Situation of Human Rights Violation by​ the Economic Concession Chinese Company in Kirisakor, Koh Kong province

Source: ADHOC Land Program

Situation of Human Rights Violation by​ the Economic Concession Chinese Company in Kirisakor, Koh Kong province

After Government granting Economic Land Concession over 36000 ha to Union Development Group Co., Ltd for development of Tourist Resort, China Town since 2008; 1143 families affected significantly and until now living condition of people is stepping down to zero, they lived in fear, vulnerable,in bad situation, unpleasant rights and freedom; especially they were marginalized with no support from Government or Donors at all.

Rights to speak up, to assembly, to protest legitimately of villagers were entirely infringed,it seems that they lived in side territorial secession area take place with terrible. Both economic and social sections are under protectorate by authoritarian group stay behind the Chinese company. Meanwhile, local authorities: village,commune, district and provincial level also incapable to protect villagers. The travel to inside and outside the compound was prevented or checked up thoroughly; cultivate products, crops and yields of fishing were not allowed people to collect, gather; prevented by armed forces. The barricades were setup prohibited human rights NGO, journalist, tourism, and travelers from passing to inside of old villages, the real situation of old village was hidden where remaining people are still living there.

Recently,although Chinese company try to construct and pave road, to construct working sites but it is for sake of company it was not done for people; the such development make livelihood and living condition of farmer and fishing people get devastated and ruined down because of the Economic Land Concession granted to Chinese company. The hard and long time manufacture humanly of pagoda, school, market and town by community forces was destroyed completely.

Under Hoon Xhen, land concession is available for foreign investors ... but none for poor Khmer farmers

Lion Forest to acquire land in Cambodia

2011/07/27
Bernama

Lion Forest Industries Bhd has proposed to acquire 9,995 hectares of "economic land concession" (ELC) in Preah Vihear, Cambodia, for US$3.9 million (RM11.77 million).

Lion Forest said its wholly-owned subsidiary, Harta Impiana Sdn Bhd, had issued an instruction notice to Seng Enterprise Co Ltd to identify the ELC and assist Harta Impiana's Cambodian incorporated wholly-owned subsidiary, Eminent Elite (Cambodia) Co Ltd, to procure from the Cambodian government the concession rights to the ELC of the identified land for a concession period of not less than 70 years.

"The identified land is for the purposes of cultivation and planting of oil palm and/or rubber trees," the company said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia today.

[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.

Large-Scale Farm Deals Endanger Local Control, World Bank Says

By Sandrine Rastello

Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Foreign purchases of agricultural land from Mozambique to Cambodia pose “significant risks” to the livelihoods of farmers in countries with “weak land governance,” the World Bank said in a report.

Large-scale purchases raise “a real concern about the ability of local institutions to protect vulnerable groups from losing land on which they have legitimate, if not formally recognized claims,” according to the report by the Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development department.

“The veil of secrecy that often surrounds these land deals must be lifted so poor people don’t ultimately pay the heavy price of losing their land,” World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance and foreign minister, said in a statement. The acquisitions “can come at a high cost,” he said.

Rising prices of rice, corn and palm oil in 2008 triggered deadly unrest in some parts of the developing world. The report, Rising Global Interest in Farmland, said that over the next year farmland investment spiraled, with 10 times more property bought in developing countries by nations seeking food security.

Nations dependent on food imports, such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea, stepped up efforts to buy land and lock-in overseas resources to ensure food security, the bank said. Foreign investment in Sudanese agricultural land in 2009 was estimated to increase five-fold by 2014, according to a Sudan Investment Ministry estimate last year.

Environmental Impact

Investor deals also have an environmental impact in countries such as Brazil, where deforestation was pursued to enable farmland expansion, the report said. The report reviewed data from 14 countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia between 2004 and 2009.

“The question will be what will the bank be able to do to change these dynamics,” said Vince McElhinny, who is a project manager for The Bank Information Center, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. that advocates for transparency and public accountability within the World Bank. “In practice what we’re seeing is a trend that suggests that it will be able to do very little.”

Foreign agricultural investments have sometimes met with resistance. Protests by local communities in Madagascar caused that country to abandon a $6-billion farming agreement last year with Daewoo Logistics Corp.

Governments were “unprepared” for the increase in such land deals after the food and fuel crisis, the report said.

