Cambodia

A Cambodian court has charged 29 people with illegally occupying state land following an incident in which authorities fired live rounds in a crackdown on a longstanding land dispute.

A new study identifies around 18m hectares of land in Cambodia, Colombia and the DRC that have been acquired in large-scale deals for logging, intensive agriculture, fossil-fuel extraction and mining.

At least 30 residents have been charged by provincial court in Cambodia for allegedly illegally occupying state land. The detention stems from an incident when authorities mounted a mass crackdown during a clash over a long-disputed land. The authorities said the land belonged to a rubber company called Seladamex, having received an economic land concession (ELC) from the state.

Dans la province de Koh Kong, au Cambodge, des communautés locales luttent depuis 2006 contre l’accaparement de leurs terres. Après un long combat, un accord historique avec l’entreprise Tate & Lyle a permis la restitution d’une partie des terres et l’obtention d’une compensation financière

The site of the dispute is part of a 42,420 hectares economic land concession that was granted to the Chinese company Hengfu Group Sugar Industry in 2011.

Local residents who were evicted from their land for a 42,000 hectare sugar cane plantation are all the more bitter now that the unprofitable and poorly financed agricultural project has collapsed.

La concession économique de 42.000 hectares a été accordée en 2011, et pour une durée de 70 ans, à cinq entreprises chinoises appartenant toutes au même conglomérat, le Hengfu Group Sugar Industry. Douze ans plus tard, les souvenirs malheureux des évictions sont plus amers que jamais pour les habitants de Preah Vihear : pas rentable et mal financé, le projet agricole a périclité.

British sugar company Tate & Lyle enriched itself off the harvest of stolen land. More than 12,000 Cambodians have been forced off their land, leaving them to suffer through years of destitution.

French logistics giant Bolloré SE has been deemed an unethical investment by some of Switzerland’s most powerful pension funds.

More than a decade after subsidiaries of multinational rubber firm Socfin Group forcibly cleared and seized the farms, burial grounds and sacred forests of Bunong indigenous communities in Mondulkiri province, Cambodia, the company now seeks to collect tens of thousands of dollars from these farmers for the cost of “land preparation” and other fees.

The Swiss association of the largest public pension funds, has decided to exclude shares in the French group Bolloré SE. The exclusion is justified by “potential human rights violations in Liberia, Cambodia and Sierra Leone”.

L'association suisse des plus grandes caisses publiques de retraite a décidé d'exclure les actions du groupe français Bolloré SE "à la suite de violations potentielles des droits humains en Libéria, Cambodge et Sierra Leone".