Land dispute with Thai firms long resolved, landless families told to submit applications
Oddar Meanchey provincial authorities remain puzzled about the Thai Appeal Court’s recent ruling in favour of more than 700 families who claimed to have been locked in a land dispute with three Thai-owned sugar companies in Samrong town and Chongkal district.
Provincial deputy governor Vat Paranin told The Post on Sunday that the land dispute with the firms was resolved in 2010. He said because the case occurred in Cambodia, the complaint should have been filed in a regional court.
“If it happens in Oddar Meanchey, they have to file a complaint to the provincial court. If it happens in Phnom Penh, they have to lodge it at the municipal court. I don’t understand why they, as Cambodian nationals, took the case to a Thai court,” he said.
In 2008, the government granted Mitr Phol Sugar Corporation – the parent company of Angkor Sugar –Tonle Sugar Cane Company and Cane Sugar Valley 30,000ha of economic land concessions for sugar cane plantation in Oddar Meanchey.
The concessions, which affected 1,738 families, were located in Samrong town’s Konkriel and Samrong communes and Chongkal district’s Chongkal and Pongro communes.
Khorn Savi
