Press Conference on Cambodia Clean Sugar Campaign on 03 July 2012 at Meta House

*Cambodia Clean Sugar Campaign*

Media Advisory

On Tuesday, July 3, at 8:30am, leaders of communities that have been displaced and dispossessed by the sugar industry in Koh Kong, Kompong Speu and Oddar Meanchey and other "Clean Sugar" campaigners will hold a press conference at Meta House (*#37, Street Sothearos Blvd, opposite Phnom Penh Center*).

They will announce a call to consumers around the world to stop buying the 'blood sugar' sold by companies that have perpetrated or profited from land-grabbing, forced evictions and other violations of human rights. They will present a powerful online video that urges European consumers to boycott *Tate and Lyle Sugars* products until the company and its suppliers compensate the farmers whose land and crops were stolen to make way for their plantations.

Eang Vuthy

Representative of Equitable Cambodia

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Equitable Cambodia

#55, St. 101, Sangkat Boueng Trabek

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Phone: (+855) 12 791 700

Office: (+855) 68 899 298

Email: vuthy@equitablecambodia.org/eangvuthy@gmail.com

www.equitablecambodia.org

The subterfuge of the CPP thief of Koh Kong and Kampong Speu

Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat speaks to The Post on Tuesday in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: May Titthara)

The ‘King of Koh Kong’ speaks out

Thursday, 14 July 2011
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

I am very disappointed because what Mu Sochua – a [Sam Rainsy Party] lawmaker from Kampot province – said is contrary to my objective. 

I come to invest. I give jobs to the villagers. According to her, it is “blood sugar”. I don’t know what she meant.

Cambodian People’s Party senator Ly Yong Phat is the owner of Phnom Penh Palm Sugar and Kampong Speu Palm Sugar companies and has received controversial government land concessions spanning more than 18,000 hectares in Kampong Speu province. Recently, he came under fire for his firm’s sand dredging operations in Koh Kong province. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks released a 2007 US Embassy cable which described him as “The King of Koh Kong” for his prominence in the province. Post reporter May Titthara spoke to Ly Yong Phat on Tuesday about his developments.

Why do you want to develop sugar cane plantations in Kampong Speu province?

I want to help the villagers living in Oral and Thpong districts because nowadays they don’t have jobs besides hunting wild animals and cutting forest to produce charcoal. I am very pleased to make a small contribution to develop the area to help the villagers have jobs. In the near future, I will have technicians to train them to grow sugar cane and to collect those products to sell to us. It is favourable for the villagers who nowadays work because they don’t have any techniques in cultivating sugar cane. Over two or three years, they can grow [sugar cane] on their land so that they will not be worried that they have no jobs.

What is your response to villagers who have rallied and blocked national roads in protest against your company’s sugar cane plantation in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district?

Some political parties are behind the demonstrations and road blocks held by villagers. We all are Khmer: what is the use of harassing each other? What the villagers did was backed by someone. If no one was behind it, the villagers could not do it.

The company received the land through an economic land concession from the government, but because the Ministry [of Land Management, Urban Planning, and Construction] does not pay much attention, the villagers grabbed the land. The land does not belong to the company, it is the state’s land. When the company received the concession, it had to use it and doing this can affect the villagers. Provincial and district committees went directly to see how the concession affected villagers and settled it.

Bitter taste of sugar trading

Cecilia Wikström, a member of the European Parliament from Sweden, speaks to reporters from The Post yesterday. (Photo by: Sovan Philong)

Friday, 20 May 2011
Thomas Miller
The Phnom Penh Post

The European Union is “very concerned” about claims that trade preferences encouraging Cambodia to export sugar to the continent are fuelling land-grabbing, forced evictions and other human rights abuses, as a visiting EU parliamentarian spoke out about the issue.

The “Everything but Arms” initiative abolishes tariffs and quotas for Cambodia and other low-income countries to export goods to the EU. Sugar exports are guaranteed at a minimum price.

In September, NGOs called for a suspension of preferences for sugar, arguing that the expansion of plantations – nearly 90,000 hectares have been doled out in concessions for sugar over the past two years, primarily to firms connected to ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat – to take advantage of the European market were pushing thousands of Cambodians off their own land.

Rafael Dochao-Moreno, chargé d’affairs for the EU mission in Phnom Penh, said yesterday the issue had been brought to the Cambodian government’s attention on several occasions with no sign of progress.

“We are very concerned on … all the allegations of abuses and allegations of land abuses by the use of force,” he said.

“The government of Cambodia promised that they will do an investigation on these allegations [during a meeting in October], and they will inform the European Union [of the results]. Unfortunately, for the moment, we have not received any information as to the result of this investigation.”

Revealed: the bitter taste of Cambodia’s sugar boom

CPP Land-thief Ly Yong Phat

Protest against Ly Yong Phat's land-grabbing in Kampong Speu

13th April, 2011
Sam Campbell
TheEcologist.org

‘The Koh Kong plantation illegally encroached on the land of hundreds of families, many of whom have been forcibly evicted, dispossessed and driven into destitution during the last four years. The European Union, meanwhile, is subsidising these human rights abuses by allowing the perpetrators to get a good price for their goods on the European market.’

