"I take this opportunity to declare a campaign against the people who possess large land illegally and keep the land vacant without development," the premier said at the opening of a national forum on land.

Many Cambodian farmers lose their livelihoods when powerful figures fence in large swathes of land, often with the connivance of local officials, evict farmers and leave the land empty while waiting for property prices to rise.

Hun Sen said up to 15 percent of the kingdom's 13 million people were now landless.

"I would like to warn publicly... all people who are involved in this issue to withdraw themselves urgently and keep the land as public property in order to share it with the poor who need land urgently to grow crops," he said.

As part of the plan, Hun Sen said his government would levy taxes on unused land to discourage speculation.

"If we cannot solve this issue well, there will be a farmers' revolution against the government," he warned, noting rising numbers of destitute farmers protesting outside his own residence in Phnom Penh.

The premier, who has led the country since 1985, said poor land reform along with a failure to address falling fish stocks and rampant illegal logging were his three biggest political mistakes to date.

He said if these issues were better handled, corruption in the kingdom -- among the poorest in the region as it struggles to overcome nearly two decades of conflict that only formally ended six years ago -- would lessen.

Land registration in Cambodia is largely a mess due to the legacy of the bloody 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, which abolished private property and forced people out of cities into the countryside.

Its pursuit of an agrarian utopia eventually led to the deaths of up to two million people and savaged the country's infrastructure.

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