Preah Vihear disputants allowed to keep land

People from Preah Vihear's Choam Ksan district gather at Samaki Raingsey pagoda to voice their concerns over a land dispute late last year. Hong Menea

More than 250 Preah Vihear families who have been living under the threat of eviction since 2010 are to be allowed to keep their homes, according to a letter from the Interior Ministry obtained yesterday.

Representatives of Svay Chrum village, in Preah Vihear’s Choam Ksan district, have been protesting in Phnom Penh for nearly two years, and now they say they will return home on March 21.

One of the representatives, Keo Ne, said they received a copy of a letter sent from the Interior Ministry to the National Committee for Land Dispute Resolution asking that a solution be found allowing the villagers to return.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak, land dispute resolution czar Bin Chhin, and Preah Vihear Provincial Governor Um Mara could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, representatives of 104 families in Kratie province’s Chhlong district arrived in Phnom Penh to protest the provincial authority’s attempts to forcibly evict them to make way for 998 families as part of a social land concession, according to representative Hong Hoeun. Kratie Deputy Governor Khan Chamnan declined to comment.

Contact author: Pech Sotheary

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