UN investigating case of Cambodian man missing since January arrest

The United Nations' rights office in Cambodia isinvestigating the case of a local man who has been missing since theday after he was arrested in northern Preah Vihear province in lateJanuary, the office's country representative said on Wednesday.The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)carried out a fact-finding mission earlier this month "with respectto one man who is missing since 21 January after being arrested...theday before," Simon Walker, OHCHR Representative, said in an email.The missing person, Sum Meun, 54, has been accused by the governmentof illegal logging and fleeing custody.Meun was a main community representative in an ongoing land conflictbetween hundreds of families and a company granted an 8,000-hectareland concession, which includes a rubber plantation, local rightsgroup Licadho told dpa.Meun "has now gone missing for over a month," said Naly Piliorge,Licadho's director. "The arrest took place as conflicts betweenlocals and the company had been worsening."The day before he went missing, Meun was "beaten and arrestedalongside his son" by soldiers who were guarding the concessiongranted to the Metrei Pheap Kase Ousahakam company, Pilorge said.The soldiers brought the two men to environment officers from theKulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary who detained them overnight. Meunwas last seen in the environment office, Pilorge added.Environment Ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra said Meun had fledcustody on January 21 after he and his son were arrested by localauthorities and company security guards a day earlier. "He is believed to have escaped from the office and his relativescommunicated with him and know that he is in the capital," Pheaktrasaid, citing a provincial environment department report.The Preah Vihear provincial court charged Meun and 14 others - thelatter have been detained pending court proceedings - under thenation's protected areas law for allegedly felling trees, encroachingor clearing forest land, the spokesman said. They face maximum fines of about 62,500 dollars if convicted.Authorities are appealing for Meun to appear in court, Pheaktra said.The Environment Ministry granted the Metrei Pheap Kase Ousahakamcompany a 8,520-hectare land concession from the Kulen PromtepWildlife Sanctuary for a term of 70 years in 2012 to invest inrubber, other crops and animal husbandry, according toOpenDevelopment Cambodia's website.A company representative could not be immediately reached forcomment.Land conflicts between villagers, private companies and politicallyconnected tycoons have been a lingering problem in the aftermath ofPol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which eliminated individualproperty rights and land titles in the 1970s. Some 1.7 million peopledied from starvation, torture, execution and forced labour under theregime.Defence Ministry spokesman General Chhum Sucheat told dpa that thegovernment was "very worried" about the event that occurred in PreahVihear, but it was not the ministry's duty to investigate.Sucheat said Meun's relatives should file a complaint with localauthorities.