Cambodia Security Forces Shoot Protesters Dead in Land Dispute

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Authorities in Cambodia’s Kratie province on Thursday opened fire on a group of people protesting over a long-running land dispute with a rubber plantation, killing as many as eight people and injuring dozens of others, according to sources.

More than 400 residents of 2 Thnou commune, in Kratie’s Snuol district, blocked National Road 76A for three hours, beginning around 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, after workers from the Memot Rubber Plantation and security forces burned down the huts and razed the farms of 300 villagers locked in a dispute over ownership of the land, witness Tin Pheak told RFA’s Khmer Service.

The demolition came a day after Kratie provincial authorities met with the villagers in a bid to resolve the dispute with Memot — which leased the land around the same time residents settled in the area — but were unable to come to an agreement, she said.

Around 150 soldiers, police and military police were deployed to remove protesters from National Road 76A, Tin Pheak said, and security forces fired on residents during the ensuing confrontation.

“When authorities opened fire on the protesters, I saw two people were killed right away and another two injured,” she said.

“As of now, I know that six people were killed and 40 injured. All the six dead are men. Some of those who were killed are from nearby villages.”

Tin Pheak said that the authorities “confiscated our smart phones and destroyed them,” apparently in a bid to prevent video of the incident from being made public.

“We tried to help victims by sending them to hospitals and we are still searching for some missing people,” she said.

“I saw six dead bodies being dragged from a creek inside a forest ... So far two bodies have been claimed by relatives, but the other four bodies have not been taken from the forest yet.”

An official with a local civil society organization, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, also confirmed that six people had been killed and “several others injured.”


Unarmed villagers

Tin Pheak stressed that the clash occurred after “the company sent authorities to demolish and burn down our houses.”

“We residents asked them to stop the demolition, but they didn’t listen to us,” she said, adding that the villagers were unarmed and only resorted to throwing sticks and stones at authorities after they opened fire.

“Had they not opened fire on us first, we would not have thrown anything at them. The authorities were all well armed.”

Authorities later confiscated our smart phones and destroyed them as they were afraid that we used them to record the incident.”

The Phnom Penh Post also quoted Tin Pheak as saying that she had seen a woman and man shot dead by the authorities, and had helped move the bodies away from the road. After returning from calling for help, “the police already put [a] body in a car,” she added.

Tin Pheak said that she had also been hit in the face by a police official’s gun.

The Post quoted another villager at the clash, who requested anonymity, who said he saw a man fall over after being shot in the chest.


Death toll rises

Later on Thursday, witnesses told RFA they had discovered two more bodies, bringing the total of number dead to eight.

One of the sources, who declined to provide her name, said that the eight dead included one woman, and echoed Tin Pheak’s claims that around 40 people were injured, adding that a number of villagers remain missing.

She said Kratie provincial authorities ordered security forces to fire on the protesters, adding that two people were killed on the spot, and that many of those injured suffered bullet wounds to the arms and legs.

“The authorities warned me [not to talk to media], but I will speak, because even if I die, it will be worth it, as long as all the residents can get their land back and not have their homes burned down,” she said.

“I feel so sorry for them, since some of them have many kids. Myself as well — I have five children. If they shoot and kill me, that’s fine, but I just want to make sure that I can get the land back for my children.”

Another resident who asked to remain unnamed told RFA that the incident had led to “pure chaos.”

“Now it happens that some people are missing and we are still searching for them,” she said, adding “I don’t know how many people were arrested.”

A video of the confrontation, circulating on Facebook, shows villagers with sticks and machetes arguing with authorities, including soldiers carrying rifles. In a later segment, dozens of shots can be heard as the villagers run away, and a separate video purportedly shows a man shot in the thigh receiving medical treatment from fellow protesters.


Claims dismissed

In the hours following the confrontation, authorities offered a significantly different account of what happened in 2 Thnou commune, with Major General Nay Toeung Loeung, the deputy commander of Region 2 and commander of Kratie sub-military operations, telling government-aligned Fresh News Media that “reports by The Phnom Penh Postand Radio Free Asia are totally incorrect.”

“There was no death toll and only two people were injured—one in his buttock and another one in his thigh—and they were sent to the hospital right away.”

