Cambodian Woman Loses Land İn Dispute With Pm's Cousin

A week after she managed to fend off military police and security guards with a sickle, an elderly Cambodian woman's valiant battle to retain all but one hectare of the land she has farmed since 1979 came to a bitter end in Phnom Penh.



Huot Sarom, 68, has been locked in a dispute with 120 families, who she says sold most of her land to businesswoman Dy Proem - who also happens to be a cousin of Prime Minister Hun Sen.



Although she managed to ward off the authorities last week, she was not as fortunate this time, The Cambodia Daily reported Friday.



Scores of military police - some carrying AK-47s - and security guards accompanied an excavator that was trucked in to the disputed site Thursday - under the watchful eyes and orders of the Pue Senchey district governor, Hem Darith.



As the excavator closed in, Sarom made several desperate attempts to try and block its path, but each one was thwarted by a phalanx of helmeted security guards.



One of the security guards asked for permission from his superior to "break her arms," according to the daily.



But official police authorities were not the only people Sarom had to contend with, because the families who sold the land have been pushing for its demarcation and development.



Kong Kimly, Sarom's son and a member of Hun Sen's bodyguard unit, also tried to fend off the bulldozer's advances, but was beaten back - at one point receiving a punch in the eye from an irate villager.



On two separate occasions, Sarom was also thrown to the ground by furious women who want the demarcation to proceed.



In the end, it did.



The complex case centers around a plot of land that the families say was collective.



Proem is alleged to have "grabbed" it, but was convicted of corruption in 2011 for paying $30,000 to try and influence an investigation into the land and, therefore, a favorable outcome for herself.



She has never served her two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, though, and is pushing ahead with plans to develop the site, which villagers ultimately "officially" sold to her - without Sarom's consent.



Sarom claims 5.67 hectares as her own, but after most of it was sold to Proem, she was left with only one hectare. This was enforced last year with an order from the government's Council of Ministers.



It is perhaps one of Cambodia's more unusual land disputes, primarily because Sarom cuts a lonely figure against the might of the country's most powerful dynasty, which goes against the common narrative here that often sees communities band together and groups of protesters rally for their rights when their land is at stake.



What is not unusual, however, is that the land is being contested on the other side by someone rich and extremely well-connected; several high-profile land disputes have involved the spouses or family members of some of the country's most powerful people.



In Ratanakkiri province, Keat Kolney, the sister of former finance minister Keat Chhon, has bought swathes of land from villagers, most of them from vulnerable ethnic minority groups. Some say their land was grabbed, but the provincial court has failed to take complaints brought against Kolney.



The case of the KDC company, an agri-business firm owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, also speaks of the power such connections can yield over farmland.



Villagers from a sleepy village called Lor Peang have been locked in a bitter battle with her since 2002, which is when they say KDC took the land and began clearing it.



In July, they turned to "black magic" after being failed by the courts, throwing chili peppers and salt at effigies of her and other officials.



Senator Ly Yong Phat's Phnom Penh Sugar company, for example, occupies several thousand hectares of land - 2,000 of which were once farmed by 1,000 families.



Another senator, Lao Meng Khin, owns the Shukaku Inc. firm - blamed for the forcible eviction of 3,000 families so that it could fill in and develop on a lake known as Boeng Kak.



This year, local NGO Licadho reported that the number of Cambodians affected by land disputes had reached the half-million mark.



In late August, PM Hun Sen pleaded ignorance of numerous land disputes that he said had been hidden from him by corrupt officials, and promised - not for the first time - to sort them out.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Phnum Penh