6/10/2014
Evictees Reject Latest Offer From UK Sugar Firm | The Cambodia Daily
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Evictees Reject Latest Offer From UK Sugar
Firm
BY KUCH NAREN AND ZSOMBOR PETER | JUNE 1 0, 2 01 4
LATEST
Phnom Penh District
Governors Officially
Appointed
Representatives for the 200 Cambodian families suing U.K. sugar firm Tate &
Lyle for allegedly profiting off of their stolen land say they have rejected the
Reporter Drops Threat
Complaint, Court Says
firm’s latest offer to settle the dispute and are looking forward to their first court
date, set for October.
Environment Ministry
Breaks Ground on New
Location
The families are among the more than 400 who accuse a pair of majority-Thaiowned sugar plantations in Koh Kong province of illegally seizing their farms
starting in 2006. They sued Tate & Lyle in a London court in March 2013,
arguing that the U.K. firm owed them compensation for profiting off the millions
of dollars worth of sugar it has bought from the Thai owner, Khon Kaen Sugar.
Efforts to reach an out-of-court deal have continued after talks appeared to
founder in July.
Hun Sen Holds
Meeting Amid Rumors
of Ill Health
Evictees Reject Latest
Offer From UK Sugar
Firm
On Monday, however, a representative for the families suing Tate & Lyle said the
latest offer of new land and money had also been rejected.
“The Thai company that planted sugar on our land is offering land in another area
about three or four kilometers away from the plantation, but the exact location
has not been revealed,” said Teng Kao, who claims he lost his 14.5-hectare mango
and cashew farm to the plantations in 2006.
“Our lawyer also told us that Tate & Lyle, through its lawyer in London, is also
offering $305,000 to the 200 families in return for us dropping the complaint,” he
said. “We have refused and we want the court to proceed with the case.”
He said the trial had been scheduled for October, but did not know the exact day.
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6/10/2014
Evictees Reject Latest Offer From UK Sugar Firm | The Cambodia Daily
Yin Chheav, another representative for the families, said they were still willing to
views
leftway for the
entertain a better offer but he believed that a trialfree
was the
surest
0
families to secure the compensation they deserved.
“I am really happy the court in England has set the date to hear our case against
Tate & Lyle,” he said. “We have lost our farms and we have lost our jobs, and the
company needs to be responsible for turning poor villagers into even poorer
villagers.”
A source familiar with the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Khon Kaen had offered the families
replacement farms on a different part of their land equal to what the families lost,
a figure the families put at 1,364 hectares.
“The government, through the involvement of KSL [Khon Kaen], had agreed to
carve out an equivalent amount of land from the Koh Kong concessions to provide
substitute plots for the villagers,” the source said. “T&L [Tate & Lyle] has
indicated that its primary concern was its own reputation and that it was
motivated to force KSL to respond only because of its ‘good’ reputation.”
That reputation has taken a hit since the dispute arose.
The families have launched a boycott campaign against what they call the “blood
sugar” sold by Tate & Lyle and other firms buying from plantations in Cambodia
accused of stealing land.
Last year, an international group that promotes the ethical sourcing of sugar for
the food and energy industries, Bonsucro, suspended Tate & Lyle’s membership
for failing to answer questions about the dispute in Koh Kong.
Also last year, Tate & Lyle threatened to sue U.K. newspaper The Guardian over
a story alleging child labor on the plantations but never followed through and
later said it would investigate the claims.
Representatives for Khon Kaen and the plantations could not be reached Monday.
A spokesman for Tate & Lyle did not reply to a request for comment.
Tate & Lyle has denied any responsibility for the allegations the families have
leveled against the plantations. It says a third-party audit of Khon Kaen cleared
the company before they started doing business, but it has refused to share a
copy of the report.
[email protected], [email protected]
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