CNRP Lawmaker Visits Controversial Plantation
May 22nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Industry, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay said yesterday that he would ask the government to cancel the land concession of a Vietnamese rubber firm in Ratanakkiri province he accused of logging and exporting wood illegally.
Mr. Chay, a candidate in July’s national election for the Cambodia National Rescue Party, wrapped up a three-day visit to Company 72’s rubber plantation in O’Yadaw district yesterday, during which he said he saw the firm’s employees logging inside thick, healthy forest. The country’s forest laws only allow concessionaires to fell forests inside their boundaries if degraded. …
Human rights groups and local communities have long accused rubber firms operating in Ratanakkiri of illegally encroaching on ethnic minority land and clearing community forests vital to the province’s minority groups. …
Aun Pheap, P.19
www.cambodiadaily.com
Cambodia launches cassava development project under China, UNDP support
May 21st, 2013, Xinhuanet News, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Exports, Farming, Foreign Aid, Industry, International Relations, Technical Assistance, Trade
Cambodia launched Tuesday the second phase of cassava development project under the support of China and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). …
Cambodia and China signed a Protocol on the Exports of Cambodian Cassava to Chinese Market in December 2010, under which China allowed Cambodia to export its standardized cassava chips to China.
Teng Lao said cassava is the second agricultural crop in Cambodia and plays a very important role in Cambodia’s agriculture and economic development.
He said last year, the country grew cassava crop on an area of 337,440 hectares, producing about 8 million tons of fresh cassava. “About 50 percent of fresh cassava, 40 percent of dry cassava and 10 percent of cassava powder were sold to Vietnam and Thailand, “he said.”And Vietnam and Thailand re-sell those cassava products to international markets, particularly China.” …
Setsuko Yamazaki, country director of UNDP to Cambodia, said that currently, Cambodian cassava farmers, processors and exporters are facing enormous constraints such as price distortions in neighboring countries, lack of information on price and quality criteria of importing markets and lack of access to technology. “Though cassava has become the second largest agricultural crop in term of income, employment, hectares cultivated and exports, there is very little technical assistance support provided to the sector,”she said. …
Xinhuanet Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-05/21/c_132397799.htm
Troubled Village Embroiled In New Land Disputes
May 20th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Farming, Forests, Industry, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Social Land Concessions
A year after a massive military raid here that left a 14-year old girl dead and hundreds of families evicted, there remains little sign of the original land dispute that turned this rural village into a hotbed of agitation.
But a new firm and a government-issued social land concession for other evictees in the province are creating new problems in the area.
Four months before the military raided Broma on May 16, 2012, hundreds of families had been protesting against a local rubber plantation owned by the private firm Casotim for allegedly encroaching on their farms. …
But old land disputes are giving way to new ones here, thanks to yet another agri-business firm’s plans in the area and the government’s own designs to turn nearly 19,000 hectares on the edge of the village into a social land concession for families across the province either without land or displaced by land disputes. …
[Technical officer for the provincial government’s department of land management] Mr. [Chan] Kong said the government had plans to clear 18,838 hectares of land and would eventually move 3,000 families who had been displaced by other land disputes across the province.
He rejected the families’ claims that the concession would take over any long-standing farms and said those claiming otherwise were opportunists hoping to stake out land they had never farmed. …
Contacted by phone, village chief Chea Chin said there was also more than farmland at stake. He said that hundreds of ethnic Cham families the government has sent to the village to move onto a new social land concession have already started clearing a 580-hectare government approved community forest the entire village and its 600 families rely on. …
The village chief said another 74 local families were also accusing a new rubber plantation in the area of encroaching on their farms. …
Mr. Kong…. confirmed that there was a 5,000-hectare concession in the area. …
Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/troubled-village-embroiled-in-new-land-disputes-25184/
Trade Deal Threat Still On Table
May 20th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Economics, Exports, International Relations, Land Tenure, News Source, Social Concerns, Trade
The European union’s executive arm has responded to its parliamentarians’ concerns over rights abuses stemming from Cambodia’s economic land concessions, maintaining that, should the need arise, it “will be ready” to withdraw from its preferential trade agreements with the Kingdom.
In a joint letter to concerned members of parliament on Wednesday, European Commission member Karel De Gucht and vice president Katherine Ashton said they were monitoring the situation, and had stressed to the Cambodian government the importance of reforms, as well as the consequences of losing the no-tariff agreement, commonly known as “Everything But Arms” (EBA). …
One of the conditions of the EBA is that beneficiary countries adhere to rights declarations such as the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, both of which concessionaires – particularly in the Kingdom’s sugar industry – have been accused of violating. …
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052065716/National/trade-deal-threat-still-on-table.html
EU Won’t Investigate Land Concessions—for Now
May 20th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Economics, Exports, Garment Industry, Industry, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Trade
The trade commissioner and foreign affairs representative of the European Union (E.U.) have turned down a request from 13 members of the European Parliament that they immediately investigate Cambodia’s much criticized economic land concessions, but said they were monitoring the issue closely.
