Sugar firm under fire

Sugar firm under fire 

The Phnom Penh Post | 3 June 2013

Villagers watch their property burn during the 2009 forced evictions inside the Mitr Phol Sugar’s land concession. Photo supplied

Asia’s largest sugar company has been accused of torching hundreds of homes, orchestrating the imprisonment of a pregnant activist and using security forces to beat villagers – among a raft of other grave human rights abuses – by communities in Oddar Meanchey province.

The allegations levelled against Thai conglomerate Mitr Phol Sugar Corporation in a complaint to the Thai national human rights commission include further accusations that the firm had confiscated land, killed livestock, looted crops and employed child labour.

Local rights groups Licadho and Equitable Cambodia filed the complaint, obtained by the Post yesterday, on May 21 on behalf of 600 villagers in Oddar Meanchey’s Samrong and Chongkal districts.

It says the actions of the firm, which holds almost 20,000 hectares of economic land concessions in those districts and whose shell companies are allegedly linked to ruling-party senator Ly Yong Phat, had led to “extreme food insecurity and impoverishment [for] affected households”.

Hoy Mai, 51, told the Post yesterday that since the company’s workers burned down her Somrang district home in 2009 she has lived on other people’s land.

“I am trying to protect and get my land back. I was detained in prison for eight months. Later on, my husband died because he was so heartbroken after the company burnt our house,” she said, adding that, like many, they were forced to eke out a living without compensation from the company.

“I remember when they burned down my home. And I am still scared … I lost everything. I don’t want to get anything besides my land.”

Kun Sarith, 35, said that after losing his farm he has often been forced to illegally cross the Thai border to work on construction sites to feed his family.

“Because they forcibly evicted us, my two kids, aged 10 and six, have no chance to go to school because I am too busy finding money to support their basic living,” he said.

Communication with the company has not been “very fruitful”, Eang Vuthy, executive director of Equitable Cambodia, said yesterday, with the case now being taken to the Thai human rights body in an attempt to broker a solution.

“What we want now is for the company to address the situation and remedy it. There can be no excuse for inaction or apathy,” he said.

Mitr Phol Sugar Corporation could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The action follows a similar move by communities affected by sugar cane-planting concessionaires in Koh Kong province, with the Thai commission since issuing preliminary findings confirming widespread abuses alleged by villagers against a joint venture involving Thai sugar manufacturer KSL.

British company Tate and Lyle, which bought sugar from the Koh Kong companies, has also been taken to the British high court in a multimillion-pound lawsuit filed by Cambodian villagers.

“This is the same issue as in Koh Kong, also a Thai company. We see that case is moving and that the commission [and the company] has taken some action . . . we [too] want them to address the problem peacefully,” Vuthy said.

According to the complaint, the concessions were granted to three companies on the same day in 2008 – Angkor Sugar Co, Ltd; Tonle Sugar Cane Co, Ltd; and Cane and Sugar Valley Co, Ltd – whose directors were all senior executives at Mitr Phol.

The company confirmed last year that it owned one company and was partnering with the two others.

The more than 19,700 hectares granted thus violates the 2001 land law, which prohibits any single individual or entity from holding more than 10,000 hectares of land, including over multiple concessions.

In a July 2012 response to allegations of misconduct, Mitr Phol claimed the government undertook land surveys to determine privately owned and protected land and held public consultations to “determine compensation” before the concession was granted.

“Mitr Phol was excluded from this process and was not a participant but by agreement was responsible for the expenses incurred from this process,” the company said.

According to Article 12 and 20 of the 2005 sub-decree on economic land concessions, companies must themselves make some degree of environmental and social impact assessments before bidding for a land concession.

Though Mitr Phol claimed there was no Cambodian shareholding in the companies, the complaint links Cambodian People’s Party senator Ly Yong Phat with the sugar concessions.

Angkor Sugar company staff reportedly demolished 154 houses in O’Bat Moun village while wearing T-shirts bearing Ly Yong Phat’s name in April 2008.

“We talked to the company staff and they said they were working for Ly Yong Phat, and they said if you want to find a solution, you have to talk to him,” Vuthy said.

Ly Yong Phat could not be reached for comment.

The senator is no stranger to controversy, being previously linked to child labour on sugar plantations owned by his Phnom Penh Sugar Company in Kampong Speu province and in the so-called Koh Kong “blood sugar” fields, where he was once a shareholder in the joint venture.

The case will also give renewed vigor to calls for the European Union to scrap its “Everything But Arms” trade agreement that gives quota and duty-free trade preferences to Cambodian goods, including sugar.

Last October, a European Parliament resolution called for a full investigation and a suspension of trade preferences for companies implicated in human rights abuses, with the EU’s executive arm saying last month it was “ready” to withdraw from the agreement if the need arose.