Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Cambodia news in English! Here you'll find all the breaking news from Cambodia translated into English for our international readership and expat community to read and comment on. The majority of our news stories are gathered from the local Khmer newspapers, but we also bring you newsworthy media from Cambodia before you read them anywhere else. Because of the huge population of the capital city, most articles are from Phnom Penh, but Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, and Kampot often make the headlines as well. We report on all arrests and deaths of foreigners in Cambodia, and the details often come from the Cambodian police or local Khmer journalists. As an ASEAN news outlet, we also publish regional news and events from our neighboring countries. We also share local Khmer news stories that you won't find in English anywhere else. If you're looking for a certain article, you may use our site's search feature to find it quickly.
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Bunong group attends French court hearing over land dispute
By Phnom Penh Post -
October 2, 2019

Nine representatives of the Bunong indigenous communities in Mondulkiri province who claimed to have fallen victim to a development project by French firm Socfin-KCD appeared for questioning at the Tribunal of Nanterre in France on Tuesday.

The group, from seven villages in Pech Chreada district’s Bou Sra commune, filed a lawsuit at a French court last year to claim damages and demand compensation from Bollore, a firm that funded Socfin-KCD.

They said they were under threat of losing their land, traditions and customs since the arrival of Socfin-KCD, which had received loans from Bollore to operate a rubber plantation in Mondulkiri since 2008.

In full: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... nd-dispute
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

As well as the dispute in Cambodia, Bollore and SocFin have a long history of land grabs in Africa.
[Note that this article is from 2015 and that the land dispute in Mondulkiri has been going on since 2008.]

28.04.2015 Africa
Global Resistance To Land Grabs By Bolloré And Socfin
By Betockvoices, The Farmers

Peasant farmers deprived of their lands launch a series of occupations on Socfin’s plantations in Cameroon, Liberia, Cambodia and Côte d’Ivoire from now until the annual shareholder meetings of the Socfin group (27 May) and the Bolloré group (4 June).

“These lands were stolen from us. We come now to take them back and occupy them until an agreement with Bolloré and Socfin is reached.” Along with Michel Essonga, 6,000 Cameroonian peasants have had their forests destroyed and seen 40,000 ha of their land appropriated by Socapalm, a plantation controlled by Socfin.

Tomorrow, the occupation of the plantation in Dibombarri marks the first in a series of actions that will take place in Cambodia next week, then in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire. Brought together by the NGO ReAct , the peasants affected by the abuse of the same transnational corporation across the world have decided to unite and pressure the company to respect their rights.

The Bolloré group is the biggest shareholder (39%) of Socfin, which has industrial oil palm and rubber plantations in these countries. Since 2008, the expansion of these plantations is ongoing. The area planted by the African subsidiaries of Socfin has gone from 87,303 ha in 2011 to 108,465 ha in 2014. That is a growth of 24% at the expense of local communities, which is adding to the tensions. In an attempt to resolve the conflicts, Bolloré agreed to embark on a negotiation process. The first round of discussions took place in Paris on 24 October 2014 with representatives of communities from these five countries.
But Hubert Fabri and Philippe Traux de Wardin, long-time Belgian shareholders of Socfin, rebuffed this move to appease the situation. They only recognise government authorities as interlocutors, and refuse to dialogue with the communities. “They take advantage of the widespread corruption that plagues public institutions in our countries,” explains Ange Tchrouin Saré, president of the Union of Cleared Out Villages, victims of the Socfin plantations in Cote d’Ivoire (see letter to Socfin in annex). The Bolloré group finally changed its mind and aligned itself with the hard-line position of the Belgians.

“The non-respect of promises made during the meeting with the Bolloré group in October 2014 has exacerbated the frustrations of local people,” Neth Prack in Cambodia added. “But we are determined, and we will organise new actions in all our countries until our rights are recognised.”
https://www.modernghana.com/news/614073 ... ocfin.html

Vincent Bolloré net worth: $8.8 Billion
Vincent Bollore Net Worth: Vincent Bollore is a French industrialist, corporate raider and businessman who has a net worth of $8.8 billion. He has generated his abundant fortune as the Chairman and CEO of Bollore, a paper-energy-plantations-logistics conglomerate controlled by his family.
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/riche ... net-worth/
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Long read on the case before the French court.

Mediapart | 1 October 2019 [FR]
Cambodians in Paris to hold Bolloré to account
by Dan Israel

Eleven representatives of the Bunong ethnic group were present in France for a hearing at the Nanterre court. Eighty farmers are suing the Bolloré Group and its subsidiaries, accusing them of having taken over their ancestral lands. Using unpublished documents, they argue that, contrary to its repeated claims, the group managed its plantations directly from its headquarters in Puteaux.