Fresh News also quoted Kratie provincial governor Sar Chamrong dismissing reports that residents were killed and that several others had been injured by police firing on protesters. He said a man and a woman had suffered minor injuries, while another villager was arrested for sparking the confrontation, in which protesters wielded “homemade guns.”

The Kratie provincial government also released a press statement denying the claims and calling earlier reports “fake news.”

Provincial authorities “conducted a security and safety exercise … surrounding company land so as to prevent encroachment from a group of people,” the statement said, adding that a confrontation occurred after “residents gathered and blocked the National Road 76, whereby a provincial working group tried to compromise for reopening the road, but was rejected by protesters.”

“Protesters then employed violence against our working group by throwing knives, axes, stones, missiles from rubber slingshots, arrows, and Molotov cocktails, causing injuries to seven members of our provincial working group,” it said.

“As a result, our working group decided to fire into the air, so as to protect our members and protect the safety of the whole working group. No one was killed during the clash, although nine people were injured—seven of whom are authorities.”


Information lockdown

The Phnom Penh Post quoted rights group Adhoc coordinator Be Vanny, who it said initially reported the shooting deaths, as saying he was simply passing on information he had received, and that he was “wanted” by police.

The Post cited Soueng Sen Karuna, land rights coordinator at Adhoc, as saying that he had been contacted by a Kratie Provincial Court official demanding his group retract its statement and that “if not, you’ll have a problem.”

A doctor at the district referral hospital and the director of the provincial hospital declined to provide details when asked by the paper about the incident.


https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cam...018150029.html

UN Seeks Details on Land Shooting as Cambodia Silences Witness

The United Nations and a rights group on Friday called for an investigation into the shooting of land rights protesters in Cambodia’s Kratie province the previous day, as a key witness recanted her account of six dead after being arrested.

Authorities in Cambodia’s Kratie province on Thursday opened fire on a group of people protesting over a long-running land dispute with a rubber plantation, killing as many as eight people and injuring dozens of others, according to sources.

In response to the incident, the office of United Nations Special Rapporteur Rhona Smith, who happens to be visiting Cambodia, issued a statement voicing concern.

“The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Professor Rhona Smith, is deeply concerned by reports of shootings yesterday in Kratie province over a land dispute,” it said.

“She is following the situation closely and calls for a prompt investigation. Again, she highlights that respect for human rights is indispensable for peace, stability and sustainable development,” said the statement.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Asia director Brad Adams told RFA’s Khmer Service “the most important thing is for there to be an independent investigation.”

“With U.N. Special Rapporteur Rhona Smith in the country, I would call on her to ask the U.N. human rights office in the country to carry out an immediate investigation,” said Adams.

“We have no history of independent investigations by the Cambodian authorities, so it has to be done by the United Nations. There is no other way we can even hope to learn what the actual facts are,” he added.

On Thursday, witness Tin Pheak told RFA that more than 400 residents of 2 Thnou commune, in Kratie’s Snuol district, blocked National Road 76A for three hours, beginning around 9:00 a.m., after workers from the Memot Rubber Plantation and security forces burned down the huts and razed the farms of 300 villagers locked in a dispute over ownership of the land.

Around 150 soldiers, police and military police were deployed to remove protesters from National Road 76A, Tin Pheak said, and security forces fired on residents during the ensuing confrontation.

“When authorities opened fire on the protesters, I saw two people were killed right away and another two injured,” she said.

“As of now, I know that six people were killed and 40 injured. All the six dead are men. Some of those who were killed are from nearby villages,” said Tin Pheak.

On Friday, however, Tin Pheak was in custody and told Fresh News, a mouthpiece of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government, “I have made a mistake. I admit it … Please forgive me.”

“When I was interviewed by RFA I was still in hiding. I was very scared and too overwhelmed with the violence, so I said things unwisely,” she told Fresh News.

“I actually saw a woman and a man who got injured. However, there rest of the casualties I told RFA and other media about were merely based on what I heard from other people.”

Meanwhile, the Phnom Penh Post reported that villagers continued to flee the disputed land in 2 Thnou commune Friday, quoting around 30 residents carrying their few possessions out of the area as saying security personnel used excavators to flatten their homes and poured gasoline on the structures to burn them. Authorities told them they would be killed if they refused to leave, they added.


Details murky

An NGO worker, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said he had only been able to confirm that a man and woman were injured in the clash and were currently being treated at hospitals in Kratie and the capital Phnom Penh.

