63 The report added that from the start of its work on land disputes until the end of 2017, the Ministry has successfully solved 3,655 cases for 19,374 families, covering 6,068.2 hectares. It found 2,542 cases had been wrongly authorized and withdrew another 829 complaints. The Ministry’s working group on land dispute resolution in 2017 received 511 complaints, 123 of which were resolved. Twenty-five cases were completely solved while 98 cases were transferred. ANALYSIS OF LAND CONFLICTS Underlying historical causes Legal activists say that land conflicts started in 1999, one year after the very last Khmer Rouge fighters were beaten along the Thai border. The land situation definitely became worse however, after the government passed the new Land Law of 2001. Among other things, the law was designed to attract foreign investors. It introduced a system of land registration. In principle, it entitles people to land that they have been using continuously for at least five years. The registration process is still going on. By 2016 land titles had been officially recognized for about 60 percent of all relevant plots. The government expects to conclude registration by 2021. Another provision of the 2001 Land Law is economic land concessions (ELCs). An ELC means that the government may lease out State-owned land of up to 10,000 hectares to private investors for a maximum of 99 years. The problem is that many ELCs were granted while title registration was still going on. This policy resulted in forced evictions and violent protests all over the country. Responding to the unrest, the government has been going slow on ELCs in the past few years. Current drivers of conflict Analysis of the land conflict data indicates that the following are the drivers of conflict: n Large scale land acquisition by private companies for agribusiness and mining concessions; Cambodia Land Conflict Monitoring Report In 2017, according to a report from the land department in the province, the cadastral survey commission resolved 85 land dispute cases for 326 families, which amounted to 44.5 hectares. It found 37 cases to have been wrongly authorized and withdrew another 11 complaints.