The report noted that private investors had the potential to increase productivity in less-developed countries with technological help. “In many cases, however, the desired benefits were not achieved,” the report said. The World Bank is trying to develop voluntary principles for responsible agricultural investment, it said.

-- Editors: Christine Spolar, Christopher Wellisz

To contact the reporter on this story: Sandrine Rastello in Washington at srastello@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net;

Hill Tribes Fear Loss of Their Forests

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
01 September 2009

The beauty of the northeastern forests is apparent along the road through the province of Stung Treng all the way to Ratanakkiri. But the beauty only lasts in a 2-kilometer corridor along the road. Deeper than that, and the tall trees disappear.

“This is the abandoned economic land concession,” Keo Mib, a 39-year-old Phnong hill tribesman said on a recent afternoon in Stung Treng’s Sesan district, pointing to a swath of cleared forest. “The company just left the land after they cleared the forest and took the valuable trees.”

Villagers in these northeastern provinces say they are losing their livelihoods and sacred forests, as more and more private enterprises take their forests.

“We depend on forest products for our living, but now there are almost no forests,” said Keo Mib, who has four children. “When we leave the village, there is only forest [concession] or economic land concessions.”

To many people living here, the forests are imbued with sacred rites and religious significance.

“When our religious forests are disturbed, our ancestors will get angry and thus cause trouble for villagers,” said Chheoung Kea, the chief of nearby Pluk village, which he said has seen 20 consecutive stillbirths after a company cleared a sacred forest.

Most people living along the Sesan and Srepok rivers in Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri come from the minority hill tribes: Phnong, Jarai, Kachork, Brao, Tavet, Krung, Lorn and Tompun. Their lives revolve around nature, including the rivers, fields and, especially, the forest.

"Forests are our lives,” said Romeam Ten, a representative from Tronong community in Rattanakiri province, during a meeting of indigenous leaders in Ratanakkiri’s Banlung town last week. “How can we survive if there are no more forests?”

Ratanakkiri alone has more than 10,000 square kilometers of forest, between 70 percent and 80 percent of the province. But so far, at least 30,000 hectares of forest have been lost to illegal logging, according to Pen Bunnar, a former Ratanakkiri investigator for Adhoc who was recently removed from the province under a deal with the provincial court to avoid charges of inciting villagers.

Since 2004, there have been at least 15,000 chainsaws used in Ratanakkiri to illegally cut trees,” he said.

The province currently has seven economic land concession holders, he said, but most of them do not comply with concession agreements. Such concessions should not be granted in areas where they threaten important forests.

However, the province’s deputy governor, Mom Sareoun, said concession holders replace the trees they cut down with rubber plantations, “so the environment won’t be affected much.”

The villagers themselves are the threat to forests, he said during last week’s Ratanakkiri forest.

“You see dollars and then you cut down the trees for sales,” he told the group of 200 representatives there. “If you don’t cut down the trees, there will be no buyers.”

Villagers curse Mondulkiri plantation

Khaou Chuly, the Sino-Cambodian tycoon cursed by ethnic Phnong

A Phnong woman attends a traditional ceremony Tuesday in Mondulkiri's Pouteut village to appease their ancestors and protect their land from a local rubber plantation. (Photo by: Bill Herod)

Friday, 19 June 2009
Written by Sam Rith and Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post

Ethnic Phnong community resorts to tradition in dispute with Franco-Cambodian rubber venture.

ETHNIC Phnong villagers in Mondulkiri's Bou Sra commune held traditional ceremonies Tuesday to appease ancestral spirits and curse a joint French-Cambodian rubber plantation they say has robbed them of large tracts of communal farmland, participants said.

The ceremony took place in Pouteut village, which lies inside a 10,000-hectare rubber concession granted to the Khaou Chuly Co and French rubber giant Socfin, they said.

"Residents sacrificed a buffalo, dedicating it to the spirits of our ancestors and the neak ta spirits who look after the forests, to help protect our remaining land," said a Phnong community representative who did not want to be named.

"According to our traditional beliefs, if the company continues clearing the land [it] will meet problems."

Bill Herod, an adviser for Village Focus Cambodia who works with Phnong youth, said the ceremony, which took place next to a large rubber company excavator, began with the beating of traditional gongs before the buffalo was sacrificed and its head placed on an altar.

