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Koh Kong villagers file petition against Chinese development company
06 April 2018
About 30 villagers embroiled in a land dispute with Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong are filing a petition asking the provincial governor to intervene after the Chinese company bulldozed crops last week.

Villager Peurng Loun, 45, said two UDG excavators destroyed hundreds of coconuts, mangoes and cashews on her 2.5 hectares of land in Koh Sdach commune in Kiri Sakor district on April 3. Villagers in neighbouring Prek Khsach commune have joined the petition, fearing similar losses.

The company is building a massive $3.8 billion tourism complex along the coast, sparking a series of land disputes.
Loun said the company tried to offer her $30,000 and two hectares of other land in November, but she did not accept the deal.

According to provincial officials with rights groups Adhoc and Licadho, the UDG representative Chieng Lan, also known as Vireak, on April 3, led 20 security and armed forces with batons and guns and two excavators in order to destroy crops on the land Loun claims to own, although she has no land title.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... nt-company

First, the Chinese scorch Sihanoukville, now Koh Kong. When will Cambodia become an SEZ of China?

will?

Bring it on.
The outlaws, in Sinville, have just rented their shopfront house for $1800/ month. Of course they are now faced with paying rent but having secured a nice little $120 place....they're pretty happy.
If you own land here, perhaps it's time to make a dollar.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

Barang chgout wrote: ↑Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:16 pm Bring it on.
The outlaws, in Sinville, have just rented their shopfront house for $1800/ month. Of course they are now faced with paying rent but having secured a nice little $120 place....they're pretty happy.
If you own land here, perhaps it's time to make a dollar.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

Pray tell us what business will be going into that shopfront house . Now we are heading towards the rainy season it will be interesting to see how some of these business survive.

Yes. I know the Chinese make an offer on a place double the present rent. We are talking $3500 to $7000 a month.
Also pay staff 30 % more.

When l went to business school we were told control costs!!

What school of thought these Chinese coming from???,,

Dont they understand 75cent beers not going to generate a fortune.!!!

Duncan wrote:

Barang chgout wrote: ↑Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:16 pm Bring it on.
The outlaws, in Sinville, have just rented their shopfront house for $1800/ month. Of course they are now faced with paying rent but having secured a nice little $120 place....they're pretty happy.
If you own land here, perhaps it's time to make a dollar.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

Pray tell us what business will be going into that shopfront house . Now we are heading towards the rainy season it will be interesting to see how some of these business survive.

Casino middle management, "Private home ", apparently. Wait and see.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

Reuters have published a journalistic investigation into what is going on with the Chinese development in Koh Kong. This is the first part of the article, but there are more details on the link. An interesting read.

World News
June 6, 2018 / 8:07 AM / Updated 3 hours ago
In Cambodia, stalled Chinese casino resort embodies Silk Road secrecy, risks
Brenda Goh, Prak Chan Thul

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - The Dara Sakor Seashore Resort seems a long way off the new Silk Road that China is building to connect Asia with Europe.
An old casino is seen near Dara Sakor Hotel at Botum Sakor in Koh Kong province, Cambodia, September 27, 2017. REUTERS/Samrang Pring

A five-hour drive from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, Dara Sakor was once touted by the Chinese company building it as a city-sized casino resort for “extravagant feasting and revelry”.

Today, it is a sprawl of mostly empty hotel buildings, deserted beach bars and the unfinished shell of a casino on a remote part of the Cambodian coast. Beyond the resort, the dusty foundations of a planned investment zone stretch down to a container port - both unfinished and idle.

Despite its troubles, the resort and surrounding development has been lauded as a champion of China’s Belt and Road initiative, as the new Silk Road is officially known.

But the embrace of developments like Dara Sakor, whose operations are opaque and economically unclear, seems to run counter to Chinese pledges that Belt and Road projects will be open, transparent and environmentally friendly.

Work began on the project in 2008 after Cambodia leased 45,000 hectares in a national park to China’s Tianjin Union Development Group (UDG) for 99 years. That was long before the Belt and Road initiative was launched in 2013 by China’s President Xi Jinping and gained steam with a summit he hosted in Beijing in 2017.

Little information about the project and its progress is available, and it is unclear how much money has been spent on it, and which parties have benefited.

The project has also resulted in extensive environmental damage as forest was cleared for construction sites, and the displacement of thousands of people, according to villagers and non-governmental groups. They say they have seen little work on the project over the past three years.

