People in Dankor Protested at Hun Sen’s Manson over Land Grabbing

One hundred ten people from Prey Chisak village, Chom Chao commune, Dangkor district, Phnom Penh rallied in front of Hun Sen’s house on September 2, 2009 to seek intervention from the premier due to a new airport expansion project, which is going to impact 104 families living along the airport fence.

Even though the day of demonstration, those villagers did not get intimidated from authorities, before that they had been forcedly ordered to leave the area by district and municipal authorities many times.

Based on the interview on July 20, with local representatives, Mr. Et Tengsakhorn, Mr. Chea Vuth, Mr. Chea Kimsan, and Chan Sam An as well as other 3 people, asking for anonymity; the conflict over the project had taken place since 2005. At that time there were only 74 families, but right now the population is increasing up to 104. Since then they had faced forced eviction.

On July 8, 2008 Phnom Penh Municipality asked them to discuss the problem. Mr. Ket Cher asked them to choose one of the 3 options. The first option, if the villagers voluntarily left, the government would consider to give some support. The second one, if they were obstinate by asking the government to pay compensation, the government would take legal action through court to dismiss them [without little compensation]. And the last one, if the people tended to use sticks, stones, knives or axes to solve the problem, then the government would pay it back by using 600 military police, policemen and soldiers; 4 bulldozers and 2 fire engines.

At that time, the government put the deadline for them to reconsider by August 13 whether what they should do.

However, according to the representatives and the document, they have lived in the area since 1985. The government did not say they had lived on the state’s land at all. Right now the government needs their land for the airport expansion; they asserted the villagers had lived on illegal land.

Once again, on August 27, Phnom Penh Municipal authority called them to repeatedly tell that the government needs expanding the National Airport, and did not say about appropriate and fair compensation, besides intimidation.