In the narrow hall outside the small courtroom of the Nanterre Regional Court (Hauts-de-Seine) on Tuesday 1 October, the hubbub was annoying. "We're not at the circus," snapped the presiding judge, before regaining her cool and treating all those who crammed into what was no more than an ordinary meeting room with thoughtfulness. Coming to attend what they thought was a short procedural hearing, the lawyers defending Bolloré, its subsidiary Compagnie du Cambodge and its "partner" Socfin, had more difficulty hiding their exasperation at the small happening that was taking place before their eyes.

Packed in the small room, about ten Cambodian peasants and their translators, several journalists and a couple of NGO representatives who managed to sneak in were present, at the invitation of lawyer Fiodor Rilov, not unhappy with its effect.

Known for his defence of workers of many factories that have closed in France (including those of Whirlpool and its short-lived buyer in Amiens), the lawyer has once again managed to attract attention. And to contribute to maintaining what is a small but stinging thorn in the foot of the giant Bolloré: its participation in the management of oil palm and rubber plantations in Africa, but also in Cambodia.

The nine Cambodian farmers who travelled to Nanterre represent 80 complainants suing the Bolloré Group to challenge the way rubber plantations have developed in their area since 2008. Their civil summons was issued in 2015. They are each claiming tens of thousands of euros in damages, but also to be able to return to their land.

Bunong farmers explain their approach against Bolloré, 30 September 2019. (Photo : D.I.)
Originally from the commune of Bousra, in Mondolkiri province, in eastern Cambodia, they belong to the Bunong ethnic group, a local indigenous population. In that area, the ethnic group includes 850 families, spread over seven villages. The Bunong practice shifting cultivation and have animist beliefs, based on the sacralisation of forests and burial sites of their ancestors. According to the terms of their lawsuit, they "were victims of a real economic, social, environmental and religious disaster, entirely attributable to the companies of the Bolloré group, which deprived them of their resources and destroyed their current environment and places of worship."

Socfin-KCD, the local subsidiary of the Bolloré nebula, began developing rubber monoculture with the agreement of the Cambodian government, which granted it land use. In theory, the French multinational paid the Bunong $200 per hectare of land used. But many claim to have received only a few tens of dollars or even no compensation when they were asked to leave their lands.

The case of the Bunong in Cambodia has already been widely documented. First by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which published a very harsh report in 2008 on the activities of the Group's subsidiary, Socfin-KCD, in charge of the Cambodian plantations. That report generated a severe reply from Socfin... A documentary film was also made on the subject in 2014 and its co-director, Anne-Laure Porée, spoke well about it in the Swiss daily Le Temps.

Cambodian residents of the Bolloré Group's plantations are far from being the first to challenge the way they are treated. Mediapart has already largely recounted the demands of the international alliance of peasants from Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone that was created to protest against the French group. The Group, or its various subsidiaries, is very sensitive about this issue. Among other actions, it filed a libel lawsuit against Mediapart and two NGOs, which it definitively lost.

Yet, in both Asia and Africa, activists are the bearers of demands that the Group is well aware of, for example, as laid out in an open letter that was hand-delivered to Vincent Bolloré in June 2013. "A few years ago, we used to perform rituals in the forest with wild animals, it was our daily life. We cultivated the land, we picked fruit in the forest," said Kroeung Tola, one of the Bunong present at a press conference, who had to postpone their visit because they could not get visas in February. The farmer explained that the indigenous people have filed several complaints with the Cambodian authorities to no effect. "We hope and believe that the justice system in France will be more independent," he argued.

"This company came to invest in my village, but they did not respect the law. They launched their project before reaching consensus throughout the village," Soang Prou insisted. "I demand my land back."

Documents implicating the involvement of Bolloré

This powerful request, launched by some with barely contained emotion, was not the subject of Tuesday's debates at the Nanterre court. The hearing on the merits will not take place for a year at the earliest. The lawyers for both parties were in fact meeting to demand, each on its own, the production of documents which they consider necessary for the proceedings.

Expressing all his "exasperation" towards his colleague Rilov, who he said takes every opportunity to transform "hearings into media sounding boards", Olivier Baratelli reiterated the demands of the three lawyers defending the various companies linked to Bolloré. The Group's historic lawyer, who is defending the Compagnie du Cambodge, one of its largest subsidiaries, has been calling since 2016 for the plaintiffs to produce complete and certified identity documents, but also, and above all, documents proving that they have the right to own or enjoy the land they claim they have lost.

