Around 150 villagers in northwestern Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province have blocked a Chinese concession holder from clearing land they say was reserved for grazing their cattle, an official from a nongovernmental organization and a local commune chief said Wednesday.

The standoff came as a local rights group slammed a policy launched by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government for failing to deliver suitable land to the country’s poor and international donors for calling the policy a success.

The 150 indigenous ethnic Kouy and majority Khmer villagers on Tuesday confronted two bulldozers dispatched by Chinese developer Rui Feng to clear their land in Chhaeb district’s Mlou Prey Phi commune, according to Bek Sophean, an official from the Preah Vihear-based NGO Ponlok Khmer.

When workers refused to stop, the villagers surrounded their vehicles and forced them to leave, he told RFA’s Khmer Service, adding that Rui Feng had no right to land officially designated for cattle grazing in the commune’s two villages.

“The company has encroached on the villagers’ land, which the government has reserved for them,” he said.

Commune chief Sab Say told RFA that as many as 200 villagers stood to lose land if the government does not step in to protect them from the developer, which has been granted 8,840 hectares (21,850 acres) in Preah Vihear by the Ministry of Agriculture for agro-development.

“The villagers are concerned that we won’t have grassland to feed our cattle,” he told RFA.

“This company is abusing the people and claims the fields do not belong to the villagers.”

Rui Feng, which has been accused of attempting to measure off 16 hectares (40 acres) of land in Mlou Prey Phi commune, is no stranger to controversy in Preah Vihear.

In May, ethnic Kuoy villagers in Tbeng Meanchey district’s Brame commune held a ceremony to curse Rui Feng and another Chinese firm, Lan Feng, calling for the company directors to be struck by lightning, bitten by cobras and eaten by tigers for grabbing their land, according to the Phnom Penh Post.

More here: Cambodian Villagers Block Chinese Developer From Clearing Grazing Land