Cambodian PM Determined to Crack Down on Land Grabbing

[Speech given by Prime Minister Hun Sen at the conference on environment work in Phnom Penh on 15 February - recorded]

Cambodian Government-run Phnom Penh Television Kampuchea on 16 February carried, following its midday newscast, a 70-minute recorded report on Prime Minister Hun Sen closing a congress on environment work organized by the Environment Ministry at the Chaktomuk hall in Phnom Penh on the afternoon of 15 February.

In his speech at the event, after recounting the efforts by the Cambodian government in environment and natural resources management and protection, Hun Sen said, “The Royal Government [RG] has taken the toughest measures against offenders involved in destructively cutting down trees and to stop large-scale exploitation of forests to the point that some forest concessions have been cancelled.”

On the settlement of land disputes, Hun Sen said that last year, the RG set up the “National Authority for Resolving Land Disputes,” which had “solved land problems for a number of people by granting them legal ownership of the land they had built their homes on for many years already.” The RG had also “taken back land in protected natural region and land owned by the State, grabbed illegally by some unscrupulous people,” he added. The RG will continue to “retake all kinds of state-owned land, illegally occupied by the dishonest people, at all costs, with whatever means. In short, those people should not be tolerated, in any case.”

Continuing his speech, Hun Sen publicly warned that those who had been involved in land grabs should “pull themselves out immediately and return the forested land and the land in the protected natural region as state property for reforestation.”

Hun Sen also asked the Environment Ministry and other relevant ministries to conduct research study and inform him directly of people of “whatever positions and ranks” who were involved in land grabbing directly or indirectly so that he could punish them.

Hun Sen further said that he would not cease to act on this matter, adding, “If we appeal again and again and they still persist in committing the violation, we ask whether they dare stage a coup d’etat in the future. If they dare persist, definitely they will have the guts. As such, we have to take action against them from now on. This can longer be left to go on any more.”"Otherwise, we cannot become a sturdy state having the guts to suppress unscrupulous people and corrupt people,” he stressed.

Hun Sen added that there was “no need to wait for the anti-graft law,” because there were forest law, land law, fishery law, and so forth that could already be used to “prevent corruption.”"I think that there is no need to wait further for the anti-corruption law, because we already have those laws,” and “I am resolutely determined to act,” he pointed out.

Hun Sen further said that the problem was that “whether we will act or not. I can say that nothing is more difficult than asking the [Khmer Rouge] Pol Pot-led band to come out of the jungle and that nobody has steel-covered head. The problem is whether we dare act or not.”"If they have that large liver [temerity], later on they will dare stage a coup,” he added. “They have been prevented again and again and they still continue the violation. So, I say that later on, they will commit something else. Therefore, we must manage to prevent them at all costs. This should be made explicit, and my speech will be aired on television.”"Big shot shots should be dealt with first to serve as model” and “your names will be recorded in computer forever,” he said.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.