More than 40 villagers from Pursat province’s Veal Veng and Kravanh districts submitted three letters to Hun Sen’s cabinet yesterday morning, asking for the prime minister’s intervention in a long-running land dispute with rubber concessionaire MDS Company.

The villagers were representing about 370 families, mostly of border soldiers, and had been protesting the company – which is owned by tycoon Try Pheap – in front of the offices of the rights group Adhoc in an effort to publicise their plight.

Keo Chantheoung, 51, said that in the last two months, the volunteer land measurement youths had already measured the area, but authorities had refused to issue them land titles.

“The volunteer students have already measured our lands, but the authorities cancelled it by saying that those lands are state lands,” she said.