Violence Occurred As Appeal Court’s Final Judgment Implemented

On the morning of July 2, 2010, violence took place in Samrong commune, Kien Svay district, Kandal province while villagers were coming to protest against the legal execution of Appeal Court’s final judgment to order more than 100 families in the above area to hand over the land to the other party, Mr. Prak Savuth, who was the winner of the case. During the event joint armed forces, police and military police physically assaulted the residents as they were trying to ban the authorities from implementing the action for they thought they would lose hectares of land, where they have been farming since 1979. In addition, the authorities arrested Mr. Pheng Siha, who also opposed in the event.

According to a villager, Mrs. Chhorn Phally, who interviewed with the Radio Free Asia that day, said her family had been living there since 1979, but she had not got legal land title yet. She said that she had never known who those two parties were and where they were from. However, they filed legal complaints each other over the land, which belonged to more than 100 families in the village.

Mr. Ou Chanrith, Human Right Party lawmaker, who directly monitored at the site, said that it was not justice for villagers to be treated like that because the court officials had never conducted direct investigation at the area sufficiently and appropriately at all. He claimed that the conflict had happened for a long time; and he had visited the place for several times. He stated that [based on the 2001 Land Law] the residents deserved to be the owners of that plot of land. But a few powerful men were likely to use it to share to other villagers from other place. In reality, they only wanted it as their own personal advantage.

Echoing what mentioned above, Mr. Ouch Leng, local rights Adhoc investigator said that all levels of the involved court officials had not directly opened investigation at the site before making the final decision. By so doing, they maybe fail to follow the legal procedure.

Whereas Samrong communal chief Mrs. But Vanna depicted that the case really caused villagers to lose their land, but it was beyond her authority. The party, who won the case, she added, would offer a plot of land of 15 meter by 50 meter to each victim family.

In relation to the arrest of Mr. Pheng Siha, Kien Svay District Inspector Ta Sam It said that it was to avoid violence during the implementation ordered by the trial judge, who had been in charge of the case.