After village elders drank ceremonial rice wine from earthen jars, the villagers then cooked and ate the meat, he added, sharing it with local police.

Pouteut village is one of seven villages in Bou Sra commune that claim to have been affected by the rubber companies, which were granted their first 2,500-hectare concession in late 2007 and began clearing forest early last year.

Tensions came to a head in December, when angry villagers, claiming the destruction of spirit forests and rotational farmland, torched and smashed machinery belonging to Khaou Chuly Co in the commune's Bou Sra village.

"If the company continues clearing the land [it] will have problems."

So far, the community representative said, Socfin has cleared about 200 hectares of rotational farmland in the vicinity of Pouteut village.

"We want to keep the farmland and forests not only for human beings, but also for wild animals.... We do not want to allow any company, whether Khaou Chuly or the French company, to clear the land and forest any further," he said.

Saving the situation
When contacted Wednesday, Socfin General Manager Philippe Monnin declined to comment on the situation.

But in an interview at Bou Sra in April, he told the Post the company was trying to enlist the support of international development agencies - including the French government's French Development Agency - to offset the negative impacts on local communities.

Mondulkiri Deputy Governor Yim Lux said Socfin was offering compensation to people who had lost farmland, but added that villagers were making confusing claims.

"We have already measured the land that belongs to them, but they are claiming more forest land that does not belong to them. For this, they have to adhere to the law," he said.

But Herod said that despite the relaxed atmosphere Tuesday, locals were still uncertain about the rubber plantation and what its long-term impact would be.

"[The Phnong] didn't know which way to turn. They are still unclear about exactly what's happening ... or where they're supposed to farm," he said.

"From the perspective of the [Phnong], the giant machines ploughing their forests, rice fields, gardens, graves and other spiritual sites are weapons of mass destruction."

Villagers Stop Bulldozers in Land Protest [-Getting closer to Hun Sen's predicted farmers' revolution?]

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
11 March 2009

Hundreds of people in northeast Cambodia stopped bulldozers from plowing sectors of farmland Wednesday, forcing a mediation between the parties.

The nearly 300 protesters, from four villages in Kratie province’s Snuol district, pushed past armed security guards of a private developer to stand in front of five bulldozers as they worked to clear land Wednesday morning, said Chan Saveth, a monitor for the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee and an investigator for the rights group Adhoc.

The guards cocked their rifles, but did not fire shots before the crowd pushed past them, he said. After the bulldozers were stopped, representatives of the villagers and company, CIV Development, met for around two hours, he said.

Villagers, who belong to the Steang minority group, say around 500 hectares of farmland is being destroyed by CIV’s plans.

CIV owner Heang Fu Khay told VOA Khmer Wednesday his company had rights to the land, but he was seeking a way to address the concerns of residents.

“For my development project for planting rubber, the government provided a concession of 1,000 hectares in 2007,” he said. “The company just started clearing the land in February 2009, and then the villagers protested against the company for clearing their land.”

CIV had offered to provide villagers 330 hectares of the concession to villagers, but the villagers still protested, he said. He now planned to offer 150 more hectares to the people to end the conflict.

Sum Chhoun, deputy district governor of Snuol, said Wednesday the conflict was difficult to solve. The government had studied many hectares of land for concession development, but in the meantime more and more villagers had settled on some land.

“If the company agrees to provide the old farmland and the farmland now, the problem will be resolved,” he said.

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.

Cambodia: Evictions in name of development

CPP Tycoon-senator Lao Meng Khin (center) and his powerful wife Choeung Sopheap (aka Yeay Phu) in red shirt (Photo: CPP)

IRIN

22 August 08 - Vanndy Sambath had lived next to Phnom Penh’s lush Boeng Kak lake for years, peacefully growing vegetables and accommodating tourists to support his family.

IRIN, Phnom Penh - That all changed in 2006, when a contractor arrived and announced government-sponsored plans to fill in the lake, forcing his neighbourhood to relocate in the future.

Two years on, he worries for his family’s future. Finding a new job will be difficult, he told IRIN.

“They came here and didn’t give us a choice,”Vanndy said. “We haven’t moved yet, but we’re all scared when they come and clear us out. We don’t know what they will do.”

