The representative of Chakchar community, Mr. Prab Cheob, says indigenous Punong villagers have seen their income drop after a Vietnamese company, Binh Phuoc 1, came to develop their area.
Prab Cheob, 41, says nowadays, indigenous Punong people cannot make income from resin trees anymore. “There’s nothing now. We don’t have any livelihoods. Before, we depended on resin trees and wild orchid flowers. Now, nothing’s left.”
According to Prab Cheob, before the arrival of the company, his family had around 500 resin trees, and each month, his family could earn an average income of 4 to 8 million Riels (roughly 2,000 dollars) from harvesting non-timber forest products.
At that time, Mr. Cheob says, indigenous Punong people never had any worries about their living.
“I hired others to harvest resin for me, and in a month, I could earn over 2,500 dollars. After expenses, we still have a profit of over one thousand dollars,” he adds.
Mr. Prab Cheob’s family is not the only family that could earn high income from the resin trees. There are many other families of Punong indigenous ethnicity in Chakchar village, Sre Chhouk commune, that can earn the same.
Other community representatives interviewed by VOD say that besides resin, other non-timber forest products such as mushrooms, boat-caulking resin and wild orchid flowers, are also additional sources of income for the villagers.
Yin Singh, 35, another Punong ethnic minority member, says his family has some 2,000 resin trees, but, unfortunately, more than half of the trees had been razed by the company. When those trees were destroyed, he adds, and the prices had gone down, his family has faced financial hardship.
“Some are remaining now for us to support our daily living. We look for other things as a supplementary income. Now, one 30-liter-container of resin is only 40 to 45 thousand Riels. We sell it in the village,” says Yin Singh.
Prab Cheob also says some of the 211 families who are the victims of the company’s land clearing have become indebted to micro-finance institutions. According to Cheob, his own family alone owes about 5,000 US dollars to the microfinance institutions.
The reason for getting this loan, he adds, was for buying a mechanical buffalo (walking tractor) as a means for earning income after losing the resin trees, but, Cheob says, his family has now paid off more than one thousand dollars of the total debt.
Not much difference to Cheob, who tells stories about people becoming indebted to the microfinance institutions, Yin Singh shares the same claim. According to Singh, some families owe about US$ 1,000 each to the microfinance institution.
Khit Khet, Chief of Sre Chhouk commune, claims that nowadays some villagers are indeed indebted to the microfinance institutions. According to Khet, some 20% of the commune’s total population of more than 900 families owe money to the private lending institutions. “That people borrow money from micro-finance institutions is true. They do borrow money, but it is only a small number of them,” he says.
Nuon Saran, Governor of Keo Seima district, however, denies the villagers’ claims. He says the company has already paid compensation to those having been affected. The company, he adds, has conducted a detailed environmental and social impact assessment before submitting its investment project. “The company has a proper contract with the Royal Government,” says the District Governor.
According to Nuon Saran, the company and provincial land dispute settlement authorities on August 21, 2014 agreed to remove a land area of 375 hectares from the company’s concession and gave it to the community.
However, both civil society organizations and community representatives have told VOD that this land has, in fact, not been returned to the real victims. According to sources, many who have received the land are members of the local authorities and migrant people from outside the community with the arrangements being facilitated and managed by the local authorities.
Sre Chhouk Commune Chief Khit Khet, however, declines to give details on the case while Keo Seima District Governor Nuon Saran says those land protesters are villagers from other areas, not from the area where the disputed land is located.
Punong ethnic villagers have lost their basic right to advocacy
Yin Singh is one of the six community representatives. He says due to relentless threats from local authorities, more than half of the land dispute victims have decided to halt their advocacy. The advocacy has been stalled because some of their representatives have been arrested and charged by the courts in the past.
A report from the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) reveals that the victims in Chakchar village amount to 211 families among the village’s total population of some 900 families or more than 4,000 people.
Chakchar village is located nearly 40 kilometers from National Road 76 and is far from the populated areas. The village already lacks access to information, thus making it easy for the local authorities to intimidate villagers. Before reaching Chakchar village, one must use a motorbike to ride across the rubber plantations of the Binh Phuoc 1 company and the road is cut off in some locations. In some locations, the road is muddy, inundated with water and slippery.
Community representatives interviewed by VOD say that the local authorities in Sre Chhouk commune are very strict in their law enforcement. Strangers are not allowed to enter the community, and cannot interview people in the community.
On October 10, two reporters from VOD were prevented from meeting the villagers by the Deputy Chief of the commune police who took the order from the Commune Chief. And after that, the two reporters were required by the police to report on their biographies, their job and their purpose for entering the community.
Chakchar community representative Prab Cheob says it is not the first time that local authorities and the police prevented journalists from interviewing the villagers. In 2015, Cheob continues, two UN staff members were also detained by the police and the company security guards for one night in the company area before being let go the following day.
Graphic of Indigenous Punong villagers from Chakchar village lose income after controversial Vietnamese firm comes to invest
A number of community representatives interviewed by VOD claim that they have not received any compensation for the company’s clearance of reserved forest land, cemetery land, rotational farmland and sacred forest land. Moreover, the Binh Phuoc 1 company came in and cleared the land without any study and prior consultations with the community people.
