Svay Rieng villagers suspicious of activities by border survey officials

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On 26 November, a group of several dozens of officials from the Council of Ministers and border defense guards came to review the area and they also took video of the location where opposition leader Sam Rainsy uprooted border post stakes out a rice field belonging to a Cambodian farmer on 25 October.

Furthermore, on 26 November, RFA reporter and an activist for the Adhoc human rights group were not allowed to approach or take pictures of these officials.

Villagers who are currently concerned about losing their rice fields from border demarcation with Vietnam in Samrong commune, Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province, said on 29 November that two officials from the joint border committee came to survey the border under high secrecy on 28 November 2009. Such activities generate suspicion among the villagers.

On Saturday, 38-year-old Meas Srey, who lives in Koh Kban Kandal village and whose rice fields were planted with stakes for border post no. 185, are suspicious of the activities conducted by the two officials.

Meas Srey said: “[I told them:] If you do your work properly, you don’t have to survey in secrecy like this. You tell the people and let them know because whatever you do, you want to do it in secret and you are hiding everything. When you reach an important point, you are sending signals to each other.”

Meas Srey said that she had word altercations with the survey officials: “They climbed back on their motorcycles, they pointed at my face with their fingers and said: ‘For you, Aunty, they will not resolve the issue for you. If people lose their lands right now, they will resolve it for them, but for your village only, they will not resolve it for you because you, Aunty, are fighting too hard. You complained too much about them.' That’s what they told me! I complained a lot, every day. They follow me all the time, whichever road I take, they know everything … I am not scared about complaining…”

38-year-old Chhin Soveth, a farmer from Koh Kban Kandal village also, said that he did not understand the activities and the goals of these officials.

Chhin Soveth said: “They planted [the posts], but why didn’t they let the villagers know, because we are not well educated. We are puzzled to see them doing strange thing, we can only be puzzled and we can only talk and say it out!”

Pov Pheap, the no. 2 Samrong commune councilor, claimed that border survey officials never contacted or cooperated with commune officials. He said that he does not understand the action taken by these officials on Saturday.

Pov Pheap said: “What they did, they never say anything, they never tell anybody that their survey was done wrongly and they have to correct it in such and such manner. They did not tell us anything to let us know! The way they proceed is like young kids trying to poison dogs. They walked along the rice fields, they jotted something down.”

Chea Yeang, the Chantrea district governor, said that he did not know that survey officials came to work on 28 November.

On 26 November, a group of several dozens of officials from the Council of Ministers and border defense guards came to review the area and they also took video of the location where opposition leader Sam Rainsy uprooted border post stakes out a rice field belonging to a Cambodian farmer on 25 October.

Furthermore, on 26 November, RFA reporter and an activist for the Adhoc human rights group were not allowed to approach or take pictures of these officials.