Monday, August 29, 2011

You know the election is near when ... Hun Xen orders a slow down on land-grabbings and forced evictions

(Photo: PPP)
(All remaining photos: DAP-news)


Hun Xen threatens land concession owners with concession cancellation if they don’t resolve land problems with affected villagers

29 August 2011
By Silapol
Free Press Magazine
Translated from Khmer by Soch

Once again, Hun Xen issued a warning to all companies that receive land concession rights from the government for development, telling them that they have to resolve all incidents with affected villagers in regards to their concessions, otherwise, these companies will see their concessions rescinded.

Hun Xen’s statement which was adopted during the meeting of the Council of Ministers last Friday claimed that: “Samdach Hun Xen advises the ministry of Agriculture, the ministry of Environment and the ministry of Land Management, Unban Planning and Construction to visit and resolve problems along the various economic concessions where disputes are taking place, and they must set up agreements between the people and the investors who provide income to agriculture.” It added that Hun Xen threatened to cancel economic land concessions to investors who do not resolve problems for the villagers who have settled in these regions for a long time already.

This is an immediate reply that was issued in regards to the land-grabbing of villagers by the Hun Xen regime. Such land-grabbing led the villagers to stop supporting the regime and caused uprise to protest against such action, just like the case in Uddong district, Kampong Speu province at the end of June 2011. In that protest, villagers used knives, axes and slingshots to chase the authority agents who came to evict them from their lands for the sake of the companies. Furthermore, donor countries and the World Bank have also issued strong criticisms [on this case], and the election is also fast approaching.

0 comments:

Blog Archive