In a March letter to Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht and the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, the lawmakers asked for an immediate investigation into the concessions, which they accuse of a raft of human rights abuses. They also asked that if the investigation corroborated their claims that the E.U. suspend the duty free access Cambodian exports currently enjoy to Europe under the Everything But Arms trade scheme—part of the E.U.’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).
Their request followed a resolution to the same effect passed by the entire European Parliament in October. …
The commission currently requires that human rights violations be “serious and systematic” before it launches an investigation that could strip a country of GSP benefits. In a report on Cambodia’s land concessions last year, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights to the country, Surya Subedi, said that rights violations tied to the concessions were “serious and widespread.” …
While garments make up most of the trade, the E.U. has come under particular fire for giving duty free access to Cambodian sugar due to the rights abuses alleged at a pair of Koh Kong province plantations growing the commodity. Hundreds of local families accuse the plantations of stealing their farms, sometimes violently, and offering them little to no compensation. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eu-wont-investigate-land-concessions-for-now-25194/
Hun Sen Hopes for Increased Rubber Exports
May 16th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economic Land Concessions, Economics, Exports, Industry, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Trade
Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he hoped land being registered to rural families as part of the government’s nationwide land-titling program would be used to cultivate rubber trees in order to help the country compete with Vietnam as the world’s third-largest rubber exporter. …
Speaking at the opening of a $26 million rubber plantation and processing factory in Stung Treng province, Mr. Hun Sen said that by utilizing some of the 2 million hectares of land that has been registered under his titling program, Cambodia could reach its target of 840,000 hectares of rubber plantations within five years. …
Presently, there are 280,000 hectares of land planted with rubber trees, 118,000 of which is inside ELCs, while another 107,600 is on small-scale farms, Mr. Hun Sen said, adding that about 1 million of the approximately 1.5 million hectares of land that has been leased to private companies as ELCs are registered as rubber plantations. …
Despite its growing rubber industry, much of Cambodia’s rubber is transported as liquid resin over the border to Vietnam to be processed, meaning Cambodia looses out on much of the value-added exports once the rubber has been processed.
Neou Vannarin
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-hopes-for-increased-rubber-exports-24502/
Charges in Ratanakkiri arson
May 16th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Foreign Investment, Land Tenure, News Source
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged two staffers of Vietnamese rubber concessionaire Hoang Anh Ratanakkiri (CRD) with causing intentional damage for allegedly setting fire to several homes belonging to a landowner with whom they were embroiled in a land dispute, deputy prosecutor Mom Vanda said. …
Ly Sok Ngim, owner of the plantation where the buildings were set ablaze, said she had filed a complaint with police seeking $200,000 in damages from Hoang Anh Ratanakkiri, which she said was the parent company of CRD. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051665652/National/charges-in-ratanakkiri-arson.html
Cambodian PM inaugurates rubber processing plant in far northern province
May 15th, 2013, Xinhuanet News, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Domestic Investment, Economic Land Concessions, Exports, Industry, Land Tenure
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday inaugurated a rubber processing plant here, saying the factory would contribute to developing the country’s fast-growing rubber sector.
The 7 million U.S. dollar plant, invested by Cambodia’s Sopheak Nika Investment Agro-Industry Company, was built on the area of 9 hectares in Sesan district of Stung Treng province, about 455 kilometers from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, according the company’s report. …
The report said the company received economic concessional land of 10,000 hectares from the government in March 2005 in order to grow rubber trees, and to date, the firm has invested 19 million U. S. dollars for rubber plantation. …
As of last year, the government had granted about 1.2 million hectares of economic concession land to companies for rubber plantation, the premier said, adding that so far, the country has planted rubber trees on the area of 280,350 hectares, and about 55, 000 hectares of them are old enough to be yielded.
Xinhuanet Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-05/15/c_132384351.htm
Thai restrictions cap cassava exports
May 15th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economics, Exports, Industry, International Relations, Trade
Cambodia’s cassava exports reached 245,438 tonnes in the first quarter this year, a 47 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter, from 465,640 tonnes in the final quarter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce released early this month.
While most exports went to Thailand, Vietnam and China, where processing takes place, Thailand also is a major market for Cambodian cassava. Officials in border provinces and traders said Thailand’s restriction on cassava imports early this year and informal exports that have not been recorded are the reasons for the decline.
