Pheapimex ties ‘cause for concern’
Alex Corporation, the firm behind a proposal for an ambitious Mondulkiri mining project, appears to be ultimately owned by ruling party Senator Lao Meng Khin and his wife, Choeung Sopheap, the Post has discovered, a scenario rights groups say should give cause for concern. The Ministry of Environment announced last Friday that it is currently examining the environmental impact assessment for a planned 26,000-hectare mining project spanning O’raing district and Sen Monorom town in southern Mondulkiri. An official from the ministry’s EIA evaluation department said earlier this week that Alex Corporation had given its word that it would not provoke conflicts with communities affected nor forcibly evict any that reject compensation offers. But Alex Corporation’s apparent owners have a long history of involvement in such conflicts, not only in southern Mondulkiri but across Cambodia. Meng Khin and Sopheap were described in a 2007 US Embassy cable as the Kingdom’s “Power Couple”. A 2009 report by Global Witness found that they held the rights to at least 7 percent of all land in Cambodia, primarily through the Pheapimex Group, of which Sopheap is chair.