He said eight villagers had been arrested in the aftermath of the incident and were being held at the Kratie provincial police station.

Other details of the shooting incident remained murky on Friday, with members of the media denied access to the site of the clash, and information largely being reported by Fresh News.

RFA closed its operations in Cambodia in September amid a government crackdown on the media, and two former RFA Khmer Service reporters were taken into custody on Nov. 14. They were formally charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” and face a possible jail term of up to 15 years if convicted.

Amid ongoing questions over Thursday’s shooting, Mu Sochua, the deputy president of the now-defunct opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), who is now living in self-imposed exile, condemned what she called the “brutality of Cambodian authorities,” demanding an “immediate and independent investigation” of the incident.

“Villagers who were detained should be released immediately and protection should be provided to witnesses in order to ensure a fair examination of the situation,” said the former member of parliament, whose party was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in November for what it said was the CNRP’s involvement in plotting a “coup” against the government.

“This attack further erodes the deteriorating rule of law in Cambodia and prohibits Cambodians from living peacefully on their land as they have for years before authorities unjustly rip it out from under them, uprooting and displacing them,” she said.

“Authorities must return the land to the villagers and end this culture of impunity.”

HRW’s Adams also questioned why security forces were deployed to National Road 76A on Thursday, noting that “the army should not normally be involved” in land disputes.

“Why couldn’t the authorities simply allow the villagers to continue protesting,” he asked.


Land disputes

The seizure of land for development—often without due process or fair compensation for displaced residents—has been a major cause of protest in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Myanmar.

Rural villagers and urban dwellers alike have been mired in conflicts that the U.N.’s special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia has warned could threaten the country’s stability.

Cambodia’s land issues date from the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, which forced large-scale evacuations and relocations, followed by a period of mass confusion over land rights and the formation of squatter communities when the refugees returned in the 1990s after a decade of civil war.

In 2012, hundreds of armed police violently evicted residents of Kratie’s Pro Ma village involved in a long-running land dispute with Russian rubber company Casotim. During the clash, authorities fired on the villagers, killing a 14-year-old girl.


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Prosecutor denies deaths during Kratie clash

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Villagers at the Kratie clash, armed with slingshots and homemade rifles. Swift News



The statement put out by the Kratie provincial prosecutor on March 10 states that his investigation into Thursday’s (March8) violent clash between villagers and armed forces led to no deaths. It made clear that media reports of six fatalities and 40 injured are untrue.


These erroneous casualty figures were printed in the Phnom Penh Post, and former CNRP president Sam Rainsy posted condolences for the six dead on Facebook.


In the aftermath of the altercation authorities reported two injured villagers but no deaths, and ADHOC officials confirmed this. Poeng Vin, the Pi Thnou commune chief in Snuol district also denied there being any deaths.


The confrontation started when about 100 officials and representatives from the Memot Rubber Plantation Company attempted to tear down 10 huts being built by the villagers on land that the company claimed is theirs.


According to the prosecutor’s statement, he and the police looked into the reports from local media outlets and Radio Free Asia (RFA) claiming that six people were shot dead and 40 injured in the clash with armed forces.


He questioned Tin Sopheak, who was interviewed by RFA on the night of the incident. In the interview she said that she saw six men shot death and more than 40 villagers injured in the clash, adding that the armed forces started the violence and injured her as well.


“Tin Sopheak confirmed in front of prosecutor that the interview given to RFA on Thursday … is untrue,” read the statement. She regrets spreading disinformation and asserts that she was talked into doing so by a Mr Eng. She claims he gave her RFA’s phone number and told her what to do and what to tell the media.


In the video footage of the prosecutor questioning Ms Sopheak, she said that Mr Eng and RFA are behind the false information. “They said that I had to step forward. If I do not, we [the villagers] will not succeed and get the land,” and that Mr Eng called her and told her to get information from villagers about the situation, and instructing her to call RFA.


Later, four unknown men came to her house and told her that there were six death and more than 40 injured, and told her to report to RFA. “… they told me what to say … and about three minutes later, RFA called me. I only told RFA what Mr Eng and those four men instructed me to say.”