Sugar may seem innocuous enough, but sweet-toothed Western consumers could be fuelling conflict between poor farming communities and big business with every spoonful. Sam Campbell reports from Phnom Penh

Scrambling to take advantage of the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) treaty, which allows duty-free, quota-free access to Europe for Cambodian goods, Cambodia’s agro-barons are trampling human rights underfoot, according to campaigners. Western companies have been accused of being complicit, seeking out the cheapest sugar, whatever the consequences.

David Pred, executive director of rights organisation Bridges Across Borders Cambodia, which has been investigating Cambodia’s sugar industry, said the sugar boom is having serious consequences for rural Cambodians. ‘We have documented widespread human rights abuses and environmental damage from all the major sugarcane concessions, impacting more than 12,000 people in three provinces,’ he said. ‘The impact on local communities has been devastating. Families have been made landless and driven into destitution and severe food insecurity. Hundreds have been made homeless and haven’t received any compensation.’

Corrupt Sugar Company [owned by CPP Tycoon-Senator-Land Thief] Destroys Village

CPP Senator-cum-Land Grabber Ly Yong Phat

11/23/2009
ShortNews.com

In October this year, police entered the village, armed with equipment and weapons, then seized Bos village in Cambodia. They bulldozed and burned villager’s homes destroying all properties. The land was partially owned between the inhabitants of Bos villa and the Angkor Sugar Company.

An appeal was sent on Monday to the regional governor requesting that the 214 people to be given the right to harvest their rice from the 3700 acres of land.

The district governor Thon Nol, claimed he has not received the appeal as yet, but acknowledges that trouble will ensue if these people cannot claim their rice. The sugar company is owned by Ly Yongphat who is also a senator.

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com

Oddar Meanchey villagers ask the authority to resolve land dispute

08 April 2008
By Sav Yuth
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

More than 100 villagers from various villages in Kon Kriel commune, Samrong district, Oddar Meanchey province, traveled on several tractors to meet government officials in Samrong district to demand for a resolution of a land dispute involving a large number of hectares of rice field that the Angkor Sugar Co. is currently clearing and grabbing, and the authority did not take the responsibility to provide compensations to the villagers.

The villagers indicated in the morning of Monday 07 April that they will not agree to give up their rice fields to this foreign company, even if the company promised to the villagers who owned the lands, that they will get a laborer job in compensation. “We ask the district authority to resolve this land dispute, they (Angkor Sugar Co.) said that if this company is set up, they want us to work for them as laborers, therefore, we refused and we are not going to sell our land to become someone else’s laborers,” One of the villagers said.

Nobody from the Angkor Sugar Co. can be contacted to provide clarification on this issue.

Chhum Phoeun, the Kon Kriel commune chief, recognized that some of the rice field lands belong to villagers from 7 villages in his commune. These villagers were victimized by the land clearing operation conducted by the Angkor Sugar Co., but he has no ability to end this land clearing because this is the duty of provincial government officials to interact with the company: “They clear the lands and seriously affected (the villagers), as a commune official, I have no right to prevent them because His Excellency the provincial governor, and the provincial authority (should be in charge on this issue)…”

Muth Vuth, the Samrong deputy district governor, said that the villagers protest involves tidbits of rice fields that are located next to the forest, and they were included in the company’s development zone map.

Nevertheless, Muth Vuth said that the Oddar Meanchey committee for land dispute resolution will visit the spot on Tuesday: “In this protest, the villagers’ lands are located next to the company’s lands. The villagers are planting their crops in tidbits, here and there, all over the forest. When the government delimited the area as being concession lands, the villagers’ lands are located next to the company’s land which is included in the planning map.”

Srey Naren, an investigator for the Adhoc human rights organization in Oddar Meanchey province, accused the authority of lacking the will to resolve this land dispute in which the villagers are facing with the loss of their lands, and that the villagers have been protesting on this issue for several days already.

Srey Naren indicated: “Some areas are wooded areas, nobody is doing anything there, but in some other areas, along the plains, the villagers are planting their crops. Some of these villagers just went to live there, but the concession lands granted to the company affect older rice field lands (belonging to the villagers). The committee (for land dispute resolution) which claimed to study this case, we don’t know what they are studying about, a portion of the rice fields belonging the villagers had been lost (to the company) already.”

Since 03 April, the Angkor Sugar Co. brought in mechanical machinery to clear several hectares of rice field lands to plant sugar cane, and it also plans to build a sugar factory as well. No authority dares stop the Angkor Sugar Co. from violating the rice fields belonging to the villagers at all.

Government officials in the Kon Kriel commune revealed that the Angkor Sugar Co. received more than 10,000-hectare of concession lands, but that 4,000-hectare of these lands involve rice fields belonging to the villagers as well as lands reserved for other use.