In Sovanmony, director of the agronomy, soil and improvement of agricultural department in Battambang province, a major cassava plantation area in Cambodia, told the Post yesterday that it is estimated that 30 to 35 per cent of the total exports go to Thailand without being officially recorded. …
During the first three months, the total value of Cambodia’s cassava exports reached $11.7 million, about 30 per cent of the total export value last year. However, the figure from the Ministry of Commerce shows that the export volume is only high during the first few months of the year.
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051565618/Business/thai-restrictions-cap-cassava-exports.html
IFC, Deutsche Bank respond to Global Witness report
May 14th, 2013, Radio Free Asia, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Foreign Investment, Forests, Industry, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
On May 13, we ran an interview with London-based NGO Global Witness accusing the Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation of financing two Vietnamese rubber companies that are allegedly involved in land grabs in Cambodia and Laos. …
We asked both banks for a response and invited them on to the show to explain their positions. Both declined to be interviewed but sent these statements:
Michael West, Managing Director / Head of Communications, Asia Pacific [Deutsche Bank]:
“Deutsche Bank does not provide financing to Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL), Dong Phu Rubber or Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG). The DWS fund shares referred to are held on behalf of investors. Deutsche Bank provides clerical trustee services to HAGL which is a listed company as it does to thousands of publicly listed companies globally.”
Hannfried von Hindenburg, Head of Communications for IFC in East Asia and the Pacific:
“IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, works with financial intermediaries, such as funds, because they can contribute to inclusive and sustainable financial markets that are essential to eradicating poverty and job creation. …
IFC will carefully study the findings of the Global Witness research and taking this research into consideration is part of our ongoing monitoring of our investments in Dragon Capital and VEIL.”
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/ifc-deutsche-bank-respond-to-global-witness-report/1130314
Vietnam rubber tycoon rejects land grabbing accusations
May 14th, 2013, Thanh Nien News, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Foreign Investment, Industry, International Relations, Land Tenure
A Vietnamese rubber tycoon has rejected accusations by Global Witness, a group that campaigns on resource issues, that it was involved in a land grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia.
Doan Nguyen Duc, the chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group, told Vietnamese media the information provided by London-based Global Witness in its report was total fabrication. …
According to the report, the two firms have caused widespread evictions, illegal logging and food insecurity in the countries. …
It alleges the IFC invested US$14.95 million in a Vietnamese fund that holds 5 percent equity in HAGL, while Deutsche Bank owns some $4.5-million-worth of HAGL shares. Deutsche Bank is also said to have 1.2-million shares in a subsidiary company of VRG amounting to more than $3 million.
As news of the accusation spread in Vietnam, HAGL shares fall around 6 percent to VND21,400 on Tuesday.
Duc lost VND436.25 billion (US$20.83 million) on over 311 million shares, nearly half the company’s shares, he holds.
After the accusations were made public, HAGL released a statement confirming that the company’s subsidiaries invested in rubber plantations in each country but the firm “denies seizing land, illegally exploiting wood and other corruption behaviors in Laos and Cambodia.” …
Thanh Nien News Staff
http://www.thanhniennews.com/index/pages/20130514-vietnam-rubber-tycoon-rejects-land-grabbing-accusations.aspx
Cambodia Plantations Not IFC’s First Controversy
May 14th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Farmland, Foreign Investment, Forests, Industry, International Relations, Labor, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
In the wake of a new report from environmental rights group Global Witness rebuking the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank for investing in rubber plantations accused of illegal logging and forced evictions, both institutions have denied responsibility and deflected the blame elsewhere.
But the investments targeted in the new report are not the first projects for which both the IFC and Deutsche Bank have received criticism in Cambodia.
Local NGOs filed a complaint with the IFC’s compliance ombudsman in 2009 on behalf of 79 families worried that the expansion of Sihanoukville airport was moving forward without their consultation or guarantees of compensation should they be evicted.
Since 2003, the IFC has helped finance Cambodia Airports, which is owned by French construction giant Vinci Group, for projects involving runway expansions at Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville airports.
In July, 387 families living along the outskirts of the Phnom Penh International Airport were served with eviction letters due to expansion plans to the runway. The families insist they have legal tenure to their homes, but the government disagrees and has refused their demands for compensation.