Prosecutor denies deaths during Kratie clash - Khmer Times

Villagers flee rubber plantation where security personnel fired on protesters in Kratie province

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Villagers continued to leave disputed land granted to the Memot Rubber Plantation in Kratie province after authorities burned down their houses today, even as rights groups and the United Nations investigated claims that villagers were killed when security personnel fired on protesters on Thursday.


Security personnel opened fire on villagers engaged in a long-standing dispute with the plantation, and conflicting accounts of the number of casualties emerged almost immediately.


An Adhoc official in the province, relying on information from villagers, initially reported six were killed, with government officials and pro-government media insisting that there were no fatalities. Villagers, meanwhile, maintained that they had witnessed at least two dead, while doctors at local hospitals declined to say how many patients they had received.


As of this evening, some of that uncertainty remained, even as the forced evictions that sparked the initial protest continued.


Villagers from inside the plantation could be seen scrambling with whatever possessions they could gather from houses set on fire by security forces.


Sim Horn, a fleeing villager, said the forces not only burned her house, where she has lived for three years, but also dispersed all her animals.


“Now I have no home. Now I have to stay here,” referring to a location on the outskirts of the plantation. “They chased us away and told us not to come back.”


Horn was with around 30 other villagers holding bedding, kitchen utensils and pet dogs in their arms as they left the plantation.


“Now they are burning our house. They used the excavator to flatten the house and then poured gasoline to burn it,” Chheng San said.


“They said we if we don’t leave they will kill us,” she said, adding that her sister Chheng Sath was one of the 10 people arrested by police after Thursday’s clash.


Provincial Governor Sar Chamrong could not be reached to confirm the evictions.


Snuol District Governor Kong Kemny maintained the authorities were simply continuing to implement the law.


“It is not really an actual village or an actual home. It is just a hut that they use for farming," he said.


Reporters today were denied access to the site of Thursday’s clash, but spoke to around 30 people about the claims of deaths. Most said that they had not seen any actual deaths, but said that people were beaten and two others – a man and a woman – were injured by gunfire.


National Police spokesman Kirth Chantharith on Thursday acknowledged that two people were injured with gunshot wounds.


The Post confirmed that the woman, who was shot in the buttocks, was at Phnom Penh’s Calmette Hospital, and the man, shot in his inner thigh, was at a hospital in Kratie’s Snuol district.


Licadho’s Am Sam Ath said yesterday that the situation was still serious in Kratie and that his investigation team had also not been allowed to visit the protest site.


“We have not yet found any cases of deaths. We have received information about two people injured,” said the right groups’ monitoring coordinator.


While the National Police said 10 individuals were arrestedhttp://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-flee-rubber-plantation-where-security-personnel-fired-protesters-kratie-province after the clash, Licadho said villagers had told of only eight arrests.


“Some villagers also said their relative was missing but we don’t know if they were arrested or not,” Licadho’s Sam Ath said.


Veal Bai village resident Chab Kim said he had been told his son, Kim Nai, had been among those arrested on Thursday, though he wasn't certain.


“My wife went to check with the commune police office and they said my son was sent to the provincial capital,” he said.


“I told him not to go [to the protest] but he does not listen,” he said.


Villagers flee rubber plantation where security personnel fired on protesters in Kratie province, National, Phnom Penh Post

Money talks....

Another revolution awaits....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HuangLao

Another revolution awaits....

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I hope it's not like the last one.

Cambodian Authorities Release Eight Villagers Detained Amid Violent Land Clash

Authorities in Cambodia’s Kratie province on Monday released eight villagers who were detained amid a violent clash over a land dispute, on the condition that they refrain from holding future demonstrations, according to one of those held.


On March 8, police in Kratie’s Snuol district opened fire on a group of people protesting over the long-running dispute with a rubber plantation, killing as many as eight people and injuring dozens of others, according to sources, and prompting a call from United Nations Special Rapporteur Rhona Smith, who happens to be visiting Cambodia, for an independent investigation into the incident.


Resident Tin Pheak told RFA’s Khmer Service last week that more than 400 residents of Snuol’s 2 Thnou commune blocked National Road 76A for three hours, beginning around 9:00 a.m., after workers from the Memot Rubber Plantation and security forces burned down the huts and razed the farms of 300 villagers locked in a dispute over ownership of the land.


