By Uk Sav Bory
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Prek Yuon (Yuon Creek) is a village located in Kien Chrey commune, Kompong Cham province. The village is next to a number of small creeks with water flowing in from the Mekong River.
To reach this village, we must cross an old and decrepit wooden bridge by foot or by motorcycles, cars can no longer cross this bridge. Beyond the bridge, travelers must continue on by foot or by motorcycles. A dirt road marked by numerous potholes takes us to a village located about 200 to 300 meters beyond the bridge.
Houses in Prek Yuon village are mainly made from bamboo with a thatched roof. The thatched roofs are usually made of Treang leaves or Toddy palm leaves, some of them are covered by corrugated iron, and only a small number of the houses are covered with clay tiles. Most of the houses are built on stilt.
A man sitting underneath his house, wearing only a kroma (cotton scarf or bath towel) around his waist, is repairing one pillar of his house with a tree trunk, his name is Thea, he has three children. He said that Prek Yuon villagers do not own large plots of lands for rice farming, they live near the water so they can catch fishes or small freshwater clams (“leas” in Khmer) to feed themselves. Unfortunately, the pond and creeks have all been sold out.
Currently, Thea, his wife and children have a hard time catching fishes or clams to sell, and they can no longer make ends meet because someone bought all the rights to the creeks and prevented the villagers from accessing them. Nets used to catch fishes in the creeks have been confiscated. Recently, one day after the commune election, a guard looking after the creek, who also happens to be a local police officer, shot and killed a villager in broad daylight. The killer then fled after the shooting.
Thea asks that the newly elected commune council to help resolve the fishing problems encountered in this area. He said that without resolution, a dispute will explode between the villagers and the person who bought all the fishing rights to the creek: “I used to drag the creek bottom for clams, now they don’t allow me to do it, they told me not to touch the creek, it belongs to them…”
At a house nearby, a baby can be heard wailing loudly. A steep seven-step bamboo ladder leads to the inside of the house on stilt. For those who are not used to this type of that ladder, they have to sit down the steps and climb it up one step at a time. Inside the house, a pale-looking skinny woman wearing old clothes with several patches, is sitting on a decrepit-looking bamboo floor. She is holding a newborn baby in her hands. The baby is stark naked, with no cloth nor clothes to cover. Her name is Sean Savoan, she is 20-year-old.
She said that she does not produce much milk to feed the infant child because she does not have enough to eat. She added that the rice produced from her dry-season rice field was enough to feed her for three months only, she no longer has any rice left. She still owes money for the fee to pay the person who pumped water into her rice field, and she also did not pay the cost of fertilizer she bought yet. Mice have eaten and destroyed most of her rice plants also. Her husband is trying to catch fishes along the ponds and creeks, sometimes he can catch some, while at other times, he comes home empty-handed. The owner of the fishing rights would curse him, threatens to shoot him, and confiscates all his fishing gears. As for herself, before giving birth, she searched for clams to sell and buy some rice. “It is miserable, we work but we can barely get enough to eat … the dry-season rice [farming] needs water which is hard to come by, sometimes, we get rice to eat, sometimes, the rice plants lack water and they are barren. It’s very difficult.”
A woman villager by the name of Mort Huorn told us that those who cling on to the Prek Yuon village are those who inherited some lands from their parents. The village lacks fire woods for cooking, has no water, no electricity, lands are small, rice is always short. When the villagers turn to catching clams to sell, the owner of the fishing rights shoot them, and threaten them. She wants the newly elected commune council to resolve this issue.
Mort Huorn said: “The living condition in this village is very difficult. Those who owned the fishing rights in the creeks are giving a hard time to the villagers, we can’t even catch small clams. They set a schedule, on certain days, they would allow us in, then we can catch clams. People don’t have rice, all they can do is catch clams, but they don’t allow us to catch them, they shoot us, villagers here are very miserable.
Er Khin, the Prek Yuon village chief, said that his village has 209 families. All of them are farming on 40-hectare of farmlands only. The village is flooded each year, therefore, the dry-season rice crop can be planted only once a year.
Er Khin added that the villagers each own a very small plot of farmland. They have to supplement their incomes by catching fishes and clams, but now that the government sold all the creeks and ponds, the villagers are facing a lot of hardships to earn their income. Currently, with the increasing number of factories, the youths in the village are leaving their homes to work at those factories. Most of them send back money to their parents to build houses.
He added that roads do not last long because of the seasonal flooding. Sometimes, the water will reach up to 2-meter high. A large number of children are no longer attending school because they lack the means to travel to school during flooding season. There is no clean water here, nor is there any hygienic toilet. Electricity is also lacking. “Here, the majority are very poor, only 60% of the houses are better off with roof covered with tiles. 10% of the homes only are in decent shape.”