CCHR officer Vann Sophat says when he investigated and did research, the finding was that the company did not present its environmental and social impact assessment. According to Mr. Sophat, local authorities also claim that they have never heard of the investment project of the Vietnamese company in the first place.
“The finding is that before the company went [to the area] and began operations, the company did not conduct any environmental and social impact assessment. There was no consultation with the people, and even local authorities did not know about it. We have met local authorities and they said they didn’t know about it in the first place. Only when the machinery arrived were they told by their superior. Now, Binh Phuoc 1 operates in the area because the Royal Government and the Ministry of Agriculture has granted the company the land concession,” says Mr. Sophat.
According to the CCHR report, the General Manager of Binh Phuoc 1, Mr. Bou Van Tap told CCHR that the government has permitted the company to invest here. According to the Royal Government’s sub-decree dated October 24, 2011, the company was granted nearly 9,000 hectares of land for rubber plantations.
However, CCHR says that based on the research, the actual size of the land the government granted to the company for a concession is 10,000 hectares. But, only 5,100 hectares are required by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery to grow rubber trees. The remaining land must be left reserved for the stream buffer zone area and protected forest land.
The report, published in September 2015, on the land clearing activities of Binh Phuoc 1, says that the villagers have occupied the land in Chakchar village, Sre Chhouk commune, Keo Seima district, Mondulkiri province, since the mid-1940s.
However, during the Khmer Rouge regime, the ethnic Punong villagers there were evacuated from their village by the Khmer Rouge soldiers, like other people all over the country. The report continues that after the 1998 reintegration, they came back to settle in their village.
The land dispute in Chakchar village, according to CCHR report, first erupted in 2012. In its first steps, the company deployed between 20 and 30 Vietnamese workers to pretend to be timber transport workers. Later on, in 2013, the Binh Phuoc 1 company began to clear the forested land.
Mr. Vann Sophat, who is a coordinator for the business and human rights work of the CCHR, says the company has received the investment rights for more than 8,000 hectares of land concession. According to the CCHR report, Binh Phuoc 1 began to clear the last remaining portion of the 1,500 hectares on June 31, 2015.
Punong community representative Prab Cheob claims that the Sre Chhouk commune consists of 9 villages. However, Chakchar village is most affected by the investment activities of Binh Phuoc 1.
Mr. Cheob says before 2012, the area was a source of all kinds of wild animals. In addition, the area was a forested land with tall trees, semi-tall trees, sparse forest and grass fields.
In addition, the disputed location has lakes, streams and waterways that flow in all seasons. These conducive natural factors, according to Mr. Cheob, have enabled the ethnic Punong villagers to harvest non-timber forest products all year round.
Mr. P’nheub Bo’ra, 60, currently living in Sre Chhouk commune, says his family has 20 resin trees, and compared with others in the village, he has the least. Mr. Bo’ra adds that nowadays, he and other villagers are facing more difficulties in making a living.
According to Mr. Bo’ra, at present, his family earns even less than 100,000 Riels (around $25) for two months. Three years ago, he adds, from harvesting resin trees he could earn an income of around 200,000 Riels ($50) for the same period. The reason behind his decreasing income includes lower prices for the resin as the market is not as good as it was before, and the other reason is that his main source of income, resin trees, has been cleared by the company, so there are less and less resin trees that people can now count on.
“Nowadays, my income is less than 100,000 Riels. Now, it’s already two months, and I just sell out one Kan (a 30-liter container called by the locals as ‘Kan’). Before, I could get two Kans of resin per month. One Kan is sold at 70,000 Riels, so two Kans, it is 140,000 Riels,” says Mr. Bo’ra.
Mr. Kroeung Tola, coordinator for the Mondulkiri Indigenous People Network, says this is development that does not help improve the economy of the people. According to Mr. Tola, before permitting any company to invest, the government should know the needs of the people and the impact before giving out any investment licenses.
“This is the development that violates human rights and the development that does not respect for others’ rights. These are the things that our indigenous people demand. Our demanding of such rights has led some to mistaken on us that we are against the government or that we want a secession etc. This is unacceptable to us,” says Kroeung Tola.
Mrs. So Nang who claims to be a middle woman, living in Keo Seima district, says her family buys resin from the villagers on a regular basis. However, she adds, most recently, there’s not much resin to buy.
Moreover, Mrs. Nang says over the past year, the price of the resin has gone down. According to Mrs. Nang, one Kan of resin can earn her about 5,000 Riels ($1.25). But, now, even there is no order from the buyers.
“Before, the price of resin is high, but now it is just 40,000 Riels. In 2018, the price of one Kan of resin is 85,000 riels. In 2018, the price is between 80,000 riels and 90,000 riels per Kan (30 liters). But, now, it is just 40,000 riels per Kan. And even at this price, there’s no buyer now,” says Mrs. Nang.