Since 2006, Cambodian construction firm Shukaku Inc. has been filling in one of the city’s only remaining lakes - where Sambath lives - to make way for guesthouses, shopping centres, and an array of high priced apartments.

According to a 2007 report issued by the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR Cambodia), 4,225 families will be forcibly evicted from Boeng Kak.

Nothing new

However, sidelining Cambodia’s vast slums for urban development is far from new.

A joint South Korean and Cambodian firm has similarly filled in most of Phnom Penh’s Pong Peay lake since 2006 to build a US$2 billion satellite city called Camko, which will showcase boutique shops and skyscrapers.

Pong Peay had previously been home to numerous shanty towns.

South Korean construction tycoons building the massive International Finance Centre - heralding Phnom Penh into a new age of skyscrapers - have also forced slum dwellers to the city’s outskirts.

Yet many of the planned spaces remained unsold, with questions raised about whether there are enough rich people in the country to sustain such a project.

“The problem is that this caters to a tiny powerful group,” Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, told IRIN. “The government is attempting to develop and modernise Cambodia quickly, but they’ve lost sight of the people they’re trying to help.”

Mass evictions

When the genocidal Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, they immediately ordered an evacuation of the capital to transform Cambodia into an agrarian society. In a matter of hours, the communist victors displaced millions, turning a bustling metropolis into a mere ghost town.

According to activists, recent forced evictions in Cambodia are the largest since those in the 1970s.

“This is close to the largest forced displacement of people if you count all the elections and years that it has been happening,” Virak said.

Adhoc, a Cambodian rights watchdog, says about 50,000 people throughout the country were evicted for development projects in 2006 and 2007.

In contravention of the law?

But Cambodia’s 2001 land law clearly states that lakes are public property and cannot be sold.

Another 1996 law states that the natural resources of Cambodia should be “conserved, developed, managed, and used in a rational and sustainable manner,” said land activist Chak Sopheap.

To get around this, instead of directly selling the lake to developers, the Phnom Penh Municipality has leased it for 99 years to Shukaku Inc., said David Pred, co-founder of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Bridges Across Borders.

“The lease is illegal because the lake is state public property and cannot be leased for more than 15 years or damaged or destroyed,” he told IRIN. “By filling in the lake, it will be destroyed.”

Added to that is the fact that most Boeng Kak residents are unaware of Cambodian land laws, he said.

Despite this, developing the capital remains a priority for the Phnom Penh municipal government, which has stated in official releases that evictions were necessary for progress.

When the Boeng Kak lake project first got under way, Environment Minister Mok Mareth cited concerns that filling in the lake would seriously affect Phnom Penh’s drainage system.

He called the project ’illegal’ after HSC Company, a contractor for Shukaku, began constructing a pipe without a license to fill the lake with sand.

HSC Company responded that it had the permission of the city authorities, not the Ministry of Environment, to begin construction. Neither Minister Mareth or Shukaku could be reached for comment.

Mareth now supports private development at the lake. Others, however, remain steadfastly opposed.

“Filling Boeng Kake lake will have untold environmental consequences, as it is the primary natural reservoir where rainwater is collected during the monsoon season,” NGO leader Pred warned. “It is hard to believe city hall officials that the lake filling will not lead to flooding and other negative environmental consequences.”

Compensation woes

Meanwhile, residents of the proposed project await news of their fate.

“I don’t protest against the government’s development plan,” Yim Sokhom, an army commander and Boeng Kak resident, told IRIN. “But I don’t agree with private developers using the government’s name to get their way.”

Sokhom added that Shukaku Inc. representatives offered to reimburse him to the tune of US$4,000 for his property, while similar properties around Phnom Penh sell for over $40,000.

’’What am I supposed to do with $4,000? I can’t buy a new house in Cambodia with that money. If they’re willing to reimburse me fairly, I’ll gladly move.’’

Human rights activist Virak also cited concerns over reimbursement. “As with any policy, if you cannot fairly compensate those negatively impacted,” he said, “then it goes to show that the policy is not an effective one.”

Opposition lawmakers from the country’s Sam Rainsy Party in January tried to halt the lake plan until the government had fully considered the project’s environmental impacts. They did not receive much support from the National Assembly, according to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

In a similar development scheme around a lake in Kandal Province, which turned out to be illegal, the Cambodian government removed a governor and his two deputies on corruption charges, then demolished the construction projects.

