In the News: Boeung Kak residents prepare press conference, recieve threats (Phnom Penh Post)

After requesting a halt to the filling until negotiations could be conducted, residents frustrated with the lack of response are holding a press conference, today, May 28th, to air their grievances.

Boeung Kak resident protests earlier this year (from the Post)

Residents have reported receiving threatening letters:

“Yesterday, I got an anonymous letter. They wrote that if we did not agree to move, they would arrest us and put  us in jail from one year to five years, and fine each of us 5 million riels (US$1,250). But I don’t care; they just want to threaten us,” (From the Phnom Penh Post Article, May 28th)

In the News: Lake residents protest over money (Phnom Penh Post)

From the Article in the Phnom Penh Post on May 19th:

“Boeung Kak evictees ask government to halt filling of lake until compensation is agreed upon.”

“Soy Kolab, a representative of the lake community, said that Cambodia’s ministries and lawmakers were their last chance for help, but that Cambodian law was on their side.

From the Post: A Boeung Kak resident talks to the press outside the Court of Appeals

“Cambodia has laws to protect its people,” she said. “I want them to delay pumping sand into the lake and to negotiate suitable compensation for us. I am not against the government’s development plan, but any development in which the poor have to be evicted without proper compensation will only benefit powerful people,”

A lawyer representing the community, Choung Choungy, said only a small number of the 4,252 families living at Boeung Kak have agreed to the municipality’s compensation offer of US$8,000 cash, or replacement housing on the outskirts of Phnom Penh with $500 cash. He said the residents did not want to be relocated far from their children’s schools and their livelihoods.”