Land Dispute Unearths Tension

Sev Thveal and his fellow villagers say that in 2004, Keat Kolney bribed numerous local officials with cash to help trick and bully the villagers into signing away close to 1,100 acres of their most fertile farmland.

Villagers contend that local officials threw a party for them, serving beer, traditional rice wine and pork. When villagers became drunk, officials took their thumbprints. Some of Keat Kolney's cash went to the villagers, the lawsuit contends, but they say they didn't realize what they were being paid for.

The plaintiffs say they thought they were signing over only about 125 acres to disabled soldiers from a group affiliated with Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen. But soon bulldozers arrived and cut through about 665 acres of cashew trees, rice paddies and vegetable gardens to make way for a vast rubber plantation. Villagers say they've lost 60 percent of their arable land and have not seen a single disabled soldier.

Now they want their land back. Chhe Vibol, the lawyer, says it's too late. "Rubber trees have already been planted on more than 200 hectares," or about 500 acres, he said. "Giving all the land back is impossible."

On June 21, Keat Kolney filed criminal lawsuits against the villagers and their lawyers, according to Chhe Vibol. She has also lodged a formal complaint with the Cambodian bar association, contending that lawyers working for two legal aid groups advising the plaintiffs have fallen under the sway of foreigners.

"We purchased the land legally," Chhe Vibol said.

Last month, villagers traveled from Ratanakiri, a remote province in northeastern Cambodia, to the capital Phnom Penh, where they visited the Ministry of Economy and Finance and made daily pilgrimages to the Ministry of Land Management, hoping to secure audiences with Keat Kolney's powerful relations and persuade them to intercede.

They had no luck. Now they're back home in Ratanakiri, hoping the imperfect wheels of Cambodian justice will turn in their favor. Ith Mathoura, one of their lawyers, says that's unlikely. Cambodia's notoriously corrupt judiciary, she says, almost always serves the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor.

"The land problem is everywhere in Cambodia," said Brian Rohan, an American attorney working as a legal adviser at the Community Legal Education Center, which is helping represent the villagers. "There is a lot of land-grabbing because the value of land is going up, stability has returned, and there is a lot of economic activity."

The case, he added, is "a powerful symbol for whether the Cambodian government is committed to implementing any of the policies it professes to support during its conversations with donors."

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith declined to comment on the litigation between Keat Kolney and the villagers but warned against jumping to conclusions. "A few trees do not constitute a forest. What is most important is the political will of the government to establish the rule of law," he said.

He points to Cambodia's WTO entry, an arduous process that has required writing or rewriting many laws, as evidence of that commitment. "Our main concern is to make our law reach international standards. Sure, from paper to practice, there will be a gap, but at least the government is laying the ground for the rule of law," he said.