Family connections, corruption

Forestry watchdog Global Witness released a report in 2007 detailing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s family connections with illegal logging and land grabbing in various provinces. The government had previously banned the organisation in 2005 from operating in Cambodia.

Ty Sokun, director of the Forestry Administration, responded to the report by calling Global Witness a group of “insane, unprofessional people”, according to the International Herald Tribune.

Both Human Rights Watch and Freedom House noted in 2008 that Cambodia had not made sufficient progress in its good governance. Freedom House’s 2008 index criticised government officials for engaging in land grabbing without regard for a majority of the population.

Senator Lau Meng Khin, owner of the land companies Pheapimex Co. Ltd. and Shukaku Inc., is also chairman of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce and is close to Hun Sen’s family, according to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

In addition to the land around Boeng Kak, Senator Lau was also granted 315,025 hectares in Kompong Chhnang and Pursat provinces, according to the OHCHR report.

Koh Rong Sanlem Island - A Poem in Khmer by Yim Guechsè and Sam Vichea

Click on the poem to zoom in

Poem in Khmer by Yim Guechsè (on the web at http://kamnapyimguechse.blogspot.com)
and Sam Vichea (on the web at http://kamnapkumnou.blogspot.com)

Minorities Warn Against Land Concessions

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
08 August 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

A group of ethnic minorities from Cambodia's far-flung provinces gathered in Phnom Penh Friday, urging the government to reconsider its concession policies on land where they make a living on natural resources.

Cambodia's once-remote northeast has opened up to mining and other concessions in recent years, leading to a large number of displaced minorities and conflict over land.

"Don't take the land of ethnic minorities for concession," said Tep Toem, a Kuoy ethnic minority from Preah Vihear province. "Before giving land concessions to companies, the government should talk with the people in advance, whether the land concession will affect people's livelihoods or not."

Members of Cambodia's minorities spoke following a meeting in Phnom Penh sponsored by the NGO Forum. Cambodia has an estimated 190,000 minorities, comprising 17 indigenous groups.

Members of the different groups are responsible for the management of around 4 million hectares, NGO Forum said in a statement.

UN special rights envoy Yash Ghai warned on a visit last year that land disputes in rural provinces could lead to political instability.

Officials for the Ministry of Land Management could not be reached for comment Friday.

China presence in Cambodia grows

May 30, 2008
RFA

PHNOM PENH - China, hungry for strategic influence and natural resources, is asserting itself as a major investor in Cambodia, sparking concerns that a huge inflow of Chinese cash will fuel existing corruption and exploitation in one of the world's poorest countries.

The relationship between the two countries is long and mixed, given Maoist China's unflagging support for the late supreme Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, whose Marxist faction is blamed for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians from 1975-79.

But in recent years, ethnic Chinese families close to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen have played a key role in putting Chinese companies, often with the backing of the Chinese state, in touch with top Cambodian officials, economists and activists said.

"China needs Cambodia," US-based Cambodian economist Tith Naranhkiri said. "If a security problem occurs, for example, a war with Taiwan, China may need Cambodia ... Secondly, for economic reasons, it needs gas and oil."

According to the official China News Agency, China has become one of the biggest investors in Cambodia, with 3,016 Chinese companies making cumulative investments of US$1.58 billion to the end of 2007. Bilateral trade last year rose by 30% from 2006, to $730 million.

Since the signing of an investment protection agreement in July 1996, a further $350 million has been pledged, mostly in the forestry sector, power, textiles, construction materials, and agricultural development.

Major role for China

"China now plays a crucial role in our economy. It is both an important donor and an investor, and it's also a big market for Cambodian products," Khmer Economists' Association president Chan Sophal said. "Our agricultural products are exported to China but through Thailand and Vietnam. We are also a market for Chinese products. China’s role in the Cambodian economy is growing," he said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited Cambodia in February, pledging a further $55 million in aid and investments of $1 billion in the country's power industry. He also waived import tariffs on 400 Cambodian products.

Besides investment and assistance, China has also granted military assistance to Cambodia, providing the country’s dilapidated navy with nine patrol boats in November 2007 and five warships in 2005.

But rights activists and anti-corruption campaigners point to a huge increase in illegal logging, land-grabbing, and worker exploitation as a secondary consequence of Chinese money.

