Officials at the Land Management Ministry declined to accept a petition from nearly 1,000 protesters who had gathered outside the building on September 21 to demand a resolution to their long-running land disputes in several provinces. 

The villagers from Koh Kong, Tbong Khmum and Svay Rieng provinces were demonstrating to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, representing more than 7,000 families embroiled in conflicts over a total of more than 12,000 hectares of land.

Around 1,000 villagers from three Cambodian provinces blocked the road leading to the Land Ministry in Phnom Penh on Monday to demand government help in resolving disputes over land taken by private companies and politically connected businesspeople, sources in the country said.

Protesters from Koh Kong, Svay Rieng, and Tbong Khmum provinces held up photos of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife, and Cambodian King Sihamoni and the Queen Mother, as they launched their appeal, but were refused assistance by Ministry officials and left at the end of the day with no promises of help.

Sustainable peace is not divorced from justice, which involves the elimination of unacceptable political, economic and cultural forms of discrimination. It behoves on the Federal Government, the National Assembly, Benue State Government and the House of Assembly in the State, traditional and religious, as well as civil society organisations (CSOs) to create peace-building structures which would proactively respond to early-warning signs of conflict. 

The people of Walewale in the Northern Region are demanding answers as to why lands allocated for a Watermelon Processing Factory and a 100-bed capacity hospital have now been turned into a maize farm.

On December 16, 2019, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia while on an official visit to his hometown Walewale, cut the sod for works to begin on the construction of 2 major projects: a Watermelon Processing factory and a 100-Bed hospital.

Preah Vihear Provincial Court prosecutor Phy Sithorng issued a summons for four forest activists to appear in court on September 14 over charges of incitement to commit a felony after PNT Co Ltd filed a complaint against them concerning a 2015 land dispute.

The summons ordered Khem Sokhy, 36; So Thal, 45; Vong Sok Khengly, 46; and San Reth, 62, to appear in court. All of the suspects are men and residents of Ruosroan commune’s Russey village in Rovieng district.

Settlers living adjacent to Adventure Park at 14-Mile in Central Province had their homes demolished yesterday, allegedly without being served a proper eviction notice. It is claimed the demolition exercise is the result of a directive from the National Capital District Commission (NCDC) over the Ilimo Farm land dispute in relation to a state lease on portion 1221. There are more than 400 settlers who have acquired, developed and settled on the land they claimed to have bought from customary owners, who are now the victims of the eviction.

September 1, 2020 (Ezega.com) -- At least 12 people were killed and 10 others wounded in ethnic-based clashes over forest ownership rights in Ale special district in South Nations Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia, an official has said.

“Gunmen killed 12 persons and wounded several others in pre-arranged attacks in Gerama and Guroze localities in Ale district,” Government Communication Affairs Head of the district Sawra Gebeyehu told local media.

(Main photo: Lao agricultural expert Sombath Somphone, who went missing in December 2012, in 2005 file photo. Courtesy of Somphone family)

The 10^th annual International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance Sunday offers a fresh reminder that Laos has done little or nothing to investigate citizens, including a highly respected development expert, who have vanished in the communist Southeast Asian nation, human rights groups said.

A group of families in Banteay Meanchey province filed a lawsuit on August 5 against four officials and 13 local businessmen alleging they used forged documents to claim ownership of more than 100 hectares of land in a long-running conflict dating back nearly two decades.

(Business in Cameroon) - On August 14, 2020, Ousmanou Biri, the regional president of the association for the cultural development of Cameroonian Mbororos - a community of sheep-breeding nomads well known in Cameroon- sent correspondence to the Minister of Land Affairs  Henri Eyébé Ayissi. In his correspondence, Ousmanou Biri denounced the temporary concession of 100,000 hectares of land in Tignère (department of Faro et Déo) to an investor who wants to use the lands for a livestock project.

• Gulzhan Musaeva, an independent financial analyst writes about CIMB’s sustainability commitments. CIMB is Malaysia’s second largest bank and a major leader to regional plantation companies.
• Musaeva argues that CIMB’s reluctance to address the issues associated with forest sector borrowers head-on casts doubt on its sustainability aspirations.
• “This means that, despite massive exposure to forest-risk sectors,” writes Musaeva, “CIMB, among other Malaysian banks, willfully overlooks its impact on SDG 15 ‘Life on Land’ through financing activities.

Binit Agrawal analyses the global impact of a Thai court judgement, which provides a judicial forum to farmers from Cambodia, who were victims of transnational land grabbing.