Land grabs leave thousands destitute in Cambodia's heartland

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2007

CHHOUK VILLAGE, Cambodia (AFP) — Tieng Khov has only enough food to feed his family for the next few weeks -- leftovers from last year's harvest that were brought in before the bulldozers came to plough under his crops.

The 46-year-old says he is tired, but the anger has not gone out of him; like hundreds of families in this farming community in southwestern Cambodia, he suddenly lost everything to the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Company land concession that overtook his rice fields and orchard.

"We still have a surplus of crops from last year, but when that runs out, we will die," says Tieng Khov, who lost 17 hectares (42 acres) of land.

"They've killed the animals, they've threatened the people and they've stolen the land," he said.

Behind him the...