Losing Ground - Human Rights Party.
Losing Ground - Human Rights Party.
Losing Ground - Human Rights Party.
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<strong>Losing</strong> <strong>Ground</strong><br />
destruction of property against the three men were<br />
fabricated, but will no doubt remain on the books, hanging<br />
over the men as a threat until the land dispute goes away,<br />
which could take years.<br />
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for <strong>Human</strong><br />
<strong>Rights</strong> and Amnesty International are tracking the case, and<br />
Cambodian human rights NGOs have sent monitors several<br />
times since July 2008 to monitor events.<br />
A deputy secretary of the Kratie provincial cabinet<br />
defended the land concession, saying the government would<br />
like the indigenous people to give up their land, integrate<br />
economically and work for the new rubber plantation.<br />
“We want them to work with the companies in their<br />
areas. But the villagers have a habit of not wanting to be<br />
laborers. So the workers for the companies usually come<br />
from elsewhere,” the official explained.<br />
The Snoul villagers don’t believe they would be offered<br />
jobs, but regardless they want to keep the land that they are<br />
legally entitled to. “According to the experience from other<br />
places they promise [jobs] at the beginning, then they give<br />
work to others, including the Vietnamese,” said Red Earth<br />
village Chief Yochtha.<br />
Heang Foukhay of the CIV company said in an interview<br />
he wants to settle the dispute and although he would rather<br />
buy the land from the villagers, he would agree to let them<br />
keep a certain amount of their “old fruit trees.” He blamed<br />
the problems on Kratie provincial officials for understating<br />
the number of families living on the land. The contract said<br />
only 48 families lived there, when 250 families live there.<br />
He said he also represents a Korean investor (Grow<br />
West Group) that received a much larger concession from<br />
the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: 9,996<br />
hectares for a rubber plantation across the highway from<br />
this one. He said he wants this case resolved so he can move<br />
ahead with the larger project, which he said may also lead<br />
to disputes.<br />
The village residents staged their first protest in October<br />
2008, three months after first finding bulldozers on their<br />
land in July. Before this, they followed all the conventional<br />
channels of requesting meetings: first with their village chief,<br />
40 Forced Evictions and Intimidation in Cambodia
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