Though the evictions have yet to take place, families have been told by local authorities that the eviction will take place. It was not known yesterday if the ombudsman is monitoring the Phnom Penh airport expansion plan. …
According to Equitable Cambodia, a land rights NGO, Deutsche Bank through DWS [Vietnam Fund] was also invested in KSL—a Thai firm that owns two sugar plantations in Cambodia, which are accused of causing the eviction of hundreds of local villagers. DWS divested from KSL in 2011. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-plantations-not-ifcs-first-controversy-23793/
Villagers Burn Down Soldiers’ Shelter on Disputed Land
May 14th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
Three members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) on Monday filed a complaint with police in Kompong Chhnang province, accusing irate villagers of torching a wooden shelter built for them by the well-connected KDC agro-industry firm.
The soldiers have accused local residents, who have been involved in a years-long land dispute with KDC, which is owned by the wife of Industry Minister Suy Sem, of burning down a wooden shelter on Saturday where the soldiers were stationed on the disputed land in Kompong Tralach district. …
Contacted yesterday, residents in the area said they were provoked into starting the fire when groups of unidentified men showed up on Friday and Saturday and began to measure and install demarcation posts on the 145 hectares of land over which 51 families have fought with KDC for ownership rights since 2007. …
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-burn-down-soldiers-shelter-on-disputed-land-23790/
Agricultural brokerage firm begins operations
May 14th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Corn, Farming, Foreign Investment, News Source, Rice
Chief Cambodia Holding, a Hong Kong-based brokerage firm, started its operations in Phnom Penh yesterday. The company aims to strengthen Cambodian agricultural products, a company official said.
The company reserved $100 million investment capital to connect domestic agricultural producers to the market, Director of Chief Cambodia Holding Te Tea Sieng said. …
Agricultural experts say there are several obstacles hindering growth in the agricultural sector: limited budgets, lack of knowledge about how to improve yields’ quality, and how to access markets. …
New Kompong Thom Governor Vows to Give Land to Evictees
May 10th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Industry, International Relations, Land Tenure
The newly appointed Kompong Thom provincial governor on Tuesday promised more than 500 families who were forcefully evicted by a Vietnamese rubber plantation more than three years ago that they would be given replacement land to farm on early next month.
Security forces evicted villagers from Santuk district’s Kraya commune in December 2009 to make way for the Tan Bien-Kompong Thom Rubber Development Company, which was granted an 8,100-hectare land concession in the area. For the past three years, the families have been living at a relocation site with no farmland, about 5 km away. …
Food shortage is a major problem for the evicted villagers, said Nhem Sarath, provincial coordinator for local rights group Adhoc. “This matter caused by the provincial authorities, for not helping the villagers on time, has caused them food shortage and some families have moved away,” he said.
Chhorn Chansy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/new-kompong-thom-governor%E2%80%88vows-to-give-land-to-evictees-23138/
Private property, public greed in Cambodia
May 9th, 2013, The Politico, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Exports, Farmland, International Relations, Land Tenure, Trade
Mark Moorstein knew little about Cambodia before he got involved in a lawsuit on behalf of land owners there. But as it’s turning out, the suit could end up affecting most every country in Asia.
Moorstein is a land-use lawyer in Northern Virginia who, like many lawyers, was looking for some pro-bono, charitable work to do on the side. …
Across Asia, almost every country is guilty of baldly seizing its citizens’ land without significant compensation and then selling it to corporations or developers, leaving the owners homeless and often destitute. …
Finally in 2001, Cambodia enacted a Land Law intended to curb these seizures. But like so many measures passed to mollify the Western donors who keep the government afloat, the government immediately began ignoring its own law. Now, as one major Cambodian human rights organization put it: “In Phnom Penh and the 12 provinces” around it “land-grabbing has affected an estimated 400,000 Cambodians since 2003, helping to create a sizable underclass of landless villagers with no means for self-sustenance.” …
It turned out that the land he [Mark Moorstein] focused on — two plots of about 25,000 acres each — is used to grow sugar cane, primarily. A wealthy and powerful Cambodian senator took possession of it after evicting residents from about 200 individual plots. Many of the evictees held identification cards the United Nations had given them when it set up a protectorate in Cambodia 20 years ago. Under the Land Law, that meant they held legal title to the property. …
Once the suit was filed, Tate & Lyle seemed to panic. Very quickly, it sold its entire sugar unit to American Sugar Refining, better known here in the United States for its name-brand product: Domino Sugar. That company is now the defendant, and when contacted for comment, the company declined.
But last Thursday, the company did file its response to the suit. It said Tate & Lyle had no knowledge of any prior ownership of the land in question. The villagers had no claim to the sugar cane grown on the land, even if they did previously own it, because they had not paid for the seeds or production costs. And finally, the defendants claimed, “The English court cannot adjudicate or call into question” matters of Cambodian law dealing with land concessions.
