Kampong Speu residents accused soldiers of threatening to use violence against a monk trying to protect the community’s Metta forest, confiscating his phone to stop him from taking photos of their activities.
The Metta forest community in Kampong Speu says three Buddha statues around the forest’s pagoda have been destroyed after wind blew down nearby trees, and residents are blaming loggers who they say are continuing to cut down the surrounding forest.
Though the Kampong Speu provincial governor has promised to demarcate the boundaries of the contested Metta forest of Oral district, residents say loggers have continued to clear-cut the vanishing woodland.
Kampong Speu governor Vei Samnang promised to demarcate the boundaries of Metta forest in Trapeang Cho commune, even though teams of workers have completely deforested the area, save for trees around a pagoda.
After a few months of rapid deforestation, tree-cutting activity at Kampong Speu’s Metta forest has slowed down in recent days as clearings reach the boundary limits of land allocated to families from the military’s tank unit.
As Kampong Speu’s Metta forest is rapidly destroyed, locals’ allegations against Brigade 70 soldiers are multiplying: a monk’s phone confiscated to prevent photos of forest clearing, seven Buddha statues destroyed, and the land sold to tycoons for dirt mining.
Prom Thomacheat, living in Oral district’s Metta forest, said the small hut where he had slept was burned to the ground on Monday.
Local police claimed soldiers were on holiday, not shooting at patrollers in a Kampong Speu community forest, as residents allege they were again targeted by soldiers last week.
Kampong Speu’s Metta community forest, home to a monk who has been helping locals protect the woods, is seeing rising violence and clearing by soldiers, including warning shots fired at the monk, residents have alleged.
In Kampong Speu, a forest-dwelling monk hoots to mimic animals’ cries and talks of living in harmony with nature. But the community forest where he lives has been handed to the military, and nearby residents are camping among the trees to protect the land.
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