Ax and knife-wielding villagers in Kampot protest palm oil development: Hun Sen's predicted farmers' revolution in the work?

Kampot Villagers Protest Palm Oil Development

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
01 June 2009

Around 300 ax- and knife-wielding villagers amassed in protest in Kampot province Monday, claiming a private company was clearing their land.

The company, Camland, has a 70-year license from the government to develop 1,600 hectares of palm for oil in Teuk Chhou district.

One protester, Loey Koun, 42, told VOA Khmer the residents of three villages in the district have long occupied the land of their “ancestors.” If the company does not remove its bulldozers, Loey Koun said, “we will light them on fire.”

Try Chhoun, Kampot coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said the villagers tried to stop the bulldozers clearing the land, near the villages of Tram Kok, Dong and Kampong Chin. No one was injured, he said.

Kampot Governor Khoy Khun Huor and Teuk Chhou Governor Se Da both declined to comment Monday.

Phrak Putheareak, Camland’s representative, denied the accusations the company was clearing villager land.

“Our company received a license from the government for about 16,000 hectares of land to develop a palm oil plantation over about 70 years,” he said. The company has already cut 3,000 hectares of land, he said and he called on complaining villagers to produce documents of proof.

Irregularities in food aid

Protesters in Sisophon (Photo: DR, Cambodge Soir Hebdo)

04 Nov 2008
By Ung Chansophea
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

Rice distributions to needy people sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) raise waves of indignation in the provinces of Pursat and Oddar Meanchey.

According to Kuoy Kakada, an investigator for Licadho in Pursat who was reached by phone, almost 220 people traveled on Tuesday 04 November to the Thnot Chum commune office, Krakor district, Pursat province, to protest against the corruption which affects the distribution of rice in the Phum Thmei village. Kuoy Kakada traveled to the village and he noted that “the neediest people did not receive anything, whereas families owning oxen and motorized tillers, i.e. relatively well off, received rice rations. The latter are very close to the village chief and some receive 2 or 3 portions!” The interim district governor promised the demonstrators that new distributions will take place for them. The protestors then left to go home without being really convinced by these promises. In this village, villagers who lived there the longest were brushed off whereas those who recently arrived were not.

When asked over the phone, a representative of the protesters testified: “I am not certain that I will receive rice. We are in between seasons, and we don’t have any more rice stock. In some homes, they don’t even have one cup of rice in reserve.”

Ly Ponn, the Krakor interim district governor, said that “the distribution of rice went well. The village chiefs have followed well the directives given by the National Authority for the Prevention of Natural Disasters. It was the poor who received the rice. There was no diversion in favor of the village chiefs’ families. The latter have registered their houses in advance for the need.”

On that same day, in the province of Oddar Meanchey, 85 families from the Kon Kreal commune went to demonstrate in front of the provincial governor office in Samrong. Their demands were the same as those villagers from Pursat. Yen, a 60-year-old widow living alone complained that she did not receive anything. “Some had their names registered on the list of those who should receive aid, but they were not called in during the distribution. Others received only 3 to 4 kilos of rice, it’s not normal,” she accused.

According to Srey Naren, an Adhoc investigator in the province, “the authorities simply replied that it is now too late, therefore, the villagers are ready to continue their protest tomorrow.”