(Written by Ty Theavy, edited by Jesica Hermsen)
This downtown is called Veal Taphou. Veal means”Field”in
English because this site was the savanna grassland with only some kinds of the
trees and plants such as the tree of Jambolifera, Downy rose myrtle and
Cogongrass. Taphou is the name of an old man who arrived here first and lived
here. This village is a sub-village of Trapeang Roung village. Currently it has
76 families living here. Of those, 26 families are Cham minarities.
The squatter living here, are mostly hunters and farmers
who slash and burn the forest for farming, and fishing. This site is now a
protected area, so they tried to relocate the people to another place which is
located at the other side of the river from the Prek Angkunh village. But they
do not agree to move over there because they think that in the new place it
will be hard to earn a living. This village is 25 kilometers by boat and 15
Kilometers by motorbike from downtown Tropeng Roung. There are two ways to go
here; by boat it takes us about an hour, but by mortor bike it takes us only
half an hour. This location was the debauchery deforestation area during 1993
to 1997. At that time this site was cosmopolitan because there were mixed
people from all over Cambodia. So this town was called Veal Ta Phou City. Now
deforestion, hunting, slash and burn and farming are illegal activities. This
is why the people have tried to move from here. The history of this downtown
tells that: A long time ago, this site was used as a warf for fishermen,and
nearby there was a big star gooseberry tree. So was called as “Kompung Kratut”
reffered to that tree. But later on, in the 1950s one of the fishermen called
Taphou and his family came to settle here for a Durian, Rabutton and Mongosteen
plantation. Since then this site was changed to the name Veal Taphou, this is
the name of the old fisherman. This area was also a base for Khmer Rough
rebells from 1980 to 1993.
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