oral district, Kompong Speu – Residents of Kob village in Ratanakkiri’s Barkeo district were shocked when large-scale mining equipment rolled into their town last month.
Klang Ngeun, a Tampuon resident from a neighboring village, said local were not consulted, or informed that the government had signed off on a 2,000-hectare gem mine in Ting Cheak commune, home to at least one hilltribe village and the commune’s traditional mining sites.
“They should have informed the local people, but the local people did not know anything about it,” Klang Ngeun, representative of the affected hill tribe villagers, said Saturday at the first-ever national conference of indigenous minorities.
After managing to glean from local officials only the most basic information about the massive Ratanak Chhoapoan company’s gem mine, the villagers sent a complaint to Ratanakkiri’s governor. More than 60 villagers from Kob village thumbprinted the complaint, noting concerns that the company would kick them off their farms and that chemicals used in mining would pollute their rivers. Also, they would lose the essential income earned from small-scale gem mining using traditional methods.
Ratanakkiri Governor Kham Khoeun said Sunday that he has yet to receive the complaint, and declined to comment further on the gem mine.
Kham Khoeun, however, told reporters on Aug 3 that the mining company had a license from the government for exploitation, and that the company had done a feasibility study, which included an environmental impact assessment.
But a letter obtained by The Cambodia Daily from the company dated Aug 6 and signed by Kham Khoeun notes that the mine had not obtained an exploitation permit. And villagers say the company did no environmental impact assessment—which would have included consultation with local residents.
Ratanak Chhoapoan has already begun clearing roads through their 2,000-hectare mine concession, and their equipment is poised to begin operation.
The gem mine’s dubious legality and the lack of local consultation was typical of the multitude of land-grabbing and other complaints retold by the more than 100 indigenous minority representatives from around the country who attended the three-day forum in Kompong Speu.
Though indigenous land rights are enshrined in Cambodian law, minority people’s legal claim can be easily undermined without strong government support and a network of indigenous representatives who know their rights, organizers and participants said.
“What’s the point of having indigenous land rights if these concessions are going to go right over the top of them without any consultation?” asked Graeme Brown, Ratanakkiri coordinator for the Community Forestry Alliance for Cambodia.
Last week’s national conference of minority representatives, however, was a step in the right direction, he said.
Recommendations from the three-day conference will be presented to government authorities today, particularly for the issuing of a decree governing protocol for awarding communal land titles to indigenous communities, which would give them power to fight land grabbing and manage their land according to traditional methods.
