Losing Ground - Human Rights Party.

Losing Ground
food and water,” Mr. Choeun said. “The children were crying
all the time. They were hungry and thirsty. Sometimes we
could carry them, other times they had to walk,” Mrs. Sarom
said. “Along the way, strangers would come to us and give us
food and water,” she added.
Each day they started at 7am and stopped at 6pm at a pagoda,
after asking district police for permission. Police - often as
many as 12 officers - were sent to watch them.
Attempts to stop them began after they entered Pursat
“Some of us had worn out our sandals. Our
feet were blistered and bleeding; even the ends
of our trousers were torn and ragged”
province: when their march had become national news. Two
policemen told them to turn around and go home. “We said
‘no’ and kept walking,” Mrs. Sarom said.
Next, the deputy governor of Battambang arrived and told
them that if they returned he would solve the problem.
“We spoke for about 15 minutes. He said he had never
heard about our problem", Mrs. Sarom said. "We didn’t
believe him. We reminded him that we had protested in front
of the provincial court. ‘Why didn’t you help us then?’ we
asked. He did not answer this question, so we kept walking.”
At a pagoda near the border between Pursat and Kampong
Chhnang provinces, a Ministry of Interior official arrived to
meet them, accompanied by reporters and cameramen from
state-affiliated television stations. He invited five leaders,
including Mrs. Sarom, to return to Battambang to find a
solution. “We took the bus back to Battambang and talked
with the officials. We were assisted by two lawyers from
Legal Aid Cambodia (LAC), one from the province and one
from Phnom Penh. [The ministry official] told us to make
a new complaint to the court, but we had already done
that many times. After 15 minutes we called the group and
told them to keep walking. Then, we got a bus and rejoined
them,” she said.
They arrived on June 2 in Phnom Penh and gathered at an
NGO’s headquarters to seek assistance in delivering their
letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen. “Some of us had worn
out our sandals. Our feet were blistered and bleeding; even
the ends of our trousers were torn and ragged,” Mr. Mony
recalled.
They arrived at the entrance to the road leading to the
prime minister's estate at about 7pm. “There were more
than 200 of us. There were about 30 police officers. We
delivered our complaint then slept on the other side of the
road,” Mrs. Sarom said.
The next morning they were surrounded by members
of the Prime Minister’s bodyguard unit. “They were very
aggressive", one of the villagers said. One of them hit six
people on the head. They also tried to grab one boy and take
him away, but women rushed in and pulled him back. The
people that were hit on their heads were two women, one
“We didn’t know if Hun Sen ever received our
letter, so we mailed it to his office. ”
over 40 and the other over 30, and four men, one in his early
20s and the others in their 30s.
After the police attacked the villagers, they were told to go
home. "We were given a letter from the government saying
an official would visit us at our village in June", Mrs. Sarom
said. "They also gave us $100 for bus fare. We crowded onto
one bus. We sat in our seats and in the aisle. Most of us were
silent all the way back. We didn’t talk about the walk.”
“We didn’t know if Hun Sen ever received our letter, so
we mailed it to his office. No government official ever came
to our village. If we have to, maybe we will walk again.”
Forced Evictions and Intimidation in Cambodia
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