14 Villagers Pre-Detained in a Land Dipute Siem Reap

At least 14 villagers out of 70 from Tbaeng village, Banteay Srey district, Siem Reap province were temporarily detained by Provincial Court on May 4, 2010 after they had been summoned for questioning over the accusation of illegally cutting down state forest- acacia trees, on the land they had been farming.

The procedure of interrogating those people was done by Investigating Judge Hok Pao from the morning of the day until 4:00 PM. Consequently the judge decided to provisionally confine those 14 people in accordance with Article 205 of Code of Criminal Procedure of the Kingdom of Cambodia and Article 98 of 2002 Forest Law in order to facilitate in further investigation.

The above case was also connected to a land dispute of 150 hectares in Tbaeng commune, Banteay Srey district, Siem Reap province between Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers and local villagers. Both parties asserted to have ownership of the conflict land and this has been going on for more than 10 years. However, the problem has not been solved justly and acceptably at all.

Ms. Soy Sophy, whose husband was one of the 14 men, reported the villagers came to live there in 1998. Whereas the soldiers just started to plant acacia in 2002. Up to 2006 Prime Minister Hun Sen declared to give the land back to villagers; but those authorities, both the RCAF soldiers and Forest Administrative officials still claimed it belonged to state land. The area is settled in Kulen Mountain Park, but lots of hug and valuable trees were almost chopped down and replaced by acacia about 50 hectare of the whole area.

After continuing to protest in front of the court by around 60 villagers, the court decided on May 6, 2010 to release those people on bails. However they were placed under judicial investigation and had to appear at court whenever summoning for questioning.