VOD received a number of letters with different dates in 2013 and 2015 on the complaints to seek interventions from the national level by 211 families or 1,055 people.
The letter of five representatives who represent the 211 families of Punong ethnicity has asked national institutions such as national assembly, Office of the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Interior, and Cabinet of the Prime Minister to help intervene to stop Binh Phuoc 1 from clearing the land and to return the land back to them.
However, the letters from the representatives of these main national institutions responded that the requested resolution was not within their jurisdiction.
In 2013 and 2015, letters that VOD received from the national assembly, Office of the Council of Ministers, Cabinet of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Land Management, and Ministry of Interior, all gave the right to resolve the dispute to the provincial level.
However, a study report from the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), published on its website in September 2015, has found that the six community representatives including Mr. Prab Cheob, Mr. Sruoch Thev, Mr. Phov An, Mr. Yin Singh, Mr. pen Sokunthea, and Mr. Mao Yin, were countersued by the company. The six representatives were accused of damaging the company’s property.
The same report shows that in April 2015, Mr. Yan Mao, one of the five representatives of the people was arrested by the court. The reason behind the arrest issued by the court was on charge of having sex with an underage minor.
The CCHR report was quoted Mr. Yan Mao as saying that the court’s charges against him was not true. And the basis for the charge, Mr. Mao was quoted as saying, was because the authorities only targeted the persons who dared to do advocacy.
About two weeks after the charge was announced against Mr. Yan Mao, in May 2015, Mr. Prab Cheob, another community representative among the six community representatives, was summoned by the provincial court of first instance of Mondulkiri to testify on the complaint against him accusing him of damaging the company’s property.
However, the director of Mondulkiri provincial department of agriculture, Mr. Song Kheang, says that the land dispute between Binh Phuoc 1 and the villagers was already resolved. Both parties, he adds, have agreed to the resolution of the provincial authorities.
“This case is already settled. It is all over. There’s no further planting in the area. The district authority already solved it. It’s finished,” says Mr. Song Kheang.
Meanwhile, Keo Seima district governor Mr. Nuon Saran considers the complaint was not made by the people who live in the area being disputed with the company. According to Mr. Saran, the people in the dispute already accepted the compensation and the dispute was completely settled.
“The provincial authority made an announcement to the people who have problem and set a duration for solving the problem, but when the provincial authority made the announcement and set the time for solution, no-one participated. So, the resolution is completed. So, the provincial authority has set aside 375 hectares of land for the people. So, the 211 families who complained are the people who come from outside the area,” adds the district governor.
To date, VOD could not find the location of the head office of Binh Phuoc 1 Company as indicated in the registration with the Ministry of Agriculture dated October 24, 2011, so VOD could not reach the company for comments.
CCHR’s Vann Sophat says the company named Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 1 Company Limited and the Binh Phuoc 1 are the same company.
A document VOD has received from CCHR shows that the company’s head office address as registered with the Ministry of Agriculture is located at House 92 on Norodom Boulevard, Khan Daun Penh, Phnom Penh.
VOD reporter searched for the registered address but could not locate it, but the company has built a factory in Sre Chhouk commune, Keo Seima district.
The community representatives who gave interviews to VOD say that the company’s factory is indeed its official office, and that currently the factory is located right in the center of the concession land and it is growing bananas for exports.
Mr. Srey Vuthy, spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery, says he does not know the information about the exact location of the company’s office. According to Mr. Vuthy, he also doesn’t know how much concession land the company has and how much is required of the company to invest.
“Binh Phuoc? I don’t know if it exists. I don’t know about it. Registered in 2011? I am not sure and don’t know where its office is, and I am not sure if it has one in the province,” says Mr. Vuthy.
According to the document of CCHR, this company was granted a sub-decree on March 25, 2011 to permit it to invest in the economic concession land of 10,000 hectares in Keo Seima district, Mondulkiri province. One week after that, on April 1, 2011, Binh Phuoc 1 was given permission by the government to invest in rubber plantations per its request.
According to CCHR’s Vann Sophat, he used to meet the company’s representative in person in the past at the company’s office in Keo Seima district.
He adds that the documents he saw at that time contained some ambiguity, but it was unfortunate that those documents were not allowed to be copied for verification.
“Yes, we did notice some deletions on the documents. We only were able to take a glance at them. We saw that for sure, but we didn’t know why there were deletions. If they were official documents, there shouldn’t be any deletions,” says Mr. Sophat.
At present, 150 families out of the 211 families who are being heavily affected continue to claim back the land they used to occupy.
Mr. Sophat says although they nowadays do not do any advocacy campaign like they did before, it doesn’t mean that those land owners abandon their rights to ownership.
In a joint letter by the representatives of the Punong indigenous people network asking for intervention from government institutions and relevant parties, they villagers demand their rice fields and farmland back so that they can do the agriculture.
Moreover, the letter also demands that the company pays compensation for all the damages it had caused when clearing the land. In addition, the letter asks the local authorities and the police to stop immediately their act of threatening the people.
(This report is written by Mam Moniroth contracted under the project of CCIM supported by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung)
