18 August 2017
- Representatives for 175 families from Koh Kong province once again gathered near Prime Minister HE’s house yesterday seeking intervention in an escalating land dispute.

The families say three development companies that claim 782 hectares of land in Botom Sakor district and Sre Ambel district have violated their lands and recently dug a canal blocking the main road of two villages.

The land has been disputed between the families and the three companies, Koh Kong Sugar Industry, Koh Kong Plantation and Heng Huy Development, since 2006.

Representative Phav Nherng said that in the past the Ministry of Land Management had visited the areas in order to find a solution.

But recently, the resolution process had come to a stand-still after Koh Kong Sugar Industry and Koh Kong Plantation dug a water canal blocking the roads in two villages, making life difficult for local people.

Ms Nherng asked Prime Minister HE to speed up the resolution process, as villagers have waited for 11 years already.

“Samdech [HE] please help solve this issue for us, because the blocked road prevents us from moving our cattle and crossing the canal. The Ministry of Land Management said they would resolve this dispute, but they have not done so, and the court summons us, claiming we are involved with many offences. It is something they have done to scare us,” she said.

Gathering in front of Wat Botum Pagoda, the representatives also tried to walk to the Prime Minister’s house, but were blocked by district security guards...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5078753/lan ... escalates/

Cambodian Villagers Protest Decade-Old Land Grab Case in Koh Kong Province
23 August 2017
About 100 villagers from southwestern Cambodia’s Koh Kong province clashed on Tuesday with security forces in Phnom Penh during a protest over a decade-long land dispute with two sugar companies, a spokesmen for the residents said.
The villagers travelled from Chikhor commune in Sre Ambel district and from Botum Sakor district in Koh Kong to the country’s capital to protest what they called land grabs by the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company Ltd. and Koh Kong Plantation Company Ltd. that took place in 2006, said Phav Nheung, representing the villagers.

Several sustained minor injuries after clashing with security forces in Daun Penh district while demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, she said.

The villagers accuse the companies of encroaching on their farmland over the past decade and not providing them adequate compensation for land taken for the production of sugar exported to the United States.

Phav Nheung told reporters that the villagers were protesting at the ministry because authorities in Koh Kong have not honored pledges to resolve the dispute.
Radiokhmer

Land dispute protest drags on
December 8, 2017
Representatives of 175 families in Koh Kong province gathered once again in front of the Ministry of Land Management yesterday to ask for a quicker resolution to a decade-long land dispute.

Land Management Minister Chea Sophara announced the creation of a working group to solve the dispute at the end of August 2017. The group visited the families, but since then the resolution process has stalled, residents claim.
Phav Nherng, the citizens’ representative in Kho Kong’s Sre Ambel and Botum Sakor district, asked the ministry to speed up the process and make land titles for the families.

The residents have been involved in a land dispute with three sugar companies, Koh Kong Sugar Industry, Koh Kong Plantation, and Heng Huy Company.
“The ministry did an incomplete job solving this problem. For us this means debt, losing our businesses, being unable to farm,” Ms Nherng said. “Everybody in Cambodia is focused on politics, nobody cares about our problems.”...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5094769/lan ... est-drags/

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:56 pm Land dispute protest drags on
December 8, 2017
Representatives of 175 families in Koh Kong province gathered once again in front of the Ministry of Land Management yesterday to ask for a quicker resolution to a decade-long land dispute.

Land Management Minister Chea Sophara announced the creation of a working group to solve the dispute at the end of August 2017. The group visited the families, but since then the resolution process has stalled, residents claim.
Phav Nherng, the citizens’ representative in Kho Kong’s Sre Ambel and Botum Sakor district, asked the ministry to speed up the process and make land titles for the families.

The residents have been involved in a land dispute with three sugar companies, Koh Kong Sugar Industry, Koh Kong Plantation, and Heng Huy Company.
“The ministry did an incomplete job solving this problem. For us this means debt, losing our businesses, being unable to farm,” Ms Nherng said. “Everybody in Cambodia is focused on politics, nobody cares about our problems.”...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5094769/lan ... est-drags/

“The ministry did an incomplete job solving this problem. For us this means debt, losing our businesses, being unable to farm,” Ms Nherng said. “Everybody in Cambodia is focused on politics, nobody cares about our problems.”

Tep Thon, the director of the working group, said the ministry did not ignore the people, but that the process is long because any decision must be made in coordination between the Ministries of Land Management, Environment, Agriculture, and Commerce.

