - We (the Parliament Members) do not understand. Of course, we wish of the transparency on these concessions and of course explain that to us the causes (decisions of the Government). But, the MP can ask no question there (to the Government, because) these concessions and all the documents related to that are all secrets (of the Government)!

KS: - Have you an explanation of these secrets?

SC: - I think it is because of the Vietnam influence on our country, on our leaders, to the point that these last ones have to give to any vietnamese demands ; the corruption is also another cause ; and, maybe as it is also believed that the foreigners have important financial and technical means for these things...

KS: - Does our country gain anything from it?

SC: - Cambodia loses a lot in this land. The concessions are made without any call for public tender. In the case of the tourist management of Angkor site, for example, our State receives hardly 10 % of the receipts of the tourist visits - at the rate of $50 - 60 US a person, a week. Every year, there is at least 30 million $US who do not go into the boxes of the State.

With all this (destructions of the environment and these losses for the State), these concessions destroyed the appropriate interests of our local populations, in their daily life. We should thus arrest these concessions.
.

Please click the following link to listen the whole interview in cambodian :

http://www.rfa.org/khmer/batsampheas/2007/10/03/interview_son-chhay1/
http://www.rfa.org/khmer/batyokka/2007/09/25/MP_Blasts_Govt_Concession_Policy/

Armed Police Accused of Aiding Company in Land Grab [-Where is "Iron Fist" Hun Sen when people needs him? Could he be too rusty?]

Villagers claim they were run off their Svay Rieng land by armed police colluding with a business owner to make room for a rubber plantation like this one in Ratanakkiri province.

Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
13 September 2007

Villagers in Svay Rieng province say armed police drove them off their land in collusion with a private company intent on stealing it.

Police brandished weapons and fired shots into the ground, forcing the villagers to leave a plot of land in order to turn it over to a rubber plantation, villagers told an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, which recently held a public forum in Svay Rieng.

When villagers left the land, their crops and homes were razed by a bulldozer, Chhim Savuth, the investigator said.

On Sept. 8, police confronted the villagers and "fired warning shots, and the shots made the dust fly from the ground," Chhim Savuth said. "There were hundreds of families. Now, the leveling of the land has affected almost 500 families, destroying crops and houses and about 2,000 to 3,000 mango trees."

A local official has been working as a representative of the rubber company behind the land grab, villagers told VOA Khmer.

Kim Nou, a villager who claims her potato field was ruined in the fracas, said authorities threatened to shoot her, too.

"Yes, they leveled my land for potato plants, and they threatened to shoot me," she said. "I went to stop them. I said don't level my land. I went to stop the bulldozer."

Cambodia seeks rubber growers

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Cambodia (Commodity Online) -- Cambodia has opened up its rubber belts for foreign investments. Investors are offering generous concessions for rubber business in the country. It is certainly good news for Indian planters who are facing a severe shortage of suitable land for expanding rubber cultivation. Today Cambodia is striving hard to be among the most happening of Asian countries pinning its hopes on the high potential agriculture sector of the country blessed with vast stretches of fertile soil, enough water, copious rains and an enterprising young generation. Rubber tops the priority list of the government, obviously because of the fact that the red soil of Cambodia is ideal for growing rubber, which has been witnessing an unabated boom in recent years. Moreover the country's close proximity to China, which has recently emerged as the world's largest consumer of rubber replacing the US seems to be the driving factor for the government's hard selling efforts focused on rubber. Not surprisingly, the historic Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh played host to the 4th ASEAN Rubber Conference, one of the world's major rubber events last month. There was a significant Indian presence at the conference attended by over 450 delegates from across the globe.

Vietnam firm to grow rubber trees in Cambodia

HANOI, June 19 (Reuters) - A small Vietnamese rubber firm that has applied to list on the stock market , plans to grow rubber trees in Cambodia next year to expand latex output, a company official said on Tuesday.

Tay Ninh Rubber Company (Taniruco), based in the southern province of Tay Ninh bordering Cambodia, has been finalising plans to receive Cambodian land to grow 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of rubber trees, the company official said.

"We may not be able to start planting this year," said the Taniruco official, who asked not to be identified. "But we need to do site clearance and other work so planting could start in the next rainy season."

Rubber trees require good water supply so they are often planted during the rainy season. Rains fall in Cambodia during the wet season between April and October, similar to Vietnam's southern region, home to most of the country's rubber trees.