11-year-old Peng Sea told us that he is in fifth grade at the Kien Chrey elementary school. He attends school fulltime only during the dry season, during rainy season, he does not have a boat to travel to school so he stopped going. He is not the only one who skips school during rainy season, several of his friends are doing the same also. Some of his friends stop attending school altogether.
Muok Chhayvath, the CPP commune official, said that Kien Chrey commune consists of 6 villages. Two of the villages: Prek Yuon and In Nel, do not have access roads to reach these villages. In these 2 villages, poverty is severe, the World Food Program (WFP) distributed some rice to the 50 poorest families out of the 300 families living there.
He said that for several successive years, dry-season rice farming face water shortage, furthermore the farmlands the villagers own are too small, all these conditions combined to cause the villagers to have food shortage, they need to catch fishes and clams [to survive]. In the commune, only two students have completed high school.
Muok Chhayvath said: “For those who are poor, they are extremely poor, they never have enough to eat. During each dry season, they have to catch clams to survive. For those who are poor, they must get up [early] in the morning, pack their lunches, gather all their children who are able to work, along with both husband and wife, they must take their boat out to catch clams to sell and buy their daily rice. Those who have some funds, they are doing some small-scale business … However, in comparison to other villages, these two villages (Prek Yuon and In Nel) have the most difficulties.”
Muok Chhayvath said that when he will occupy his new position as commune chief, he will demand for a resolution on the fishing rights issue: a portion must be allocated to the villagers. He will contact the government and other organizations to provide human resources and increase to number of jobs for the villagers of Kien Chrey commune, in order to improve their living conditions.
Suon Vanleng, the SRP representative of Kien Chrey commune, said that the SRP only won 2 commune councilor positions. SRP commune councilors will cooperate with other councilors from other party to demand back the access rights to the ponds and creeks which the government allotted to the villagers but which were sold out by powerful commune officials. SRP councilors will demand for a resolution so that local villagers can practice some fishing, as promised before the election.
Suon Vanleng said: “SRP will actively participate to provide inputs to the commune chief. For those fishing areas given by the government to the villagers [in the past], they must be returned back to the villagers as it used to be.”
In fact, Kien Chrey is located only 4 kilometers from Kompong Cham city. The commune does not have a health center but it has an elementary school. During the recent commune election, two parties won here: the CPP won 3 seats, and the SRP won 2 seats, according to preliminary election results.
To reach this village, we must cross an old and decrepit wooden bridge by foot or by motorcycles, cars can no longer cross this bridge. Beyond the bridge, travelers must continue on by foot or by motorcycles. A dirt road marked by numerous potholes takes us to a village located about 200 to 300 meters beyond the bridge.
Houses in Prek Yuon village are mainly made from bamboo with a thatched roof. The thatched roofs are usually made of Treang leaves or Toddy palm leaves, some of them are covered by corrugated iron, and only a small number of the houses are covered with clay tiles. Most of the houses are built on stilt.
A man sitting underneath his house, wearing only a kroma (cotton scarf or bath towel) around his waist, is repairing one pillar of his house with a tree trunk, his name is Thea, he has three children. He said that Prek Yuon villagers do not own large plots of lands for rice farming, they live near the water so they can catch fishes or small freshwater clams (“leas” in Khmer) to feed themselves. Unfortunately, the pond and creeks have all been sold out.
Currently, Thea, his wife and children have a hard time catching fishes or clams to sell, and they can no longer make ends meet because someone bought all the rights to the creeks and prevented the villagers from accessing them. Nets used to catch fishes in the creeks have been confiscated. Recently, one day after the commune election, a guard looking after the creek, who also happens to be a local police officer, shot and killed a villager in broad daylight. The killer then fled after the shooting.
Thea asks that the newly elected commune council to help resolve the fishing problems encountered in this area. He said that without resolution, a dispute will explode between the villagers and the person who bought all the fishing rights to the creek: “I used to drag the creek bottom for clams, now they don’t allow me to do it, they told me not to touch the creek, it belongs to them…”
At a house nearby, a baby can be heard wailing loudly. A steep seven-step bamboo ladder leads to the inside of the house on stilt. For those who are not used to this type of that ladder, they have to sit down the steps and climb it up one step at a time. Inside the house, a pale-looking skinny woman wearing old clothes with several patches, is sitting on a decrepit-looking bamboo floor. She is holding a newborn baby in her hands. The baby is stark naked, with no cloth nor clothes to cover. Her name is Sean Savoan, she is 20-year-old.