"The effect of lots of money coming in with few strings attached, going to a lot of people in the government, is generally exacerbating corruption," Simon Taylor, director of the international anti-corruption group Global Witness, said.

Land grabs, illegal logging

"This manifests itself as land-grabbing, massive plantations and illegal logging, unregulated mining, the building of dams, and so on," Taylor said.

Meanwhile, workers' rights are often sidestepped in Chinese-invested factories, especially in the textile industry, activists said.

"The Chinese companies, especially garment factories, today have a lot of problems with Cambodian workers," Chan Saveth, of the rights advocacy group Adhoc, said. "Today, we see that China dominates garment factories in Cambodia. Workers suffer a lot, and the Chinese garment factories have mostly restricted workers' freedom."

Hundreds of thousands of workers - the majority of whom are women - are employed in Cambodia’s textile industry, which generates annual revenue of more than US$1 billion.

They have described an atmosphere in which they are constantly pressed into unpaid overtime, with too many financial worries and too little spare time to cause trouble for management. Unauthorized deductions from pay-packets are common, and paid sick leave is rare.

Protests in the forest

Chinese money has been tied up with massive agricultural and forestry exploitation projects, which are destroying traditional ways of life such as bamboo-harvesting and resin-tapping, activists said.

The Cambodian government granted a Mondulkiri forest concession of 200,000 hectares - 20 times the legal limit - acquired secretly by Pheapimex, an ethnic-Chinese owned Cambodian conglomerate with close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Pheapimex formed a joint venture with China's Wuzhishan plantation firm to exploit the region, displacing indigenous minority people who rely on the forests for their traditional livelihoods.

Global Witness said bigger deals involving Chinese state-backed companies were likely the least transparent and the most strongly defended by government security forces, who responded with military force to anti-logging protests by villagers in Mondulkiri.

"From the perspective of people in Cambodia who might want to ask questions about the process ... it's even more difficult with some of these recent deals that have totally been brokered behind closed doors," Taylor said.

He said the outcome of such deals for people living in rural areas was disastrous. "They know nothing until the moment that the bulldozers turn up and start pushing down their houses."

Loans, grants from Beijing

"If they protest, they get the full force of the state mechanism ... suppressing their efforts to get their voices heard," he added.

Hun Sen has banned illegal logging and called anarchic logging "the biggest mistake" of his political career, and his views have been backed up by anti-logging speeches by ministers, but with little apparent effect.

Chan Sophal said China's interests in Cambodia were clear. "They help us, but they also look into the resources we have, such as mines, oil, gold, iron, and land. They need land to grow agricultural and agro-industrial crops to meet the demands of the [China's] population."

Difficult history

Sino-Khmer relations began in 1958. During the 1970s, Maoist China for Pol Pot gave steadfast support to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, whose faction is blamed for deaths of more than a million people.

Closer ties developed after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 through former Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, who maintained a second home in China and close ties with Beijing.

China wrote off significant loans to the Cambodian government six years ago, making new loans and grants worth $600 million during the visit to Cambodia of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in April 2006.

While no conditions were attached, analysts say Beijing is keen to secure access to the southern port of Sihanoukville for strategic reasons, particularly as a delivery point for imported oil.

Original reporting in Khmer by Mayarith. Translated by Chea Makara. Khmer service director: Kem Sos. Additional research by RFA's Cantonese service. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Written and produced for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Hun Sen Orders Land Sale Investigation [- Another "All Talk No Action" from Hun Sen]

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
23 April 2008

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday ordered the Council for Development of Cambodia to conduct an investigation into alleged deception of residents in land deals with private companies.

Speaking at a government and private sector forum, the prime minister warned that some investments in the country had worried Cambodians, and said companies who had forced people to sell land for them would lose their development licenses.

“You forced people to sell the land, so [the licenses] must be terminated,” he said. “This measure is to protect people from losing their land due to coercion by the private sector, which has used its name as an investor and forced people to sell the land.”

Hun Sen pointedly ordered the CDC to investigate a land sale in Kandal province’s Vihear Sour commune.

Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy Party deputy secretary-general, said Wednesday she was skeptical such a measure would lead to any action against the companies.

Many private companies had tricked people into selling their land, or forced them from their land, but they did so with official backing, she said.

“Many senior government officials and local authorities are behind some of those companies,” she said.

