Around 200 villagers in Pursat province blocked a major road in Krakor district Monday to protest against a local development company for allegedly encroaching on the villagers’ land, a village representative and a rights worker said.
Villager representative Em Thorn, 46, claimed that the Ratana Visal Development Co, Ltd had begun bulldozing 3,100 hectares of land belonging to villagers from five separate communes.
“Villagers are sitting to block Road 26 to stop cars coming in and out,” he said, adding that the villagers have been living and working on the disputed land since 1990.
Contacted Tuesday, Em Thorn said that protesters agreed to disperse Tuesday morning after Krakor District Governor Sary Kosal pledged to negotiate with Ratana Visal on the villagers’ behalf.
Interviewed by telephone Monday, Sary Kosal denied that Ratana Visal had bulldozed the villagers’ land, saying that the company was granted a concession for the land in 1996.
“The land is situated inside where the company had received the concession,” he said.
On Tuesday Sary Kosal said that he was meeting with Ratana Visal to “find a solution for the villagers.”
Contact details for Ratana Visal were not immediately available on Tuesday.
Chheng Sophors, an investigator with rights group Licadho, said that the land in question was used by villagers for gathering wood and feeding livestock until 2005 when Ratana Visal allegedly started taking over the land.
