Three indigenous Bunong women from Mondulkiri made an appeal in the Supreme Court in Phnom Penh on Wednesday over their convictions for removing fence posts to protect ancestral lands.
The Mondulkiri Provincial Court questioned four Bunong environmentalists for several hours on Tuesday over alleged defamation and incitement based on a developer’s complaint.
Thvan Trel is one 10 officials implicated by the Interior Ministry in Mondulkiri land grabs, and is running again for commune chief at the June 5 election. Local Bunong residents blame her for the sale and loss of their burial grounds.
The party won just over 1,000 votes in Mondulkiri in 2017, and many local residents don’t even know its name — only its elephant logo. But amid rampant land loss — burial grounds seemingly targeted by brokers — the Indigenous People’s Party wants to push back.
Labeled a “great achievement” for Cambodia’s post-pandemic recovery, the country’s biggest goldmine also exemplifies some of the challenges facing indigenous communities seeking to protect traditions. “It’s something very dangerous to lose culture, lifestyle and traditional practices,” one Bunong lawyer said.
Six sub-decrees signed in the span of a week privatized nearly 10,000 hectares across four provinces, with thousands of hectares going to unspecified families in northeastern provinces and a plot in Ream National Park adding to land tycoon Khun Sea’s property empire.
Indigenous community representatives who say they filed a complaint against a company for encroaching on community forests have been summoned to court over defamation and incitement.
Bunong residents in Mondulkiri sue local officials over land encroachment, while PM dismisses rumors of new Covid-19 restrictions.
Mondulkiri’s provincial spokesman says widespread loss of protected land — amid the creation of a new anti-logging task force on Tuesday — “has nothing to do with powerful people or high-ranking people.”
With their case reaching a French appeal court today, a Bunong community says their claims to land are in contention, while villagers say debt and wage labor are supplanting their traditions.
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