French Socfin involved in human rights abuses and coercive land acquisition practices in Cambodia ... with the help of Khaou Chuly

A New Report Exposes French Tycoon's Land Grab in Sierra Leone

In Cambodia, the World Rainforest Movement and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) have documented human rights abuses and details of coercive land acquisition practices that have led to protests by the ethnic minority Bunong, who have lost their historical land and their livelihoods without fair compensation.

In yet another exposé of exploitative practices associated with large-scale land acquisitions, the Oakland Institute examines Socfin Agricultural Corporation Sierra Leone (Socfin), controlled by the powerful French corporate titan Vincent Bolloré

Oakland, Calif.--(ENEWSPF)--April 2 - In a new land deal brief released today, Socfin Land Investment in Sierra Leone, the Oakland Institute details a pattern of coercion, lack of consultation, and failure to fairly compensate Sierra Leonean landowners who have been pressured into ceding their land to the corporate giant.

"In 2011, Socfin secured 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) and they are running roughshod over the rights of local landowners," said Frederic Mousseau, Oakland Institute's policy director and author of the brief. "Bolloré Group, ranked among the top 500 companies in the world, and its subsidiaries, have gained a reputation for descending powerfully on developing countries and setting up plantations for palm oil and rubber trees. In Cambodia, Liberia, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, the group has a reputation for leaving communities disfranchised as they acquire land cheaply through questionable processes and act with little regard for existing owners," he continued.

Private company Socfin-Khaou Chuly is the "wild-east" law in Mondulkiri?

Khao Chuly, the business tycoon that operates under any regime in Cambodia since the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, is also the father-in-law of CPP minister Sun Chanthol (himself, a former Funcinpec defector)

NGOs say rubber firm blocking public road

Monday, 25 January 2010
Sebastian Strangio and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

RIGHTS groups have accused a rubber company in Mondulkiri province of blocking access to a public road after an employee of the company allegedly accosted rights workers on a field trip to the controversial plantation in Bou Sraa commune on Thursday.

In a statement issued Friday, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC) claimed a French-speaking employee of Socfin KCD prevented around 30 activists from travelling along the road.

“Since the company set up its office in the area, [it] has put up barricades to block people’s access in and out,” the statement said, noting that the road had previously been a public right of way and was used to access areas used by local people.

Socfin KCD, a joint venture between the Khaou Chuly Group and French rubber giant Socfin, has a 10,000-hectare concession in Bou Sraa commune.

Local Phnong villagers say, as well as displacing around 800 families, the plantation has intruded on traditional rotational farmland and spirit forests.

Bill Herod, an adviser with Village Focus Cambodia, confirmed the road, which allows access to Phnong sacred sites, was controlled by police employed by the company.

“Blocking access to this road is a serious issue for the Phnong,” he said.

Philippe Monnin, the general manager of Socfin KCD, declined to comment on Sunday. Provincial Deputy Governor Yim Lux claimed ignoranc of the incident because he was out of the province.

Villagers curse Mondulkiri plantation

Khaou Chuly, the Sino-Cambodian tycoon cursed by ethnic Phnong

A Phnong woman attends a traditional ceremony Tuesday in Mondulkiri's Pouteut village to appease their ancestors and protect their land from a local rubber plantation. (Photo by: Bill Herod)

Friday, 19 June 2009
Written by Sam Rith and Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post

Ethnic Phnong community resorts to tradition in dispute with Franco-Cambodian rubber venture.

ETHNIC Phnong villagers in Mondulkiri's Bou Sra commune held traditional ceremonies Tuesday to appease ancestral spirits and curse a joint French-Cambodian rubber plantation they say has robbed them of large tracts of communal farmland, participants said.

The ceremony took place in Pouteut village, which lies inside a 10,000-hectare rubber concession granted to the Khaou Chuly Co and French rubber giant Socfin, they said.

"Residents sacrificed a buffalo, dedicating it to the spirits of our ancestors and the neak ta spirits who look after the forests, to help protect our remaining land," said a Phnong community representative who did not want to be named.

"According to our traditional beliefs, if the company continues clearing the land [it] will meet problems."

