LICADHO condemns the actions of military police officers who have committed violence, including shooting two people, while assisting a private company to unlawfully grab villagers’ land in Kandal Stung district of Kandal province.

Over the past few days, police and military police have been deployed to help workers from the Heng Development Company to try to confiscate villagers’ farmland - in violation of a 2006 court verdict which upheld the villagers’ right to the land.

On Friday, January 16, two villagers were shot by military police during the community’s attempts to prevent bulldozers owned by the company from encroaching on their land. According to a LICADHO doctor who saw the victims, one of the men was shot in the arm and also had bullet fragments removed from his stomach. The other suffered a deep wound from a bullet fragment which struck his waist. Both men, aged 23 and 28, remain hospitalized. The next day, January 17, military police officers again clashed with villagers, rendering one man unconscious with an electric baton.

This morning, military police officers prevented LICADHO staff from entering the area to observe the current situation, claiming that this was for their own safety.

The land dispute involves parts of five communes (Trey On, Trey Kpeu, Cheun Kaeb, Boeung Kyang and Kandoak) of Kandal Stung district. In the 1990s, Heng Development Company purchased more than 4,000 hectares of land in the area from local villagers. Subsequently, it was accused of also trying to take land of other villagers who had refused to sell to the company.

In 2006, a group of 292 families won a verdict issued by Judge Chey Sovan from the Kandal

Provincial Court which upheld their complaint against Heng Development for seeking to encroach on their land. Court officials traveled to the area to demarcate the villagers’ land from that of the company, and told the villagers that they should be issued land titles based on the court verdict.

However, local land management officials subsequently refused to issue land titles to the villagers, and provincial government officials reportedly refused to recognize the court verdict because they believed the judge was “wrong.

A district official told LICADHO that the company had intended to file an appeal against the court decision but this became unnecessary because, he claimed, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet issued a document declaring that the land belonged to the company and not the villagers.

Government officials have no lawful power to overturn judicial decisions.

“Unless the court’s decision has been overturned by a higher court, it must be respected by all levels of the government,” said LICADHO director Naly Pilorge. “Officials cannot simply choose whether or not to abide by court decisions.

“The company and government authorities are using the military police, who are supposed to respect and implement judicial decisions, to actively violate a court verdict,” Pilorge continued

“In the process, they are using violence against villagers who have every lawful right to protect their land. This is outrageous and must stop immediately.”

LICADHO urges that:

- The company and all relevant government authorities must abide by the court verdict, and ensure an immediate end to the current attempts to take the villagers’ land.

- The military police should immediately withdraw from the area.

- The military police officer/s who shot the two

For more information, please contact:
▪ Am Sam Ath, LICADHO Monitoring Supervisor, 012-327-770
▪ Cheng Sophors, LICADHO Senior Monitor, 012-879-795

PDF: Download full statement in English - Download full statement in Khmer