The rights group Adhoc reported in 2007 a worrying trend of private companies forcing the sale of land at low prices or taking land after delivering a small deposit for its sale.

Sam Vichea's Poem: Watch out, the country's owners have no land to live on!

Click on the poem to zoom in

Will History Haunt Us Again?

Op-Ed by Anonymous
Posted at http://khmerkrom.org

Our people compatriot must stop the present leader let our country plunging again and again. The Khmer leader must learn our history well before thinking to lead this nation.

Remember Kampuchea Krom? Remember Prey Nokor? A primary example is the Ho Chi Minh.

First, they asked our king to give them the place to train their troops; then ask to stay for safety, and then ask to give, then no tax and so on.

Now, there is something wrong again. WHY does it feel wrong to give over one hundred thousand acres of our sacred land to VN army forces? Think twice and must we have people involved in this matter?

Who else, the VN private companies – another offered land (Dei Sambatean)?

Do Khmer people keep quiet in this case and let the government give away free land to VN?

Do you see all Khmer farmers with no land and also those that are greedy and selfish help their master to take from the poor as well or do they actually think Cambodia already belongs to VN; so just sell it before it is too late for them?

I would like to appeal to all Khmer abroad in the third country – please do not afraid that you cannot go to visit the country or your family; be afraid that we will have no country to visit.

The way Vietnamese took our land (Kampuchea Krom) is just the way they are doing to Cambodia now. It will not be long before, we, Khmer, have no country to visit and also have no country to call our own.

Millions of Khmer people were killed and will continue to get killed no one of them take responsibility – for they are not afraid to give away the very heart and soul of Khmer land and life.

There is something wrong with the concept of “Royalist and Communist together” – look around!!!

We must act now and just one voice, there is no one Khmer smarter than with all Khmers together.

Phnong people in Mondulkiri held a ceremony to curse with death the Hun Sen regime and the VN Dalat Co. for grabbing their lands

Phnong ethnic minority in Mondulkiri held a cursing ceremony

27 November 2007
By Or Phearith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

A group of Phnong ethnic minority people living in Bou Sra commune, Mondulkiri province, held a ceremony to curse all those who doled out on 26 November and those who received the concession lands that affect the Vil Chum farmlands which belong to the Phnong people.

Phnong people living in La-mess village, Bou Sra commune, Pechreada district, indicated that on 26 November, a group of Phnong people brought a pig to offer to the spirits of the forests and mountains, to help protect their lands so that nobody can take them away from the Phnong people.

An anonymous Phnong person said: “The (Phnong) villagers are very angry that this (Vietnamese) company kept on taking their lands, and the government kept on doling out concession lands to this (Vietnamese) company. The villagers are not pleased with these activities, they bought a pig to offer (to the spirits). The location of the offering is called “atab” in Phnong, there, they curse (those who doled out their lands and those who took their lands) with death.”

The cursing ceremony was done in extreme secrecy after about 50 Phnong families have learnt that the government decided to give away 5,108-hectare of concession lands in Pechreada district, and some of the concession lands include the Vil Chum farmlands belonging to the Phnong people. The concession lands were given away to the Vietnamese Dalat Company to plant rubber trees.

Some Phnong people have demanded $500 in compensation per hectare of non cultivated lands, and $1,000 per hectare of cultivated lands. They have rejected the policy of compensating 1 million riels (~$250) per hectare of their lands: “… per hectare, they gave us 1 million riels (~$250), but we do not agree, we want $500 per hectare of non-cultivated lands, and $1,000 per hectare of lands where we planted our cashew trees.”

Another group of Phnong people said that they may not be able to control their rage, if there is no resolution to their requests. “My name is Iev Sam En. Maybe, I will have to use some violence because when I talked to them, they wouldn’t listen to us, we have no other choice.”

The Phnong people claim that they are willing to swap their lands to go elsewhere where they can continue to grow their crops so that they can alleviate their poverty. But if there is no resolution for them, or no other lands for them to live, they may face famine because 1 million riels per hectare cannot buy lands elsewhere.

Koy Samey, the La-Mess village chief, promised to intervene with the Vietnamese company.

Lay Sokha, the Mondulkiri provincial governor, claimed the same thing: “I will meet this company and I will invite the National Authority for the Resolution of Land Dispute (NARLD) to come and resolve the land issues for them”

The Vietnamese Dalat Company does not have a phone number where it can be contacted.

