More than 100 families from three communes in Svay Rieng province’s Romeas Hek district will protest to human-rights organisation Adhoc and local authorities this weekend in a bid to prevent the An Maradi Company taxing them to collect their own cassava and bulldozing land they have cultivated. 

Rous Sreymao, who works to resolve land disputes in Romeas Haek, said she was helping villagers of Romeas Haek’s three communes – Tros, Ampil and Korki – to find a resolution.

“We ask that the company stops bulldozing the villagers’ plantation, that the villagers be permitted to collect the product on the disputed land without paying 30,000 to 60,000 riel [US$7.50 to $15] a tonne on tax, and that the government divide up the cultivated land for the villagers,” Rous Sreymao said.

She said that in 2007, the government had awarded the An Maradi Company 4,000 hectares as economic concession land to develop a rubber plantation.