Nonetheless, the British court had already accepted the suit. The case is moving forward, and that all by itself is already encouraging many people. …
Joel Brinkley
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/lawyer-works-to-put-end-to-cambodia-land-grabbing-90985.html#ixzz2SlF9JBUm
Firm Given Rights to All ELC Timber in Ratanakkiri
May 8th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Exports, Forests, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood, Trade
The Ministry of Agriculture has signed a deal with Try Pheap Import Export to give the firm the right to purchase all timber felled in economic land concessions (ELCs) in Ratanakkiri province, according to a letter sent from the Agriculture Ministry to the Forestry Administration in February.
Signed by Lor Raksmey, secretary-general at the Ministry of Agriculture, and sent to Forestry Administration chief Chheng Kim Sun, the letter says that the firm owned by well-connected casino, mining and agriculture mogul Try Pheap has been granted purchasing rights over timber in Ratanakkiri in order “to meet local demand and for export” and “generate royalties and dividends for the state’s budget.”
“The forestry administration will allow Try Pheap Import Export to buy wood from every economic land concession located in Ratanakkiri province,” the letter, dated February 26, reads.
Though a senior official in the province said the agreement will help improve the regulation of Ratanakkirri’s timber trade by directing felled trees through only one company, a provincial land rights monitor said the deal would create a market that encourages illegal logging and accelerate the rate at which the forest is being deforested.
Although concessionaires are required under law to log only within their ELCs and pay royalties on any timber they extract, community activists and environmental monitors have complained that many companies regularly cut down trees and systematically smuggle logs across the border to be sold in Vietnam. …
Cambodia’s government has granted ELCs in Ratanakkirri to 27 companies covering a total of 222,933 hectares, according to figures compiled from Adhoc. …
In February 2011, Prime Minister Hun Sen granted Try Pheap two 70-year leases covering 18,885 hectares within the park in Cambodia’s northeast. …
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/firm-given-rights-to-all-elc-timber-in-ratanakkiri-22788/
Father Suing Rubber Firm for Beating His Three Children
May 8th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Disputed Land, Farmland, Land Tenure, Social Concerns
The father of three children attacked with wooden sticks and steel poles by employees of well-connected DM Group in Ratanakkiri province has filed a lawsuit against the firm, and is asking for tens of thousands of dollars in compensation. ..
The provincial court has charged the four employees and released a Royal Cambodia Armed Solider, Colonel Srey Thoeun who was at the scene, on the grounds that he did not take part in the beatings. …
Mr. [Ry] Saron [the victims' father] said he was also preparing to ask local authorities to endorse the land certificate he was recently issued for the farm his children were protecting when they were attacked in order to secure a $2,000 loan to pay his son’s hospital bills in Vietnam. …
On Sunday, however, Mr.[Ven] Vibol [DM Group spokesman] attributed Saturday’s altercation to a misunderstanding because the firm’s employees were not clear about who the land belonged to.
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/father-suing-rubber-firm-for-beating-his-three-children-22805/
Village patrols seize land-clearing tools
May 6th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Timber/Wood
Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday.
The move comes after a number of protests in recent weeks at two villages in the district against a firm known as Company 72 that is working in an economic land concession area granted to conglomerate Men Sarun Co., Ltd. …
Phak Seangly and May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050665426/National/village-patrols-seize-land-clearing-tools.html
Sugar Firm Files Defense in Cambodian Lawsuit
May 6th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Exports, Industry, International Relations, Production, Social Concerns, Trade
British sugar firm Tate & Lyle has denied knowing of the alleged abuses at two Cambodian plantations accused of illegally driving hundreds of families off their farms and says that the families have no right to ask the company for compensation, according to the firm’s official defense filed last week with the U.K.’s High Court of Justice.
Two hundred of those families, some of whom say they were shot and beaten when the plantation owners started evicting them in 2006, are suing Tate & Lyle for millions of dollars in compensation. In their claim, they say the land in Koh Kong province still belongs to them and that Tate & Lyle owes them some of the roughly $32 million worth of sugar it has since bought off that land and shipped home.
But Tate & Lyle, in its defense, refuses to admit that the families owned the land or that they ever lived or farmed there. It even refuses to admit that any of the sugar grown on the disputed 1,364 hectares since exports happened in 2010- through a deal it made with the Thai majority owners of the plantations-ever made it to the U.K.
An even if the families did own the land, Tate & Lyle argues, they gave up any right to compensation because they never paid the Thai plantation owners for the work they put into growing the sugar and because the act of processing the sugar cane had turned it into a different “species”. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uk-sugar-firm-files-defense-in-cambodian-lawsuit-21913/