Logo of Phnom Penh Post newspaper Phnom Penh Post - Villagers seek help in land dispute with mining firm

Villagers seek help in land dispute with mining firm

A group of seven villagers from Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district on Friday delivered a petition to the Ministry of Land Management seeking intervention in a land dispute with mining company Delcom. Photo supplied
A group of seven villagers from Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district on Friday delivered a petition to the Ministry of Land Management seeking intervention in a land dispute with mining company Delcom. Photo supplied

Villagers seek help in land dispute with mining firm

Seven villagers from Preah Vihear travelled to Phnom Penh to deliver a petition on Friday asking the government to intervene in a dispute involving gold mining company Delcom, with local authorities turning up to question the wife of one of those delivering the petition shortly after the contingent left.

In the petition, delivered to the Ministry of Land Management, the villagers accuse Trapaing Tuntem Village Chief Uk Nga of forcing them to sign a contract with a Delcom representative in July of 2016. The villagers allege that authorities and Delcom lied to them by saying they would get land titles if they signed the contract. However, the villagers claim the contract says they are “living on the company’s land”.

“Because we are poor and illiterate and did not understand the meaning in the contract, and there was intimidation from commune authorities as well,” the petition reads.

Pong Sengching said people began to occupy the area between 1997 and 2011, but Delcom expanded in 2015, grabbing their land. “We did not read [the contract] clearly, so [we] asked to cancel it,” he said.

Nga, the village chief, denied authorities lied or forced the villagers to thumbprint the contract with Delcom. He said the contract states the villagers are not allowed to grab the company’s land, and vice versa. “I read the document for them to avoid them saying that the investing company grabbed their land, so I agreed with the commune chief to make the contract over the land they control,” he said.

Neither villagers nor authorities were able to provide a copy of the contract yesterday.

It remains unclear who is behind Delcom, but the area, which consists of three different gold mining sites, is being guarded by soldiers, which the Ministry of Defence has said it does not allow. Company representative Lor An, who refused to identify who owns the company, claimed Delcom signed a contract with 55 families – who he said moved into the area after 2013 and weren’t issued a land title from the government – to allow them to farm.

Yos Monirath, spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Energy, said he was unaware of the petition, but that Delcom was licensed and no villagers own Delcom’s land. He declined to comment further yesterday.

Meanwhile, Sou Se, wife of Sengching, who left for the capital on Thursday, said six officials from Romtom commune, Rovieng district police and Commune Chief Prak Phorn went to her home to ask her why her husband had gone to Phnom Penh. “They came to my home three times on Thursday and I told them that my husband went to get medicines for me,” she said.

Say Det, Rovieng district police chief, maintained the interrogation was part of the police’s technical work. He said if the villagers had any problems, they should have talked to the local authorities first before going to the national level.

Environmentalist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson – who has advocated for those affected by Delcom – said actions by local authorities were “to ensure that local communities feel scared of talking to the media, to civil society, and even to relevant government officials”.

Additional reporting by Yesenia Amaro

MOST VIEWED

  • Wing Bank opens new branch in front of Orkide The Royal along Street 2004

    Wing Bank celebrates first anniversary as commercial bank with launch of brand-new branch. One year since officially launching with a commercial banking licence, Wing Bank on March 14 launched a new branch in front of Orkide The Royal along Street 2004. The launch was presided over by

  • Siem Reap airport to close after new one opens

    After the new Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport (SAI) opens in October, the existing complex serving the northwestern province will be “completely closed”, according to State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) spokesman Sin Chansereyvutha. SAI developer Angkor International Airport Investment (Cambodia) Co Ltd (AIAI) last month

  • Girl from Stung Meanchey dump now college grad living in Australia

    After finishing her foundational studies at Trinity College and earning a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne in 2022, Ron Sophy, a girl who once lived at the Stung Meanchey garbage dump and scavenged for things to sell, is now working at a private

  • Rare plant fetches high prices from Thai, Chinese

    Many types of plants found in Cambodia are used as traditional herbs to treat various diseases, such as giloy or guduchi (Tinospora cordifolia) or aromatic/sand ginger (Kaempferia galangal) or rough cocklebur (Xanthium Strumartium). There is also a plant called coral, which is rarely grown

  • Ministry using ChatGPT AI to ‘ease workload’; Khmer version planned

    The Digital Government Committee is planning to make a Khmer language version of popular artificial intelligence (AI) technology ChatGPT available to the public in the near future, following extensive testing. On March 9, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications revealed that it has been using the

  • Cambodia returns 15M Covid jabs to China

    Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia will return 15 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to China for donation to other countries. The vaccines in question were ordered but had not yet arrived in Cambodia. While presiding over the Ministry of Health’s annual meeting held on