Cambodian government accused of brutally evicting villagers

Phnom Penh - Cambodian human rights groups accused the government and military Wednesday of brutally evicting hundreds of families and torching their homes in a rural southern village early in the week. Rights monitors said at least three people were seriously injured by beatings when soldiers, police and forestry officials forcibly evicted up to 300 hundred families from the 20-hectare site Monday. Authorities torched about 130 homes on Monday and another 170 on Tuesday in the second such eviction in the area this year, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights said in statement. 'The ownership of the land in question is unclear, but authorities claim that it is protected state forest. Some of the people living there say they have been there for several years, while others settled there more recently,' the statement said. The group said soldiers also blocked a road leading to the village in Kompot province Monday, preventing medical workers and rights groups from reaching the site. 'They used the armed forces to evict people. It was violent and brutal,' Try Chhoun, provincial coordinator for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, told The Cambodia Daily. Try Chhoun said soldiers and police told villagers they had stolen land belonging to Prime Minister Hun Sen and warned that the area would soon be occupied by disabled soldiers. Bokor National Park Director Chey Ulterith, who administers national parks in the area, accused the villagers of trying to occupy and then sell state-owned land, and then repeat the process at another village, the newspaper reported. Land ownership and 'land-grabbing' has been a source of intense conflict over the past few years in Cambodia's provinces, where property values have skyrocketed. Human rights groups have accused the government of leaving thousands of villagers homeless by seizing parcels of rich agricultural land to hand over to politically connected companies.