"It's the minimum," says Dominique de Leusse, who defended Socfin. He recalled that he was waiting for the documents provided by the Bunong to specify, in particular, the "exact area" and "location" of the land that is at the centre of the conflict. This is what the court has been asking the first plaintiffs to do since February 2017, with some 50 others having joined the lawsuit since then. If these documents are not made available, Bolloré and his allies demand that the proceedings be terminated.

Such requests may sound simple, but they pose a serious problem for the Bunong, who do not all have identity documents and have occupied their lands in a traditional way for decades, without formal ownership titles as understood under French law. However, they have promised, through their lawyer, that they will provide all the necessary documents in the coming months.

The requests of the Bolloré group may sound simple but they pose a serious problem for the Bunong who don't all have identity documents and occupied their lands tratitionally, without formal titles. (Photo : GRAIN)
For his part, Fiodor Rilov asked that many documents linking the Bolloré Group to its subsidiaries or partners in charge of plantations be made public, in order to clarify once and for all their relationships. The lawyer already has several documents showing that his demand could create a serious crack in the Group's traditional defence.

Indeed, Bolloré has been repeating consistently for many years that it has not been involved in the actual management of the plantations held by Socfin, even though the French company is a top shareholder with 38.7% of the capital. "Bolloré SA has strictly no connection with this case," Olivier Baratelli argued again on Monday in a reply to AFP, assuring with the utmost seriousness that this is a "strictly Cambodian problem".

On paper, it is indeed the head of Socfin, Hubert Fabri, who controls the rubber trees and oil palms ever since he shared with Vincent Bolloré the (considerable) remains of the former Rivaud colonial group, which was taken over by the French industrialist in September 1996 (read our detailed account here). But, in truth, the two men still maintain close relations: Fabri has been a member of various bodies of the Bolloré Group since 1987 and Bolloré remains, alongside a second representative of his Group, one of the six members of the Socfin Board of Directors, which also includes Hubert Fabri and his son.

To counter this well-established argument, Fiodor Rilov obtained the activity reports from 2007 to 2011 of a company called Terres Rouges Consultant. The company was dissolved on 31 December 2012, but it was housed directly in the Bolloré tower, the group's headquarters in Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine). Its activity declared at the beginning of 2008 was explicitly "the management of Socfin-KCD, a company incorporated under Cambodian law, with the objective of creating 15,000 ha of industrial rubber plantations in Mondolkiri in eastern Cambodia."

The activity report also indicated that Terres Rouges Consultant "manages three agro-industrial companies in Cameroon (Socapalm, SPFS, Safacam)," i.e. the Cameroonian plantations owned by Socfin and over which Bolloré has always denied a direct management role. This short sentence allowed Fiodor Rilov to announce that nearly 200 Cameroonian farmers claiming to be victims of Socapalm would be joining the lawsuit in the coming weeks.

The Bunong's lawyer also discovered that Vincent Bolloré himself was a Terres Rouges Consultant administrator and that he was none other than the "Director Number Two" of Socfin-KCD in Cambodia. Additionally, the Number Two of Terres Rouges Consultant was Bertrand Chavanes, the man who presented himself as the manager of the Bolloré Group's plantations, before retiring several years ago.

For Fiodor Rilov, there is no doubt: "Terres Rouges Consultant served as a vehicle, housed within the Bolloré tower itself, for the Group to ensure its effective management of the plantations in Cambodia." It is in this capacity that the Group and its various entities are being sued in civil court by the Bunong. And to bolster his argument, the lawyer demanded that the lease under which Terres Rouges Consultant occupied its premises at Bolloré's headquarters, as well as the list of its employees, the list of its directors, the company accounts, as well as any evidence of contractual or capital ties connecting it with the Bolloré Group, be made available.

The court will issue its decision on these demands of the parties on November 6. Then we will know if the little thorn in Bolloré's foot will continue to bother him for a while longer.

(Unofficial translation using DeepL, corrected by GRAIN)
Original source: Mediapart
https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/ ... to-account
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
SternAAlbifrons
Expatriate
Posts: 5752
Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2019 11:31 am
Reputation: 3424
Location: Gilligan's Island
Pitcairn Island

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by SternAAlbifrons »

Some elements of european civilisation are pretty good, even in France.
Not many other places on earth where the Bunong would get even a hearing.
Brave too. Even if they don't get their land back, at least they are still putting up a fight.

