BY AUN PHEAP | JANUARY 1, 2015
Representatives of some 400 ethnic Kuoy villagers in Preah Vihear province, who on Mondaydetained a pair of bulldozer drivers employed on a Chinese sugarcane plantation, met Wednesday with local officials to request that they stop the company from clearing their ancestral farmland, but authorities said they were powerless to stop the firm.
“Villagers requested that we take the [company’s concession] away…but we told them we could not comply with their request because this is a decision that has to be made at the national level,” said Ung Vuthy, governor of Tbeng Meanchey district, where the plantation is located.
Kuoy villagers stand guard over a pair of bulldozers in Preah Vihear province’s Tbeng Meanchey district on Tuesday after seizing them from a local sugarcane plantation they accuse of stealing their farmland. (Poek Sophron)
On Monday afternoon, the villagers surrounded two bulldozers belonging to the Lan Feng company—which in 2011 was granted a roughly 9,000-hectare concession on land the minority community says it has been farming for generations—that were being used to clear rice fields. They then pushed the machines to the Brameru commune office and held their operators overnight in the forest.
Wednesday’s meeting at the commune office—where the bulldozers are still being held by sympathetic commune officials—was organized after provincial agriculture department officials released the drivers back to the company Tuesday evening, despite taking them off the villagers’ hands with the promise of keeping them in custody, according to Nuon Mon, a representative of the villagers.
“Provincial agriculture and court officials came to meet us at the commune office last night and they took the two drivers to keep them safe and promised they would not get loose,” Ms. Mon said.
Tinh Trida, director of the agriculture department, said he had no choice but to release the drivers, as their detention had been unlawful in the first place.
“We allowed the drivers to return to the company office…because we know this was illegal human detention,” he said.
Ms. Mon said that with the drivers free and Wednesday’s meeting a bust, the villagers’ next move would be to push the bulldozers to the Preah Vihear Provincial Court in the provincial capital, where they could be used as evidence against the company.
“We will prepare a complaint to file with the court,” she added.
Chang Sieumey, a translator for Lan Feng, said the Kuoy villagers have long claimed the contested land as their own, but have never produced any documents proving ownership.
“The company will not clear the land if those villagers have legal documents, but we have never seen any,” Mr. Sieumey said.
“We are now cooperating with authorities…to solve the problem,” she added. “We will continue to clear the land for planting sugar if authorities decide that the land belongs to the company.”
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