Discontent brews among Cambodian ethnic minorities
TIOM ROM BEI SROK -
While the anger of ethnic minorities escalates in the mountains of Vietnam, discontent is also brewing among tribal people in
neighbouring Cambodia's remote northeast.
The ethnic tribal people of the rugged province of Ratanakiri -- Tampuons, Braos, Djarais, Kreungs -- are facing mounting
pressure from development and a massive influx of immigrants from other provinces seeking gems and vacant land.
The arrival of Khmers in the region, and to a lesser degree Vietnamese, has upset the region's delicate equilibrium.
According to demographic research, notably by the United Nations Development Program, the population of Ratanakiri shot
up 41 percent between 1992 and 1998, a trend which shows no signs of abating.
Tribal people, who still made up more than 70 percent of the population at the time of the 1998 census, are now in a minority.
The new arrivals have been accused by locals of land grabbing, and key areas around national route 19, which runs though
Ratanakari to Vietnam, are currently under the spotlight.
The Tampuons and Djarais, for whom the sale or purchase of land is culturally unacceptable, say many villages along the route
have been duped into selling their land or have simply had it confiscated.
Mediators for a local army general have been accused by three villages of having tricked them into signing away 1,250 hectares
(3,087 acres) of land in return for several kilos of salt.
The villagers, who are illiterate, say they signed the papers thinking they were plans to develop their village. The case is
currently bogged down in the provincial court system.
In Tiom Rom Bei Srok district, a gem rush over the past three years has led to a massive influx of outsiders, and left the land
cratered and stripped bare of vegetation.
Tao Kanon, chief of the Tampuons village of Koulaing, finds it hard to suppress his anger and frustration in speaking about the
land that has been taken over by miners.
"Today there are more than 2,000 people in Tiom Rom Bei Srok. It is destroying the forest. They burn the 'sralao' (a precious
hard wood) for coal. Some are armed and chase out the gaurs (a protected wild cattle) which live close to the mines."
Some of the richest pickings for miners are in the middle of a lush forest where the Koulaing villagers normally carry out a
cyclical form of slash-and-burn clearing for their farms.
The land is periodically left fallow for years at a time, leaving the impression it is free for the taking, a fact which has led to
tensions with new immigrants who have moved in.
And a dam built on the Sesane river upstream in Vietnam has added to their discontent.
One study undertaken in May last year by the provincial fishing authority and a local environmental organisation showed that the
river's ecosystem has been badly damaged. Fields have been flooded and harvests destroyed.
According to local officials, at least 32 people have been drowned or carried away by the waters never to be seen again since
the end of 1999.
Fish catches downstream have fallen dramatically and the poor quality of the water, which in many places sits stagnant, has
been blamed by villagers for the deaths of livestock and people.
Some villages have already packed up and headed for the mountains.
"If the Sesane is not returned to the way it was before, then it will destroy the livlihood of the people who depend on it", said
one angry Tampuon villager.
Agence France Presse - March 18, 2001.
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