On 13 November 2007, three villagers named Seng Kosal, 38, Kim Sovann, 55, and Chhim Sophoan, 42, all small traders living at Choam Sragnam pass of the Dangrek mountain range bordering Thailand in Trapeang Prey commune, Anlong Veng District in the northwestern province of Oudor Meanchey, were arrested and taken to the provincial court of Siemreap for detention and investigation. The next day some 200 of their fellow villagers went to stage a protest against their arrest in front of that court, only to be forced back to their homes and to look for lawyers to defend their men.
Those arrested persons were three of the four representatives of 229 families who talked with the Army Regional Commander named Khim Sen over a dispute over 180 hectares of land in that part of the highland. That land also had a market which occupied an area of two hectares. Those families claimed that they had occupied that land for many years while Kim Sen claimed that it was the armys “war booty”.
There were efforts to apportion the land for private ownership among the military families there, but the government issued an order to take all that land back as state property. However, many attempts have been made to evict those families from the land causing intermittent frictions between the two sides. In April 2007 there was a fire that destroyed the market and some surrounding houses. The military then built fences around the market area which prevented access to the market which was reopened after the fire. Those families complained to the police against the fences and started to remove parts of them for access to the market.
The same protesters also claimed that the four men had met with officials from the Inspection Department of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces to talk over the dispute. No agreement was reached when they insisted, for the interests of the families they represented, on having 50 per cent and rejected the officials offer of 30 per cent of the land. Those officials reportedly “threatened to send them to jail” if they refused to accept the offer.
When the four men left the meeting, the local military police served them with an arrest warrant issued by Judge Sok Leang of the Provincial Court of Siemreap whose jurisdiction also covers the province of Ouddar Meanchey. They arrested three representatives while the fourth had managed to escape.
The three men were charged with alleged robbery and infringement upon private property during the removal of parts of the fences way back in April after the fire on the market and the surrounding houses.
Judging from the developments over that particular land dispute, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is of the opinion that the arrest of the three men had little to do, if at all, with the alleged robbery and infringement upon private property when the government had issued an order to take back all that land as state property and the villagers had notified the police before they removed the fences around the market area to have access to that market.
Such arrests of villagers have been made over the years in land dispute and landgrabbing cases when they had put up any resistance against forced evictions and/or claimed fair compensation for the loss of their land, other belongings and the hardship and costs for resettlement in new areas. More often than not they have been forced to resettle in areas far away from their homes and employment and with no social infrastructure or employment opportunities to sustain their livelihood.
Recently, the Human Rights Action Committee, a coalition of human rights NGOs, and the NGO Forum on Cambodia, altogether found that, in 2007 and prior to the case above, 121 people had been arrested and detained in land disputes, 83 of whom had since been released, but 38 were still detained in various prisons in the country. Many of those arrested persons and those still in detention awaiting trials were charged with such offences as wrongful damage to property, infringement upon public property, battery, or fraud.
The AHRC is of the view that the aim all those arrests is not so much to seek justice as to cow and punish the weaker parties for their resistance to the strong and powerful. They are meant to strike fear in them and deter others, and exhibit the power and will of those strong and powerful people, which is very much a cultural feature of Cambodian society.
This practice of such arrest is extended to other cases. For instance, on 17 November 2007, three journalists from Voice of Peace newspaper, Thorng Channa, 45, Lim Thau, 35, and Pen Rithy, 32, were arrested two days after they had gone to investigate and take photos of illicit farming at a place belonging to a man named Sao Tha in Phat Sanday commune, Kompong Svay district in the central province of Kompong Thom. The fish farm tender named Nguyen Yan Kong reported to the police that the journalists had stolen 4.2 million riels (US$1,050). The police in the neighbouring province of Kompong Chhnang went to arrest them in Chhnok Trou in that province where the three journalists had stayed on their way from their investigation. They were charged with robbery, but were released on bail following an intervention from an official of the Ministry of Information.
There has been no report on any investigation by fishery officials or the police into the reported illicit fish farming. AHRC is of the opinion that the arrest of the three journalists was meant, as in landgrabbing cases, to intimidate those three journalists and deter them exposing that illicit fish farming or any other such activities.
The AHRC deplores the willing cooperation of the Cambodian judiciary in all those arrests in compliance with the will and wishes of the strong and powerful in turning civil disputes into criminal cases and making such arrests of apparently innocent but weaker parties to the disputes. By so doing, the Cambodian judiciary overlooks its constitutional duty to “protect the rights and freedoms of Cambodian citizens”.
The AHRC strongly urges the Cambodian judiciary to steadfastly uphold its independence and impartiality to fulfill without fear and favour its constitutional duty to protect the rights and freedoms of Cambodians citizens. It should desist from ordering such arrests which are little short of being malicious and vexatious.
Such arrests will not help the Cambodian judiciary to win the trust and confidence in it from the Cambodian public.
