About 100 villagers in northern Cambodia who were evicted from their homes are hiding in the forest, sleeping in plastic tents and catching fish to survive, because they are afraid they will be arrested, said the head of an association who visited them on Thursday.
“They are guarding themselves afraid that authorities will arrest them,” said Koet Saray, president of Khmer Student Intelligent League Association. His organization works with students to increase their participation in social development, good governance and the sustainable use of natural resources.
In a decade-long land dispute, some 300 families in several villages have been driven off their land in Preah Vihear province’s Kuleaen district to make way for a rubber plantation on a land concession given by the government to Phnom Penh-based Seila Damex Co., Ltd.
On March 6, hundreds of police and other security forces clashed with about 130 residents during a protest against the forced evictions. They tear-gassed protesters, burned down homes and arrested about 40 villagers.
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 countries in East and Southeast Asia.
The villagers in hiding in the forest are using old hammocks and plastic tents for shelter and have a few mats to sit on, but lack mosquito nets, Koet Saray said. They are catching fish to eat and boiling water to drink.
The adults took their children with them when they fled, so they are not going to school, he added.
Some of the villagers arrested during the protest have since been released, but on March 12 the provincial court ordered more than two dozen others to be held in pre-trial detention on charges of illegal encroachment on forest land.
One of the villagers, who refused to be named for safety reasons, said she wants to return home soon because she can’t live in the forest forever.
She wants Cambodian President Hun Manet and former President Hun Sen to release her detained family members and resolve the land dispute so the villagers will have a place to live, she said.
Provincial Governor Kim Rithy told hundreds of villagers on March 13 said he would allocate 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) of land to 100 families — some of the land previously granted Seila Damex in 2011 — according to an earlier RFA report.
Am Sam Ath of Cambodian rights group Licadho said authorities must investigate the land dispute and the government must provide villagers with a social land concession if they have no land to cultivate.
Social land concessions in Cambodia provide land on which people can establish residences and make money through agriculture.
“We should eradicate forced evictions,” he said. “The government must have a specific process to resolve the case rather than using violence.”
Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.