Around 150 soldiers, police and military police were deployed to remove protesters from National Road 76A and security forces fired on residents during the ensuing confrontation, Tin Pheak said, adding that she “saw two people were killed right away and another two injured.” The villager was taken into custody a day later and recanted her claims in an interview with government-aligned Fresh News media.


Authorities arrested eight people for their role in the clash and seven were questioned about their role in the incident in court on Saturday.


All eight were later released, one of those detained told RFA on Monday, after a court official warned them they would be “arrested and face jail time” if they do not stop protesting over the land dispute.


The resident of 2 Thnou commune, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he believed the court’s threat and expressed “fear for my safety,” adding that he and the others who were detained are required to meet with Snuol district authorities on Wednesday.


The Phnom Penh Post said in a report Monday that it had independently verified the identities of five of those who were detained: Leak Sat, 44; Kim Nai, 23; Poung Phal, 36; Vem Duy, 64; and Buth Vorn, 55, who it said is currently receiving treatment in hospital and has yet to be questioned. It quoted Kratie Provincial Court director Din Sivuthy as saying the eight were facing “two or three charges,” without elaborating.


The Post also cited Kratie Provincial Court prosecutor Keo Socheat, who led an investigation into the incident, as saying Tin Pheak’s admission that she lied proved claims about the killings were untrue.


When asked if he had interviewed other villagers or visited the protest site, Socheat he had not carried out any further investigation, as he had “just searched to find out the truth whether there are people dead as the media said.” He also refused to answer questions about why police had opened fire on the villagers and whether the use of force was justified.


Meanwhile, security personnel have denied members of civil society organizations and the media access to the site of the incident, hampering efforts to investigate the death toll as reported by villagers.


But, as of Sunday, residents involved in the land dispute continued to assert that at least two people had been killed on the spot in last week’s shooting, and six seriously injured, despite denials from local officials.


Local analyst Hang Vitou told RFA Monday that authorities should conduct a proper investigation of the incident to provide justice for the residents, instead of blaming the media for false reporting.


“I think this is a mistake by the state prosecutor, who failed to properly manage the armed forces,” he said.


“It is particularly egregious that they deployed soldiers, whose job is to defend the country against foreign aggression, to open fire and crackdown against their own citizens. This is not the right approach, because it will damage their reputation and cast doubt on the independence of the armed forces.”



Farmer petitions


Also on Monday, farmers from 37 communities in four different provinces gathered in Phnom Penh today to submit petitions to the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Land Management, and the National Assembly, requesting that the three institutions speed up resolution of their protracted land disputes.


More than 300 farmers joined Monday’s protest, representing nearly 7,000 families involved in disputes over a total of some 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of land from communities in Tboung Khmum, Kandal, Svay Rieng, and Preah Sihanouk provinces.


The farmers raised banners and marched together to submit their 37 petitions—one for each community—to the three government bodies, saying the disputes had left them impoverished after they lost their farms, homes and employment, and urging officials to visit their communities to investigate their claims.


“We are here to insist and beg your excellences as relevant authorities to help resolve our problems,” one representative said while delivering a petition.


Theng Savoeun, secretary-general of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC), which organized Monday’s event, told RFA that the government appeared to be stalling in its resolution of the country’s land disputes.


“They seem not to pay much attention to land dispute problems—in particular to the [farmers’] rights to life,” he said.


“The right to life means that villagers are in need of land to build their residence, to farm and to earn their livings. Yet, authorities appear unwilling to help solve the problems on the basis of legal principles and actual evidence.”


Theng Savoeun noted that many of Monday’s farmers had been involved in disputes for up to a decade.


“We also see that those [companies and individuals] who are involved in land disputes with farmers tend to have connections with senior officials and authorities,” he added.


The farmers returned home on Monday after representatives of the three state institutions accepted their petitions, but warned they would return to protest in the capital if there were no resolutions in their cases.



Land disputes


The seizure of land for development—often without due process or fair compensation for displaced residents—has been a major cause of protest in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Myanmar.


Rural villagers and urban dwellers alike have been mired in conflicts that the U.N.’s special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia has warned could threaten the country’s stability.


Cambodia’s land issues date from the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, which forced large-scale evacuations and relocations, followed by a period of mass confusion over land rights and the formation of squatter communities when the refugees returned in the 1990s after a decade of civil war.


https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cam...018164855.html