Bill Herod, an adviser for Village Focus Cambodia who works with Phnong youth, said the ceremony, which took place next to a large rubber company excavator, began with the beating of traditional gongs before the buffalo was sacrificed and its head placed on an altar.

After village elders drank ceremonial rice wine from earthen jars, the villagers then cooked and ate the meat, he added, sharing it with local police.

Pouteut village is one of seven villages in Bou Sra commune that claim to have been affected by the rubber companies, which were granted their first 2,500-hectare concession in late 2007 and began clearing forest early last year.

Tensions came to a head in December, when angry villagers, claiming the destruction of spirit forests and rotational farmland, torched and smashed machinery belonging to Khaou Chuly Co in the commune's Bou Sra village.

"If the company continues clearing the land [it] will have problems."

So far, the community representative said, Socfin has cleared about 200 hectares of rotational farmland in the vicinity of Pouteut village.

"We want to keep the farmland and forests not only for human beings, but also for wild animals.... We do not want to allow any company, whether Khaou Chuly or the French company, to clear the land and forest any further," he said.

Saving the situation
When contacted Wednesday, Socfin General Manager Philippe Monnin declined to comment on the situation.

But in an interview at Bou Sra in April, he told the Post the company was trying to enlist the support of international development agencies - including the French government's French Development Agency - to offset the negative impacts on local communities.

Mondulkiri Deputy Governor Yim Lux said Socfin was offering compensation to people who had lost farmland, but added that villagers were making confusing claims.

"We have already measured the land that belongs to them, but they are claiming more forest land that does not belong to them. For this, they have to adhere to the law," he said.

But Herod said that despite the relaxed atmosphere Tuesday, locals were still uncertain about the rubber plantation and what its long-term impact would be.

"[The Phnong] didn't know which way to turn. They are still unclear about exactly what's happening ... or where they're supposed to farm," he said.

"From the perspective of the [Phnong], the giant machines ploughing their forests, rice fields, gardens, graves and other spiritual sites are weapons of mass destruction."

Plantation highlights struggle of development and preservation

Khaou Pallaboth, former son-in-law of Chea Xim, brother-in-law of CPP minister Sun Chanthol and son of tycoon Khaou Chuly. Khoau Chuly is a businessman who has been wheeling and dealing with several regimes: Sihanouk's Sangkum Reastr Niyum, Lon Nol's Khmer republic, Hun Sen's regime.

Ethnic Phnong houses sit on recently cleared rubber plantation land in Mondulkiri's Bou Sra commune. (Photo by: SEBASTIAN STRANGIO)

Monday, 25 May 2009
Written by Christopher Shay and Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post

Ethnic minority community says a giant rubber conglomerate is destroying its traditional culture, as plantation officials insist that the company is bringing much-needed work to the area.

Mondulkiri Province

FIVE months after an angry mob smashed and burned machinery belonging to a local rubber company in Mondulkiri province's Bou Sra village, ethnic minority residents in the area say their culture and livelihoods remain in danger from new plantations that have displaced them from their ancestral farmlands.

"They've lost hope," said Bill Herod, an adviser for Village Focus Cambodia who works with Phnong youth in the provincial capital Sen Monorom.

"We in the West talk negatively about slash-and-burn, but this is slash-and-burn by the company."

According to an article in Science, the expansion of rubber plantations in Southeast Asia could double or triple by 2050, doing far more damage than traditional farming methods.

And while the Bou Sra plantation owners say they seek to balance their interests with those of the local communities, residents and advocates say the situation is symptomatic of the unrestrained development that is harming other indigenous populations.

Residents in Mondulkiri say more than 800 families in seven villages - the majority of them from the Phnong ethnic minority - have had plots of land taken by the rubber plantation, claiming there was no consultation prior to the granting of the concessions.

"They just came and took my land," said Umbarup Sherup, a Bou Sra village resident who said he received no compensation from the company.

"When we came to meet the company [they] said they would take the land whether we agreed to it or not."

Another resident, who declined to be named, said the villagers were not given a choice.

"When we came to meet the company, [they] said they would take the land whether we agreed to it or not," the resident said. "Now we have nothing."

