Several thousand villagers in the Dangkao district northwest of Phnom Penh attacked a commune headquarters building and burned everything in it Tuesday because they believed their commune chief had cheated them.
The chief, 53-year-old Yen Tok, had to be taken into protective custody by district policemen, police Chief Mom Saveth said.
Kang Saram, the district’s deputy governor, said the villagers were so angry at his escape that they got drunk and emptied the commune headquarters, knocking down walls and reducing its contents to ashes.
Trouble began when officials in Kok Roka commune were approached by a Chinese businessman who wanted to pay more than $100,000 to buy 250 hectares of communally owned wetlands.
The uneven land, outside the outermost dike surrounding Phnom Penh, is comprised of heavy clay soil and floods virtually every year. It is not good farmland and is not owned by any individual family, but by the whole commune.
Commune Chief Yen Tok was enthusiastic about the businessman’s offer, explaining to the 1,006 families living in 18 villages in his commune that the offer was enough to provide every family with $113.
The businessman, whom authorities would not identify, agreed to deposit $10,000 as a down payment on the land, with the remainder of the money due by Tuesday.
Apparently, the businessman’s financing did not materialize as expected, and he walked away from the deal. The villagers, awaiting their money, became furious when Yen Tok tried to tell them the deal had collapsed.
Once they began drinking, Kang Saram said, there was no hope of a quick resolution to the dispute.
“The villagers are drunk, and now we cannot solve the problem with them, because they will not listen to us,” he said.
Kang Saram said the villagers emptied the headquarters building of furniture and documents before burning everything. It was unclear Wednesday what had happened to the businessman’s $10,000 deposit.
Yen Tok remained under police protection Wednesday evening.