I wonder where the French embassy stands on this.
Does anybody know the extent of European controlled agricultural land holdings in Cambodia today?
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Bunong, Bollore land dispute overruled by French tribunal
Nov Sivutha | Publication date 15 July 2021 | 20:39 ICT
A joint statement issued by 97 Bunong indigenous families in Mondulkiri province expressed disappointment in the Tribunal of Nanterre in France which overruled their complaints concerning 2,386ha of disputed land with French company Bollore.

The families from Pech Chreada district’s Bou Sra commune said they would grant lawyers the right to file an appeal in France.

“Once again, we are frustrated with this ruling. We were ordered to pay €20,000 [$23,600] in compensation [to Bollore] while we lost land, access to the forest and traditional livelihoods. We were also subject to a court case in Cambodia.

“We have filed complaints to authorities at all levels and still there is no solution. So, we took the case to the tribunal in France hoping that Bollore would be held responsible for paying damages under the firm Socfin-KCD in France,” the statement said.

Kroeung Tola, a representative of the indigenous families, told The Post on July 14 that Bollore, a subsidiary of French firm Socfin-KCD, had planted rubber trees on the disputed Bunong land in 2008.

The indigenous community, he said, have lodged complaints to local authorities at village and provincial levels as well as to the national court, but to no avail.

The decision to take the matter before the French tribunal was based on the belief that France respected the rule of law more than Cambodia, Tola said. However, in the hope of achieving justice, none was found, he claimed.
More details: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... h-tribunal
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

The Bunong people in Cambodia may have lost their case against Bollore in a French court, [they are expected to appeal], but other victims of the French group are also protesting; in this case, with a petition to the UN.

72,000 people call on the United Nations to end business with the Bolloré Group
Published: 14 Feb 2022
Short URL: https://farmlandgrab.org/30770
Posted in: Bolloré France Oakland Institute
Protest against SOCFIN in Pujehun District, Malen Chiefdom, Sierra Leone
Oakland Institute | 14 February 2022

72,000 people call on the United Nations to end business with the Bolloré Group


---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE---

Media Contact:
Anuradha Mittal, [email protected] +1 510-469-5228
Mathias Rittgerott, [email protected] +1 514-803-9070

Oakland, CA — Today, the Oakland Institute and Rettet den Regenwald (Rainforest Rescue) delivered a petition with 72,000 signatories calling on UN organizations to end business with the French Bolloré Group.

The Bolloré Group is a major supplier to the United Nations, which pays it over US$50 million every year for logistics and other services. Between 2015 and 2019, various United Nations entities signed over 200 contracts with the group for a value of over a quarter billion dollars. The World Food Programme (WFP), UN Development Programme (UNDP), and UNICEF, represent some 95 percent of this amount.

The Bolloré Group is involved in rubber and oil palm plantations through its 39.4 percent shareholdings of SOCFIN, which controls close to 400,000 hectares of concessions for plantations in Asia and Africa. In Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Cambodia, local communities have denounced land grabbing and environmental destruction by the company and have repeatedly been subjected to violence, intimidation, arrests, and severe distress as a result of their opposition.

The group has been accused of corruption and illegal practices in a number of deals allowing it to secure port concessions in Africa. On February 23, 2021, the Group agreed to pay a settlement of 12 million euros to have legal proceedings related to corruption charges in Togo dropped.

“Given its documented history of accusations of human rights violations, illegal practices and corruption, for the United Nations’ agencies and programs to do business with the Bolloré Group appears to be a blatant violation of the United Nations Supplier Code of Conduct, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the eligibility criteria for United Nations Suppliers, as well as the agreement signed with the Group under the United Nations Global Compact,” said Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute.

“While UN organizations such as the UNDP, WFP and UNICEF work to fight poverty and hunger, they have shown a striking lack of due diligence when choosing contractors such as the French Bolloré Group. Many wonderful people work in these well respected organizations — but doing business with the group can in the end only hurt the reputation of the UN, while companies like Bolloré’s subsidiary SOCFIN hurt people in Africa and Asia,” said Marianne Klute, chairwoman of Rettet den Regenwald (Rainforest Rescue).

The Oakland Institute report Doing Business With the Bolloré Group details the wrongdoings of the group in a number of countries and provides an analysis of the different violations of UN principles and criteria.

The petition was initiated by Rainforest Rescue and the Oakland Institute after a similar call made in May 2021 by 40 civil society organizations from 16 countries was ignored by the United Nations. Members of several of the organizations who have signed this call have been victims of judicial harassment and intimidation for resisting land grabbing in their country,” said Frederic Mousseau . “With this petition, 72,000 people from around the world stand in solidarity with the victims of these wrongdoings and echo the call to the UN organizations to immediately end business relationships with the group,” Mousseau continued.

