Four Villagers Arrested in a Land Dispute in Kiri Vong

Related to a land conflict in Kiri Vong district, Takeo province, which caused those affected villagers to protest in front of the National Assembly on April 7, 2010 to demand the legislative intervention over the matter of what they asserted that their land has been grabbed by a local forest conservative organization, called the NGO Chamreun Chiet Khmer in order to plant acacia trees. In addition the people have been intimidated by some local authority; and some residents were sued and summoned for questioning.

According to an article issued on the Phnom Penh Post on April 9, 2010, Chan Sopha, a villager in the above conflict area was quoted as saying that provincial police officers had been looking for villager representatives, who came to Phnom Penh to demonstrate before the Assembly. They could not find out those representatives, therefore about 100 police officers had been escorting those 50 villagers up to District Police Office. Furthermore some villagers were summoned by Provincial Court of First Instance to clarify on April 23, 2010. However, there were not likely to go because they felt afraid to be arrested and sent to jail.

On March 25, 2010, for instance, 3 villager representatives- Kov Pisey, 49, Chhoun Sarith, 49 and Hem Moeun, 48 were confined for they had protested against the organization; and on April 7, 2010 Hem Tha, 31 was also captured by several police officers.

Regarding an investigation by a provincial Adhoc coordinator Hor Neat, at first Chamreun Chiet Khmer (CCK) was donated by the World Vision and UN to conserve the forest area in Kiri Vong. Later on it was supported by Forest Administrative Department. Since then the organization has been trying to evict the villagers out of the area. However some of them have been living in the site since 2000. When they settled there, they started clearing to do the farming. Whereas the organization just started to run acacia plantation project in 2008.