Friday, 13 July 2012
May Titthara
Bangkok Post
Authorities
in Stung Treng province have released the names of five government officials whom they arrested on Tuesday in Samki commune for interfering
with a corps of youth volunteers sent to measure land as part of the
prime minister’s national initiative to grant property to Cambodians
displaced by land disputes.
According to Sao Sarem, the deputy
provincial commander of the military police, the officials are Meas
Sokun, a legal adviser to the Cambodian People’s Party; Kuch Prisovan,
her husband and a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Cambodian Armed
Forces; Van San, an RCAF colonel; Meas Kearithy, an RCAF soldier; and
military police officer Prak Sith.
Three of them were released yesterday due to their limited roles in the incident, he said.
“We
currently only detained the couple Kuch Prisovan and Meas Sokun, who
seriously insulted the student volunteers working on [the initiative] of
the Premier Hun Sen, and their car contained loads of land
dispute-related documents,” he said.
The arrests were made after
the officials stopped the volunteers from doing their jobs and tried to
force them to measure land for private development. Sarem said that the
legal adviser, Sokun, took the lead and began berating the students.
“She
dropped a flood of insults and curses on … the students for about half
an hour, as if it were a forum, which caused the residents [of Samki
commune] to panic,” he said, adding that she had no right to make
demands.
Loy Sophat, the provincial governor of Stung Treng, could not be reached for comment.
Chreng
Kmao, the provincial court prosecutor in Stung Treng, said that the
military police didn’t send the five to court but ordered the police to
investigate at the scene in order to find evidence from the students and
residents.
Why the officials were so strident in their
opposition to the students remains unclear, said senior investigator at
Adhoc, Chan Soveth.
But he said that the arrests are a positive
sign, “because they are a move towards success in solving land disputes
for residents”.
To contact the reporter on this story: May Titthara at titthara.may@phnompenhpost.com
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