More than 100 Kompong Speu province villagers camped in the park opposite the National Assembly to protest their land disputes scattered on Wednesday evening after police officers loaded their belongings into a truck and threatened them with eviction, villagers said. The villagers had been protesting over land disputes for months with about 500 other protesters from across the country.
In Sopheap, a 40-year-old protester who has been living in the park for two months, said she did not flee with the rest of the group when police moved in at around 6:30 pm.
“I want to stay in the same place,” she said, standing by the truck police had filled with villagers’ mosquito nets, tarpaulins, cooking equipment and bottled water. “I strongly refuse to leave this land,” she said.
Police were stationed at the perimeter of the park on Wednesday, but the situation became tense after Seng Sovannara, deputy governor of Daun Penh district, announced to reporters that the villagers living in the park had until noon on Friday to leave. “If they refuse to go, we will use the administration to bring them out,” he said.
Seng Sovannara was previously head of the pro-CPP Pagoda Children, Intelligentsia and Students Association, otherwise known as the Pagoda Boys.
Staunch supporters of Prime Minister Hun Sen and previously recipients of government funding, the Pagoda Boys have been accused of responding violently to anti-government protests.
During the day, the Kompong Speu villagers were offered compensation for their land by provincial officials who had come to the park, which the protesters refused.
Under the offered compensation, each of the 135 protesters from the province’s Phnom Sruoch district would receive plots of land in the province measuring 25 meters by 100 meters, said Eang Ol, deputy provincial police chief, who was at the park in the morning.
“We have paved the place for them already,” he said. “It is much more than the protesters’ families have.”
When villagers balked at the offer, police told them they would be removed, villagers said.
“They told us to get in the truck and that they would solve the problem when we get home, but we want them to solve the problem here, now,” In Sopheap said.
(Additional reporting by Chhim Sopheark)