She said that she does not produce much milk to feed the infant child because she does not have enough to eat. She added that the rice produced from her dry-season rice field was enough to feed her for three months only, she no longer has any rice left. She still owes money for the fee to pay the person who pumped water into her rice field, and she also did not pay the cost of fertilizer she bought yet. Mice have eaten and destroyed most of her rice plants also. Her husband is trying to catch fishes along the ponds and creeks, sometimes he can catch some, while at other times, he comes home empty-handed. The owner of the fishing rights would curse him, threatens to shoot him, and confiscates all his fishing gears. As for herself, before giving birth, she searched for clams to sell and buy some rice. “It is miserable, we work but we can barely get enough to eat … the dry-season rice [farming] needs water which is hard to come by, sometimes, we get rice to eat, sometimes, the rice plants lack water and they are barren. It’s very difficult.”
A woman villager by the name of Mort Huorn told us that those who cling on to the Prek Yuon village are those who inherited some lands from their parents. The village lacks fire woods for cooking, has no water, no electricity, lands are small, rice is always short. When the villagers turn to catching clams to sell, the owner of the fishing rights shoot them, and threaten them. She wants the newly elected commune council to resolve this issue.
Mort Huorn said: “The living condition in this village is very difficult. Those who owned the fishing rights in the creeks are giving a hard time to the villagers, we can’t even catch small clams. They set a schedule, on certain days, they would allow us in, then we can catch clams. People don’t have rice, all they can do is catch clams, but they don’t allow us to catch them, they shoot us, villagers here are very miserable.
Er Khin, the Prek Yuon village chief, said that his village has 209 families. All of them are farming on 40-hectare of farmlands only. The village is flooded each year, therefore, the dry-season rice crop can be planted only once a year.
Er Khin added that the villagers each own a very small plot of farmland. They have to supplement their incomes by catching fishes and clams, but now that the government sold all the creeks and ponds, the villagers are facing a lot of hardships to earn their income. Currently, with the increasing number of factories, the youths in the village are leaving their homes to work at those factories. Most of them send back money to their parents to build houses.
He added that roads do not last long because of the seasonal flooding. Sometimes, the water will reach up to 2-meter high. A large number of children are no longer attending school because they lack the means to travel to school during flooding season. There is no clean water here, nor is there any hygienic toilet. Electricity is also lacking. “Here, the majority are very poor, only 60% of the houses are better off with roof covered with tiles. 10% of the homes only are in decent shape.”
11-year-old Peng Sea told us that he is in fifth grade at the Kien Chrey elementary school. He attends school fulltime only during the dry season, during rainy season, he does not have a boat to travel to school so he stopped going. He is not the only one who skips school during rainy season, several of his friends are doing the same also. Some of his friends stop attending school altogether.
Muok Chhayvath, the CPP commune official, said that Kien Chrey commune consists of 6 villages. Two of the villages: Prek Yuon and In Nel, do not have access roads to reach these villages. In these 2 villages, poverty is severe, the World Food Program (WFP) distributed some rice to the 50 poorest families out of the 300 families living there.
He said that for several successive years, dry-season rice farming face water shortage, furthermore the farmlands the villagers own are too small, all these conditions combined to cause the villagers to have food shortage, they need to catch fishes and clams [to survive]. In the commune, only two students have completed high school.
Muok Chhayvath said: “For those who are poor, they are extremely poor, they never have enough to eat. During each dry season, they have to catch clams to survive. For those who are poor, they must get up [early] in the morning, pack their lunches, gather all their children who are able to work, along with both husband and wife, they must take their boat out to catch clams to sell and buy their daily rice. Those who have some funds, they are doing some small-scale business … However, in comparison to other villages, these two villages (Prek Yuon and In Nel) have the most difficulties.”
Muok Chhayvath said that when he will occupy his new position as commune chief, he will demand for a resolution on the fishing rights issue: a portion must be allocated to the villagers. He will contact the government and other organizations to provide human resources and increase to number of jobs for the villagers of Kien Chrey commune, in order to improve their living conditions.
Suon Vanleng, the SRP representative of Kien Chrey commune, said that the SRP only won 2 commune councilor positions. SRP commune councilors will cooperate with other councilors from other party to demand back the access rights to the ponds and creeks which the government allotted to the villagers but which were sold out by powerful commune officials. SRP councilors will demand for a resolution so that local villagers can practice some fishing, as promised before the election.
Suon Vanleng said: “SRP will actively participate to provide inputs to the commune chief. For those fishing areas given by the government to the villagers [in the past], they must be returned back to the villagers as it used to be.”
In fact, Kien Chrey is located only 4 kilometers from Kompong Cham city. The commune does not have a health center but it has an elementary school. During the recent commune election, two parties won here: the CPP won 3 seats, and the SRP won 2 seats, according to preliminary election results.
1 comment:
Don't worry! Mi Kahing Pussy will distribute gifts to those poor people. And her bastard husband will build roads and schools bearing his name with "his own money".
You have to "beg" them, to be grateful to them and to vote for them and then everything will reach you. It's "people misery and humiliation".
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