In late 2007, government authorities granted 2,500 hectares in economic land concessions to a joint venture between the local Khaou Chuly Group and the French rubber conglomerate Socfin.

In early April, Khaou Chuly Group President Khaou Phallaboth signed an agreement with Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun granting his company a further 2,705 hectares in the area.

"We hope to receive a total economic land concession of over 20,000 hectares from the government by 2010 to grow rubber trees," Khaou Phallaboth told the Post at the time.

After clearing began last year, village representatives travelled to Phnom Penh in June to deliver a personal plea to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The dispute came to a head in December, when a frustrated group of villagers destroyed machinery belonging to Khaou Chuly Group.

"No one is happy with them. They do whatever they want, and they don't care about the people," said one Phnong community representative, who declined to give her name for fear of reprisals. "In the future, the Phnong people will die out because we have no forests."

Chith Sam Ath, executive director of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, said an investigation by his organisation found that the rubber project had led to the loss of traditional agricultural land, water supplies and spirit forests, and had impeded access to schooling for some village children.

"Socfin or Khaou Chuly [should] focus strongly on consultation with the community regarding environmental impacts and impacts on their livelihoods ... and find a solution with the community before they start their project implementation," he said by email.

When contacted by the Post, Kao Phallaboth declined to comment in detail, saying day-to-day management was in the hands of Socfin officials.
Reversing the damage

Socfin sources say that following the burning of the tractors, managerial control was assumed by their company, which says it has adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Socfin General Manager Philippe Monnin said the company was doing all it can to help the community and offset the impact of the plantations.

At Socfin's invitation, Monnin said Medicins du Monde, a French NGO, had helped construct a local hospital, and that the company hoped to bring in the French governmental development agency AFD to revitalise the community.

"Our plan is to get NGOs to work with us to take care of the community and ensure what we are doing is a model," Monnin said during an interview in Bou Sra village. "We want to do something proper, but it will not be easy."

He said that of the 10,000 hectares planned for the rubber plantation, 3,000 hectares would remain as spirit forests for the Phnong. He also added that Socfin was now conducting an environmental and social impact assessment of the plantation as part of its master plan, as well as sending an ethnologist and sociologist to study the situation.

He said the plantation would provide regular employment for Phnong. From May until August, he said, the company would double its daily manpower to 1,000 workers, who would earn 20,000 riels ($5) per day on the plantation.

Mondulkiri Deputy Governor Yim Lux told the Post that Socfin was paying US$15,000 a month in wages for local workers, and said it was providing "fair" compensation to the villagers affected by the plantation.

"The company agreed to compensate the people whose farmland was impacted, either with a plot of land or with cash," he said, but added that negotiations were still in progress.

Monnin said that Socfin, as a French company that needs to maintain a positive global image, was more vulnerable to criticism than other rubber companies in Cambodia.

"It [development] is inevitable.... If we were not here, it would be the Vietnamese, and then for the Phnong it would be the end," he said.

But many of the Phnong villagers said the Vietnamese state-owned Daklak Rubber Co, which has a plot adjacent to Socfin, has treated the Phnong more equitably.

"If people disagree with the Vietnamese company, they don't destroy the land. When the Vietnamese company does [harvest] the land, they give half [the profits] to us," one villager said.

Officials at Daklak's Mondulkiri headquarters declined to comment in detail about their rubber operations.

Too little too late

Critics of Socfin say the company's actions come too late and that irreparable damage has been done.

"Mistakes have been made by all key partners involved, including the Cambodian government and the company. ... Forest was destroyed, a Phnong graveyard was bulldozed, and [these] can't be undone," Herod said.

According to Cambodian environmental law, Herod said, an impact study should have been completed before the concession was awarded. He also noted an increase in drunkenness and other disorders related to social disintegration among the underemployed Phnong.

But despite indigenous land protections existing under the country's 2001 Land Law, villagers insist the Phnong community was not consulted.

While there is intermittent work on the plantations, the Phnong representative said the loss of rotational farmland forests meant that local communities faced an uncertain future.

"Now that the company has come here, they are very strict and will not allow the Phnong to cut wood on company land," she said. "Before they had the freedom to cut the forests and grow crops. Now they say the land is French; the sky is French."