Thursday, August 27, 2009


Protest during an land dispute in Siem Reap (Photo: RFA)

Thursday, August 27, 2009

By P.B.
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

The Council of Ministers announced the creation of a new working group in charge of reforming land dispute resolutions.

An inter-ministerial working group will be created to set up new procedures to resolve land disputes, the Council of Ministers announced in a communiqué on Thursday 27 August.

“This group will have the responsibility of establishing a memorandum on the procedures to resolve the problems involving villagers who are living in anarchy in major cities, in Phnom Penh, or in other provincial towns,” the communiqué indicated.

Also, according to the communiqué, the new procedures will be created based on the existing land law and other legal documents.

“The goal of this memorandum will be to allow the finding of a satisfactory solution for the land owners and the land occupants prior to any eviction,” the communiqué stated.

During the previous legislative mandate, a multipartite committee in charge of resolution of land disputes was set up as a goodwill sign by the government to reach negotiated solutions in all land dispute cases. Nevertheless, this committee, which included members of the CPP, the SRP and Funcinpec, was rarely solicited and it did not show that it was efficient enough in the resolution of these land disputes.

Amicable land dispute resolutions generally took plane when Hun Xen or one of his advisors were directly involved, and when they ordered that resolutions are found on a case-by-case basis.

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