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Article

16 Sep 2017

Author:
Sen David, Khmer Times

Cambodia: Indigenous people rejects compensation from govt. for lands taken for dam development

"Locals told to leave dam before PM's visit", 15 September 2017

Stung Treng provincial authorities held a meeting with the Mines and Energy Ministry...to find ways to convince people refusing to leave their homes near the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam to accept compensation and vacate their land....

...87 percent of people in the area had already left to make way for the dam development.

But about 143 indigenous families affected have rejected compensation and defiantly refused to vacate their ancestral lands, even while being flooded by dam tests, and intimidated by local authorities....

Dam Samnag, a defiant villager who remains, said any amount of money or land will not satisfy them.

"The lands are too important to us," he said.

"We are an indigenous group that wants to remains on its ancestral lands."

Representatives of 143 indigenous families affected by the development...came to Phnom Penh to submit a petition to the Prime Minister's Cabinet to call for government intervention to reopen public services and stop the threat of armed forces in their communities.