Vincent Bolloré is expected to retire on February 17, 2022 and to give to one of his sons the control of the group. Bolloré has also announced talks with Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) for the sale of its African logistics branch. “This transmission of power of the familial dynasty and the current negotiations don’t change a thing about the blatant violations of the UN principles and code of conduct that have been going on for years,” Mousseau said. “UN organizations with mandates to provide development aid and food assistance can’t continue to do business with a group responsible for such suffering and wrongdoings,” he concluded.
https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/ ... lore-group
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
nemo
Expatriate
Posts: 2054
Joined: Sat Jan 23, 2016 6:34 pm
Reputation: 1395
Cambodia

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by nemo »

This kind of thing spawned the Viet Minh
User avatar
CEOCambodiaNews
Expatriate
Posts: 62322
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am
Reputation: 4033
Location: CEO Newsroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:
Cambodia

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Indigenous Cambodians stripped of ancestral land
By Nehru Pry
17 October 2022 at 11:03 (Updated on 17 October 2022 at 11:35)
Bunong people’s sacred forest becomes a rubber plantation in another land concession for the government.

MONDULKIRI, CAMBODIA ― In the remote and densely forested northeastern province of Mondulkiri in Cambodia, Song Pro, a member of the indigenous Bunong community, stares at a rubber plantation that was once a sacred forest.

When the war in Indochina came to Cambodia in the 1970s, the forest saved Song Pro.

At the sound of planes, she and her family hid deep within its trails and trees, its canopy providing cover from the sights of American bombers.

“We were safe in that sacred place,” said the now 60-year-old farmer. But when peace finally returned, Song Pro and her community could not save the forest.

One morning in 2008, bulldozers arrived. The land where Song Pro and her community had farmed, foraged and worshipped all their lives was now someone else’s property.

To Song Pro, that was inconceivable. She and the people of Bousra Commune in Mondulkiri province are members of the Bunong, an ethnic tribe known as “the caretakers of the forest.”

They have lived in this wilderness for centuries, carving out plots to plant rice and fruit orchards, then letting the trees regrow so the forest could thrive and sustain them. For the Bunong, the forest is sacred. It is not something to be bought or sold.

But Cambodia’s government sees it differently. Land is one of the few sources of revenue the once war-torn country has, and the government sees trees simply as timber that can be sold for a profit and to help build the nation’s wealth.
Song Pro sits on the steps of her house in Mondulkiri province. PHOTO: Supplied

Without even consulting the Bunong people, the government took Bousra Commune’s land and leased it to French firm Socfin-KCD, which has a Cambodian private partner.

The lease is for 70 years and was given under what authorities call an Economic Land Concession (ELC) ― a government’s program that provides the private sector with long-term leases of land for agricultural and industrial development.

The Bunong’s fruit orchards, rice fields, homes and trees – even their places of worship – were quickly razed to make way for the rubber plantation.

“We lost everything,” Song Pro said. The company offered her some cash for her fruit and rice, which she refused.

Song Pro had no rights to the land, according to the government. Despite living on it all her life, neither she nor her neighbors had ever registered their ownership with the state.

It’s a situation common in many parts of Cambodia, in which the individual or collective rights of indigenous and rural people are ignored, and their land is sold in the name of building the nation’s wealth.
https://www.mekongeye.com/2022/10/17/in ... ians-land/
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline

Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
User avatar
Spigzy
Expatriate
Posts: 1925
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:50 am
Reputation: 1694
Great Britain

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by Spigzy »

Seems like there is a gap in the market for an NGO to help rural folks register their land with the state & then this would never happen. Or then we can all just pile even after the event & it is too late with the usual human rights/UN folks before going home in our white 4x4s, exasperated.
Meum est propositum in taberna mori,
ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
User avatar
newkidontheblock
Expatriate
Posts: 4423
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 3:51 am
Reputation: 1545

Re: Bunong Indigenous Community Sues French Firm Bollore

Post by newkidontheblock »

Unless the land has already been earmarked for future concession (and therefore won’t be granted title). Or to be turned into state land, then given away to private individuals and companies.

See red zones in Siem Reap Province. For years, I was always wondering why missus’ land could (and the entire village) couldn’t get hard title. It’s in a red zone. To be given away to Okhnas at some future date.
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], crackheadyo, drozd, Gazzy, Ingvar 7788, paul2d, Spigzy and 759 guests