In 2006, villagers living in Som village, Kampoan commune, Memot district, Kampong Cham province held a ceremony also to curse the powerful government officials as well as those wealthy people who persist on grabbing the villagers’ lands, so that these rich crooks of government crooks may become poorer than them who are nothing but poor villagers.

Pair nabbed for forging Cambodian PM, leaderships signatures for fraud [-Forgery shows that Cambodia is corruption-ridden to the highest level]

November 27, 2007

Two men have been arrested by Cambodian military police in Phnom Penh for allegedly leading a private company into believing it had been granted a huge land concession by using fake signatures of the government's leadership, local press reported Tuesday.

The pair, identified as Hai Cheng, 39, and Mao Bun Theng, 51, reportedly falsified the signatures, official stamps and handwriting of Prime Minister Hun Sen, National Assembly President Heng Samrin, Minister of the Council of Ministers Sok An and Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper reported.

The forgeries were made in order to deceive Ing Em development firm into believing it had been granted a 17,000 hectare land concession in Siem Reap province to build an airport and Special Economic Zone, it said.

Posing as middlemen, the pair allegedly prepared the false documents with border markings realistic enough to fool the company into paying them 120,000 U.S. dollars for the service, the Kampuchea Thmey newspaper reported.

However, when the men avoided signing a contract with the company, it grew suspicious and ordered a review of the documentation which revealed the documents were forgeries, the KohSantepheap newspaper reported.

In the false Council of Ministers notification, Sok An was identified as "Senior Minister, Minister in charge of the Council of Ministers" rather than Deputy Prime Minister, the Rasmei Kampuchea report said.

Hai Cheng and Mao Bun Theng were charged Monday and detained byPhnom Penh Municipal Court awaiting further investigation and trial, it said.

Police also found a gun, a two-way radio, three mobile phones, three false identify cards and a number of fake documents during asearch of Hai Cheng's house in Meanchey district on Nov. 24, the Koh Santepheap said.

Source: Xinhua

7 land concession agreements cancelled

22 October 2007
By Huy Vannak
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

Son Chhay, a member of the National Assembly (NA) permanent committee, talked on Monday afternoon about pushing the government to seize back economic land concessions from various companies which did not follow up on the investment agreements, and turn back these seized land concessions into national properties.

Son Chhay said: “There are not just 6-7 companies, based on what we know, there are more than 10 companies which obtained land concessions more than the 10,000-hectare limit set by the land law, (these lands exceeding 10,000-hectare) should be taken back, and regardless whether the concession is less than 10,000-hectare, if these concessions do not follow up on their agreements, they should be seized. At the same time, it is necessary to resolve the issue of our people who were victimized by these land concessions, such as the villagers in Sre Ambil and other areas. These (seized concession) lands should be officially turned to poor people urgently.”

According to a statement issued by the ministry of agriculture, forestry and fishery, dated 31 September, the Royal Government of Cambodia plans to seize concession lands from at least 7 companies and turn these lands into state properties. However, up until now, the government has not yet provided information about the results of these seizures.

Regarding the cancellation of the agreement with the companies above, Chan Sarun, the minister of agriculture, declared at the National Assembly, last week that: “Under the reviewing process of the ministry of agriculture, forestry and fishery, and the direction for fruitful investment push, as well as under the efficient use of concession lands, the government has decided to cancel the agreements with 5 companies and the development goal must be corrected for its application action. Activities for 2 other companies have been stopped for further inspection. Until now, 2 companies have been definitively removed.”

Based of the declaration from the ministry of agriculture, the companies which the government decided to cancel their development agreements consist of 4 companies which agreed to set up developments in Kampong Speu province, among these companies are: (1) the Cambovector Co. which had an agreement to develop 26,550-hectare of lands, (2) the Hainan Cambodia Co. with 4,100-hectare, (3) the Chinese Cooperation Co. with 8,000-hectare, and (4) the Kim Weil Co. with 3,200-hectare.

The other 3 companies are: (1) the agricultural development and investment AV Sky which has an agreement to develop 10,000-hectare of lands in Kampong Thom province, (2) the Tay Nam BPM with 7,600-hectare in Mondulkiri, and (3) the Tay Nam K with 7,560-hectare in Kratie province.

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.

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.