Land Conflict between Villagers and Deputy Governor in Kampong Thom

A land conflict has taken place since 2008 between 65 families and a deputy provincial governor in Kampong Kravei village, Bak Snar commune, Baray district, Kampong Thom province. The conflict land size is approximately 100 hectares, where those villagers asserted they have been living since 1994, 1995 and 1998.

These families accused Provincial Deputy Governor Ut Sam Orn of violently grabbing their land. In 2008 the governor appeared in the above conflict area and asserted that the land, which the residents have been living on, belonged to him and also a group of provincial officials. Since then, the official has very often used his men to intimidate the villagers and also prohibit them from going onto the land and growing rice.

The villagers described the story that when they first started resettling in the above area, it was full of jungles, where they then cleared them for land. The villagers depend on the land for a living by growing rice, fruit trees and other vegetables; and raising cattle and pigs. Apart from that, they also constructed homes on the land, where they started their families from generation to generation.

Local authorities used to invite them to a meeting to conciliate the issue. They asked these families to agree to hand over 70 percent of their land to the governor; however, they refused to do that for they have owned and used it for years. For this matter, the authorities also used armed forces (police officers) to threaten them to leave the area.

Regarding to the issue as well, they have filed complaints with concerned authorities, from local level to national one in order to seek for intervention. They also submitted the complaints to Prime Minister Hun Sen. However, their problems have been ignored.

On July 4, 2010 about 20 villagers among those 65 families gathered on the land in order to protest against the prohibition of the official. They were ordered to move out of the farmland. A group of armed forces, who were led by Ut Sam Orn, aimed their guns at the local people and forced to leave; otherwise they would shoot them. However, the villagers did not listen to the authorities at all. They would rather die than waiting for death of hunger. They said that if they left they would not have food to support their families.

Whereas Mr. Ut Sam Orn, who was accused of grabbing villagers’ land, reported to the media that this land belonged to about 20 provincial civil servants. He owned some. He said that he had a contract of hiring this land to the villagers to farm on more than 80 hectares. He also accused those people of breaking the contract. He used to lodge a complaint against them. However, later on he agreed to solve the problem by peaceful mean.

According to Mr. Poe Oumoete, Licadho provincial monitor, who has also investigated the case, the conflict first took place in 2008, when Mr. Ut Sam Orn was still Baray District Governor. Prior to that, in 2004 Mr. Ut Sam Orn came to the area and told the villagers that they were living on state land; and the government had to seize that land back. However he had a contract with those villagers. He explained them that they had land, but could not afford to grow rubber trees. Therefore the government offered them [the villagers] with young rubber trees; when they grew up, the people had to sell rubbers to the government. At that time, the residents might think they would get benefit from the project and anyway Mr. Ut Sam Orn told them the government would grab their land; so the people decided to thumbprint. However, Mr. Ut Sam Orn did not show the contract to the villagers at all; he only read it out.

Up to 2008, the villagers knew that the governor had sold their land to traders from outside. So they protested against that. In contract, the governor accused them of breaching the contract. However the people denied they had agreed to hire their own land from the official at all. At that time there was intervention from a concerned national official [Name is not given] to ask the provincial authorities to solve the problem for the villagers. So the case had became normal until on July 4, 2010 when the above villagers went to farm on their land, there was a group of police officers, who came along with weapons and were led by the governor, banning them from farming.