In Cambodia, land is power. For those at the top, land confers sugar and rubber monopolies, development, money and status. For those at the bottom, land is heritage, family, food, life.

During its reign from 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge abolished land ownership and forced a mass internal migration, leaving survivors inside Cambodia the choice to reclaim their homeland or resettle in a new place — while opening up once-claimed territory to opportunists. Since then — as the country rebuilt its economy, government and identity from scratch and ultimately cemented an authoritarian leader — land has become one of Cambodia’s biggest ongoing battlegrounds, with disputes touching farmers, tycoons and everyone in-between.

As of Kamnotra’s launch, a total of 120 land disputes across the country have been identified from news reports between 2019 and 2023, encompassing more than 260 incidents such as petitions, protests, arrests and government interventions.

Although it’s impossible to catalog every conflict nationwide, the available evidence shows clear trends. First, while land disputes reach everyone, Cambodia’s power structures mean that those with the least resources are often pitted against those with the most. Second, due to the country’s unique history of land ownership, some disputes drag on for decades, making their histories difficult to detangle and therefore all the more challenging to solve. Third, as the political regime has become ever more lopsided in favor of elites, attempts from communities to protest are often met with criminalization, beatings, arrests and even alleged killings.

The Allure of Ownership

Cambodia’s land prices have risen dramatically in recent years, up to thousands of dollars per square meter in central Phnom Penh neighborhoods with substantial increases even in the most remote neighborhoods. Mere rumors of new developments will send investors running toward a deal, buying up hundred-hectare plots or pursuing economic land concessions for long-term leases.

One roadblock to riches, however, are the people who currently use, farm and live on an investor’s new asset. In some cases, residents can chart their ownership back decades, even holding land titles from the 1980s or 1990s, as in the case of dozens of families facing eviction in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tompun for a reservoir project. Those with proof of long-standing residency are, by Cambodian law, the rightful owners.

Yet tycoons whose developments are backed by law enforcement have little reason to be concerned about current residents. When residents in Kandal’s Kandal Stung district protested what they said was low compensation offered by tycoon Pung Kheav Se’s OCIC group for taking their land to build the New Phnom Penh Airport, police and military police destroyed their village roads. Police have similarly been called to kick residents off of land granted to Mondulkiri’s Pacific Joint-Stock companies, a chain of similarly-named ELCs owned by Cambodian and foreign business partners.

Still, some tycoons appear to bite off more than they can chew, leaving plots undeveloped for years. In this way, six Chinese-owned sugar plantations in Preah Vihear were left to their original small-holder farmers to restart their crops. Other communities manage to live and farm in parts of a tycoon’s concession that are going unused, as they do in Koh Kong and Kampong Speu plantations reportedly tied to Ly Yong Phat, or the Union Development Group’s sprawling resort compound on the coast of Koh Kong. This allows the communities to maintain their claims or sustain a demand for compensation, but at greater risk and personal insecurity.

From Sudden Conflicts to Decades-Old Disputes

Some land disputes flare up and quickly fizzle out with compensation or a settlement. But many are drawn into long stalemates, leaving few satisfied.

For the roughly 400 ethnic Vietnamese communities living off the shore of Phnom Penh’s Prek Pnov district, for example, an eviction conflict sprang up practically overnight. One day in June 2021, authorities confronted the community — who had called the area home for more than three decades — and said they were polluting the river and had one week to leave, leaving residents stunned.

Other conflicts build up over time, including some that drag out for decades. At Angkor Archaeological Park, residents had been told since at least the early 2000s that they would not be allowed to live in the Unesco-protected ancient heritage area. At first, the Apsara Authority held sporadic small-scale evictions, destroying shops and homes, before embarking on a longer-term eviction plan that unfolded over the better part of a year and prompted mass protests.

Even organized resettlements can fail to end disputes and even exacerbate them. The few villagers who lived at a Union Development Group resettlement village in Koh Kong, for instance, said houses were poorly constructed and they could not grow no food on the land: One man said he would have left if he had any money to invest. The World Bank’s land reallocation system, LASED, intends to solve disputes and ensure people receive land; but in Kampong Thom, residents have said houses distributed to them in 2019 did not go to people who needed them, and have been used as second homes.

The crux of both fast-erupting and long-term disputes is a lack of governmental transparency and unclear documentation. Cambodian land ownership is not clearly defined, with residents making land titles in a slew of different offices that rarely seem to share information between each other, while long-standing residents’ legitimate claims under the Land Law remain difficult to prove if not ignored.

Our database shows that among 120 active disputes reported in the past four years, at least four conflicts date back to the 1990s and 17 started between 2000 and 2010 — nearly one-fifth of the total conflicts as of the launch of this site. Of the remaining four-fifths, 52% started within the past five years.

Starting Years

For land conflicts active in 2019-2023

Criminalization of Protesters

Across the country, people fight back against mass evictions and land giveaways that they say have stolen their homes or livelihoods. But speaking out comes at a cost.

Authorities frequently invoke “incitement to commit a felony or disturb social security,” defined by Articles 494 to 497 in the Criminal Code, against land dispute protesters. The offense is punishable by up to two years in jail and other vague, discretionary punishments, such as the permanent loss of “certain rights.” Incitement charges were recently wielded against a group of Boeng Tamok activists.

Covid-19 pandemic laws have also been used against protesters. In 2021, Svay Rieng residents were fined about $1,000 each for Facebook posts showing a crowd of protesters in a rice field, a gathering deemed by authorities to be a violation of Covid-19 measures. The same week, four protesters seeking compensation from Phnom Penh’s new international airport development were forced into Covid-19 quarantine after they delivered a petition; their families accused authorities of trying to silence the protests.

Indigenous communities are perhaps particularly vulnerable to pushback. Three women from Mondulkiri, who are indigenous Bunong, have been embroiled in a court case since 2020 after they removed fence posts on purported company property as they tried to protect ancestral land. In June 2022, the case was sent for a retrial, with a prosecutor at one point arguing their two-year jail sentences be suspended because the women had little education.

Authorities also use extralegal means to intimidate protesters. In December 2022, military police allegedly raided a village near an Oddar Meanchey rubber plantation, beating people up with metal sticks — causing at least one to lose consciousness and bleed “all over his body” — and burning down homes. In a Kampong Speu forest, villagers accused soldiers of beating them, destroying their property and firing shots at them, before eventually burning down the longtime hut of the lone monk defending the forest.

Although tycoons, too, occasionally end up in court over land, the pushback against protesters underscores the importance of winning disputes for those at the top. As Cambodia’s ruling class seeks economic expansion and concentration of wealth at all costs, land has emerged as a central bargaining chip in securing and maintaining power. Time and time again, the people lose.

For more information about the disputes referenced here, explore our interactive land disputes map.