UN RIGHTS REPRESENTATIVE CALLS FOR CANCELLATION OF LAND CONCESSION TO COMPANY IN CAMBODIA

5 July 2005

The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Human Rights in Cambodia, Peter Leuprecht, issued the following statement today:

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights in Cambodia asked the Government of Cambodia to cancel the agreement of 9 August 2004 to provide an initial 10,000 hectares of state land to Wuzhishan L.S. Group for a pine tree plantation in Mondulkiri province, with a promise of a further 189,999 hectares. The Government and the company have disregarded the well-being, culture and livelihoods of the Phnong indigenous people who make up more than half the population of the province, and many breaches of the law and of human rights have been committed.

As with other economic land concessions, no environmental or social impact assessments were carried out, and local populations and authorities were neither informed nor consulted. No precise maps of the concession or the sites where the company is operating are available. The present size of the concession is not known but is widely believed to have exceeded the 10,000- hectare ceiling provided for in the 2001 Land Law.

The concession encompasses hilly grasslands and dense forest in the valleys and along the waterways of southern Mondulkiri. In September 2004, the company started spraying the hills with large amounts of the herbicide glyphosate, later burning sprayed areas. The hills are used by the Phnong to graze their cattle. Their ancestral burial areas and spirit forests have also been desecrated in the process of clearing and planting, and the company has taken their farm lands and rice fields. The concerns of the affected Phnong communities have not been listened to and they are increasingly upset. They are asking for their land back and for the company to leave. The Government has now begun to respond, but with partial measures which risk adding to the confusion.

The concession to Wuzhishan L .S. Group should not have been approved. The Land Law establishes the right of indigenous people to collective title. Key regulations to implement the Land Law have not been adopted, including on state land management economic land Concessions, collective land titling, as well as legislation for determining the criteria for indigenous status.
The Special Representative also requests that no more concessions of state land be approved in Mondulkiri or elsewhere in Cambodia until the necessary regulations have been adopted and are in effect. He also reiterates the recommendations he made in his November 2004 report on economic land concessions from a human rights perspective.

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For use of information only; not an official record