It has been 11 years...... the big boys don't give a fuck and they get away with it all the time.

“I have already met them, and I rejected their proposal and asked them to go home first. This case has happened for more than 10 years, so we cannot do what they want right now because we are trying to find the solution step by step.”

Backwards most times

Sia Phearum, executive director of the Housing Rights Task Force, has been monitoring the land dispute and expects the ministry to solve the issue and help the affected people.

Mr Phearum said that otherwise the people should be able to protest at the national level and affect the ruling party’s ballot in the upcoming election.

Ha ha

Koh Kong families seek help in tycoon land row
14 December 2017
- A group of 50 families in Koh Kong’s Kiri Sakor district yesterday asked provincial authorities to solve their land dispute with a company owned by tycoon Ly Yong Phat.

The families want more than 100 hectares of land be cut from the company’s Special Economic Zone project and returned to them, so they can use it for farming as they did before.
Sam Hy, 38, said 11 hectares of his land had been taken by the firm.

The company, which has an Economic Land Concession in Prek Khsach and Samrong Takeo communes, began clearing forest for development in the area earlier this month. “The company’s representatives went to clear our land,” Mr Hy said. “If we did not go to stop them, they would have cleared it all. So we are asking the authorities to solve the problem.”

Citizen representative Heng Sok, 48, said local residents had been using 103 hectares of the land since 1998. The SEZ took over the land in 2005...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5095892/koh ... -land-row/

Heng Sok, a spokesman for the villagers,(mentioned in the previous post), was taken to the police station by LYP group security guards on Sunday. He has been placed under arrest and charged with using violence.

Koh Kong villager in dispute with company owned by CPP senator held for ‘using violence’
1 March 2018
A villager representative in a dispute with a company owned by a ruling party senator yesterday said from a Koh Kong prison that he had been brought to commune police by company security guards and there had been no violence during the incident, despite his having been accused by police of “using violence on the property owner”.

Heng Sok, 48, was accused under the Land Management Law after allegedly installing boundary markers on land at the centre of a dispute between 50 families and LYP Group, owned by tycoon and Senator Ly Yong Phat. He has been in pre-trial detention since Sunday, with an NGO and his relative calling for his immediate release.

Sok’s mother-in-law, Tith Ten, 61, visited him in prison yesterday, saying he told her he had installed about eight boundary markers when four LYP Group security guards showed up, asked him to get inside a car and told him they would go to the company to settle the issue.

“But they didn’t go there, they brought him to the police post for questioning and to detain him,” Ten said, adding that after that, commune police sent him to provincial police, where they wrote a report and accused him of a crime he didn’t commit.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/k ... g-violence

Two long-running land disputes in Koh Kong have been finally resolved with an agreement by tycoon Ly Yong Phat to give up some company land to the villagers in compensation for the village land which he received as part of an economic land concession.

Koh Kong land dispute solved, ministry says
22 March 2018
The Ministry of Land Management on Thursday morning said it has resolved two long-running land disputes between communities in Koh Kong's Sre Ambel and Botum Sakor districts and two sugar companies owned by tycoon and ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat involving more than 800 hectares of land.

The announcement, made at the ministry in the presence of both Phat and minister Chea Sophara, declared that the two companies – Koh Kong Sugar Industry Co, Ltd and Koh Kong Plantation Co, Ltd – agreed to cut out 825 hectares of land from their economic land concession and hand it to villagers, some of whom also received additional monetary compensation.

The dispute involving a community of 200 families in Botum Sakor's Kandorl commune began in 2003, and the one involving 175 families in Sre Ambel's Chi Khor Leu commune began in 2005.

Prum Khum, a representative of the community in Kandorl, said he and his fellow villagers were happy with the solution.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... try-says-0

Problems and protests continue over alleged land grabs in Koh Kong by the sugar companies owned by tycoon Ly Yong Phat. Protesters have come to Phnom Penh again on May 18 to plead for an intervention by the PM.

18 May 2018
Phnom Penh: Villagers from Koh Kong have once again come to Phnom Penh to ask the government for help in their land argument with a sugar company belonging to Okhna Ly Yong Phat. The protesters slept at the Samaki Rangsey pagoda.

300 families marched from the pagoda to the cabinet of the Prime Minister at noon on May 18, which was controlled by the police in order to make the protest organized. The protesters took a petition asking the authorities to intervene and expedite the handling of their compensation with each family getting 3 hectares of land and $ 2,500 as compensation for their loss.