UDG didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did Cambodia’s environment ministry, which oversees the project for the central government.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... J20HA?il=0

This latest land dispute is connected to the secretive Dara Sakor Resort development in Koh Kong province by the Chinese company Tianjin UDG ( Union Development Group). post253228.html?hilit=Dara%20Sakor#p253228

Unlike the protests by Koh Kong villagers against Cambodian/Thai owned sugar plantation land grabs, which have resulted in promises of compensation, there has been no reply to the protests against UDG land grabs so far.

Koh Kong villagers protest alleged land grab by Chinese company
22 June 2018
Villagers from Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district have been protesting in the capital this week after their petition over a land dispute with the Chinese Union Development Group (UDG), delivered to the Environment Ministry on May 25, went unanswered.

The villagers returned to the capital on Monday, leaving on Thursday, and were protesting outside the ministry, demanding a solution.

Chay Kimhuoch, 39, from Kiri Sakor’s Phney Meas commune, claimed she bought 26 hectares of land from villagers in 2007, and that the UDG illegally grabbed it the following year.

“I have my documents from the commune authorities to prove it. I have my coconut, cashew and mango trees, which I have not harvested yet,” she said.

“This is the fourth time [we have come to Phnom Penh]. We have met the minister, and he told us to give him time. So we agreed to leave the ministry."

“We will wait to see what he will do in the next 10 days or so. As it is close to the election, we are worried we might be accused of being rebels,” she said.

Another protester, Leav Tam, who claimed to have owned his land in Koh Kong since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, said he first came to the ministry in 2008, but the dispute has still not been settled.

“I was born there [on his land in Koh Kong], now 7.5 hectares of our land have been taken by the UDG. We have had a dispute with the company since 2008. My parents have lived on the land since 1979."
“It is our legitimate land and the authorities have recognised this. They [UDG] have not developed our land yet, and have left it untouched. But we are unable to get access to it,” he said.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... se-company

Cambodians struggle to get compensation for Dara Sakor megaproject
May Titthara
17.12.2019
People are still awaiting compensation a decade after the $3.8 billion Dara Sakor project started in Cambodia’s largest national park

Saing Puy has been waiting a decade for compensation. She represents 77 of the families in Cambodia’s southwestern province of Koh Kong displaced by a US$3.8 billion Chinese megaproject called Dara Sakor.

Back in 2008, Tianjin Union Development Group received a 99-year land concession for 36,000 hectares within Koh Kong’s heavily forested Botum Sakor national park, home to rare flora and fauna, including endangered mammals like the pileated gibbon.

So far, Dara Sakor consists of a luxury resort with a golf course and casino. Future plans include a deep-water port, an international airport (with flights starting next year), an industrial park, power stations and a water-treatment plant.

Empty promises

While awaiting compensation, Saing Puy travelled to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh several times to seek intervention from the ministries of land management and environment, as well as from the Chinese embassy. She received only promises.

“A decade ago, my family lost our land,” said Saing Puy, who lives on the small island of Koh Sdech, just off the coast. “The company tore down my house and banned us from using our farmland. Now I live near my land awaiting a resolution.”

She said that when Tianjin Union Development Group came they said they would build infrastructure – roads, a school, a health centre – so people were excited about the development.

“Instead, they built a hotel, casino and golf course and forced us to relocate.”

More than 1,000 families were evicted from Koh Sdech. The company cut down trees to construct roads and make way for new homes for those displaced.

“Before the company came, we had difficulty travelling because we had no road, but we had no problem supporting our family. We had our fishing jobs, and our farmland,” she added. “Now we have good roads, but we’ve lost our land, jobs and forest.”

Access denied

Forty-six-year-old Mai Pov is among dozens of families in the Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district engaged in long-running land disputes with Tianjin Union.

“For eleven years I have not cultivated my land since [Tianjin Union] came and stopped allowing us access,” she said. “Now I am trying to net fish at sea and grow rice on another small bit of land.”

“We are not against the development project but they have to give suitable compensation and not grab our land like that. Local authorities have never settled the villagers’ problem. They always side with the company,” Pov said.

Since the 99-year land concession in 2008, government figures show it has handed over an additional 9,100 hectares to Tianjin Union, affecting 1,963 families.

Wang Chao, vice president of the group declined to comment.
Full article here: https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/s ... egaproject