Vietnam and Cambodia are seeking ways to take advantage of rising rubber prices. Vietnam is the world's fourth-largest natural rubber exporter but it has limited land while Cambodia's rubber industry is not developed.

Taniruco is a small rubber exporter, shipping just 14,000 tonnes of rubber last year, compared with 708,000 tonnes exported from Vietnam in 2006.

Vietnam would export 800,000 tonnes of rubber this year. It aims to produce 700,000 tonnes of rubber by 2010 from 550,000 hectares (1.36 million acres) under plantation, including new areas in Laos and Cambodia.

Taniruco's rubber expansion in Cambodia is part of a larger drive by its parent firm, Vietnam Rubber Group, the country's largest producer and exporter of natural latex, to grow 100,000 hectares in Laos and 100,000 hectares in Cambodia.

"In the longer run we will build a facility right in Cambodia to process the latex tapped there so we could export rubber products but not just raw latex," the company official said.

Operation details would be finalised later, he said.

"All the 10,000 hectares of trees cannot be planted at once and we will work out our detailed operation while trees are growing," he said, declining to say how the Cambodian output would add to Taniruco's overall production.

It takes between five and seven years before rubber trees can become productive to provide latex.

Taniruco plants rubber and processes latex for domestic markets and exports.

In December 2006, the firm raised about $36 million from its IPO where it sold nearly 8.4 million shares held by the state at an average price of 68,341 dong ($4.2).

On May 28 Taniruco submitted an application to list its shares on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange that has already been trading shares in Hoa Binh Rubber Co. and Danang Rubber Co. .

Shares of the firm rose to 137,000 dong ($8.5) each on the unregulated, unofficial markets last week, from 110,000-112,000 dong in May before it applied for the listing.

The firm was valued around $255 million.

Taniruco said its net profit last year jumped 50.5 percent from 2005 to 143 billion dong ($8.9 million). ($1=16,122 dong)

Experts see bright future for rubber market

PHNOM PENH, June 16 (Xinhua) -- International experts and Cambodian officials have expressed confidence that the rubber market and revenues would rise significantly in the years to come, local press reported Saturday.

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An told the Third ASEAN Rubber Conference that the market price for natural rubber has sky-rocketed over the last six years from 500 U.S. dollars per ton in 2001 to around 2,000 U.S. dollars per ton in 2007, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported.

Natural rubber prices should remain strong so long as oil prices petroleum being used to create synthetic rubber continue to be high, Sok An was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Cambodia has 500,000 hectares of land with soil conditions ideal for rubber trees, he said.

"We have potential with the land, but we have not used it well," he added.

Cambodia currently has around 70,000 hectares devoted to rubber cultivation, but substantial expansion of production is expected, Teng Lao, the secretary of State at the Cambodian Agriculture Ministry in charge of rubber, was quoted as saying.

"Our estimate for 2015, the planting areas in total can be up to 150,000 hectares, and production will be 150,000 tons," he said.

Hidde Smith, the secretary general for the secretariat of the UK-based International Rubber Study Group, said rubber prices will continue to increase due to rising demand for car tires in Europe, China and India.

Around 400 rubber experts, producers, buyers and sellers gathered here for the three-day conference, which ends Saturday, the newspaper said.

According to a recent study by the Association for Rubber Development in Cambodia, Cambodia exported 60,000 tons of natural rubber last year at a value of 83 million U.S. dollars, accounting for less than one percent of the rubber produced globally, it said.

VN investors want more flexibility to remove obstacles for rubber plantations

30/05/2007
Viet Nam, Cambodia work on rubber growing project

Officials from Viet Nam and Cambodia gathered at a conference in Phnom Penh on May 29 to discuss ways to remove obstacles currently hampering a rubber-growing project that was signed between the two governments on October 7, 2006.

Participants pledged to work to remove obstacles in order to complete surveys and carry out the project on schedule as agreed upon by their governments, thereby creating jobs for locals in the targeted provinces and contributing to their respective national budgets.

The conference saw the participation of Nguyen Chien Thang, Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia; Nguyen Kien Quyet, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Viet Nam Rubber Group; It Nody, Under-Secretary of State of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Ty Sokun, Director of the General Forestry Department of Cambodia.

Leaders from the provinces of Kampong Thom, Kratie, Mondolkiri and Preah Vihear also attended the meeting.

Source: Vietnam Agency