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Palm Oil Plantations News
Latin America
Murders spark palm oil alert 9/18/2011 War on Want: "According to the
report, Colombia's armed forces are colluding with right-wing
paramilitaries killing hundreds of Afro-Colombians and displacing
thousands more to facilitate plantations of palm oil, which originated in
Africa. It is claimed that as much as 70 per cent of the population of
Nariño's western mountain range in south-west Colombia has been forced off
its land as paramilitaries capitalise on biofuels as the alternative to
petroleum-based energy. The National Federation of Oil Palm Producers
cites Britain as the largest importer of Colombian palm oil, with the UK
buying 48.5 per cent of the country's exports."
Fuelling Fear: displacement in Colombia 9/18/2011 War on Want: "The
land seizures taking place in Colombia for biofuel cultivation are not
happening in a vacuum. They are directly linked to the increasing global
demand for 'green' alternatives to petroleum and a reduction in carbon
emissions that harm the environment. In addition to its use as an
alternative energy source, palm oil and related products are also used in
margarine, crisps, pastries, detergents, soap and toothpaste."
Re-demobilized Colombian paramilitaries to sign Free Trade Agreement with
U.S. 5/5/2011 Pulse: "When we reached the center of Barichara, the
campesinos veered toward the church and my mom and I bought a copy of the
day’s El Espectador, which contained a report on the WikiLeaks release of
cables from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá confirming awareness of complaints
that palm oil producers had contracted paramilitaries to illegally
displace Afro-Colombian communities from their land in the department of
Chocó. Of course, the palm oil-paramilitary team-up was already publicized
in the mainstream media years ago, as was Uribe’s role in promoting the
crop as a biofuel."
Palmeros y el fantasma paramilita 4/24/2011 El Espectador: "El
conflicto por la propiedad de la tierra en las regiones de Curvaradó y
Jiguamiandó y la extensión de cultivos de palma africana en estos
territorios del Chocó, constituye uno de los dilemas más significativos
para la sociedad colombiana en el contexto de la lucha por los derechos
humanos. La prueba de ello es que entre 2007 y 2009, al menos en once
ocasiones la Embajada de Estados Unidos en Colombia remitió cables
diplomáticos a Washington detallando este problema y dejando ver las
dificultades para solucionarlo por la polarización de sus protagonistas."
[Links to wikileaks cables]
Afro-Colombian Farmers on Displacement and Resistance 1/5/2011 Upside
Down World: "Activists working on behalf of Colombia’s internally
displaced population are subjected to extrajudicial killings and death
threats by paramilitary groups supported by the Colombian army and palm
oil firms active in rural areas, Sanchez and Guzman report. "They say
we're guerrillas and that they're going to kill us," says Sanchez."
The Dark Side of Plan Colombia 5/27/2009 The Nation: "In addition to
the $161,000 granted to Coproagrosur, USAID also awarded $650,000 to
Gradesa, a palm company with two accused paramilitary-linked
narco-traffickers on its board of directors. A third palm company,
Urapalma, also accused of links with paramilitaries, nearly won approval
for a grant before its application stalled because of missing paperwork.
Critics say such grants defeat the antidrug mission of Plan Colombia.
"Plan Colombia is fighting against drugs militarily at the same time it
gives money to support palm, which is used by paramilitary mafias to
launder money," says Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro, an outspoken critic
of the palm industry. "The United States is implicitly subsidizing drug
traffickers."
Afro-Colombians fight biodiesel producers 12/21/2008 BBC: "Mr Caceido,
in his early 30s, says he moved to Bogota in 2001 after being threatened
by presumed paramilitaries in Tumaco, a Pacific coast region. "We have
been discriminated against in three ways," he says with steely restraint.
"We are displaced, we are black and we are poor." It is Mr Caceido's view
that underlying the displacement of countless Afro-Colombians is a clash
in values between the communities' use of the land and an initiative of
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to produce more palm oil for biodiesel.
For Afro-Colombians, Mr Caceido says, land use is based on cultivating a
few traditional crops for subsistence - such as corn, yucca and cocoa - or
for hunting and fishing. But, according to human rights organisations
working in the north-west Choco province, and in dense forests along the
Pacific, paramilitary gangs are seizing Afro-Colombian land to facilitate
biofuel conglomerates."
Palm Oil in Colombia: Biofuel or Bioterror? 7/1/2008 Maine Organic
Farmers and Gardeners Association: "The 39-year-old Polo is vice president
of the board of the Major Council, an organization of 21 communities that
owns 42,700 hectares in the Curvaradó river basin in Chocó, Colombia. He
is an active leader in his community’s efforts to recuperate collectively
titled lands that have been occupied since 1997 by multinational oil palm
companies connected to Colombia’s paramilitary. He has been the target of
death threats by palm oil companies, he said, as have the legal
representative of Curvaradó's Council, Ligia Maria Chaverra, and farmer
Enrique Petro. Polo said, through interpreter Rocio Orantes, that he lives
in a part of Colombia populated by people who were brought to the country
from Africa as slaves, as well as indigenous and mixed-raced people. All
have shared cultures and farmed there for many years, growing their own
food and raising bananas for export to the United States."
UK palm oil consumption fuels Colombia violence, says report 5/11/2008
The Guardian: "British consumers have become the biggest export market for
the controversial crop which is used in margarine and pastries as well as
toothpaste, soap and detergents and cosmetics. The surge in demand has
sustained a ruthless landgrab by rightwing paramilitary groups in
Colombia's rural areas, War on Want, a London-based advocacy group, says
in its report. "The UK, despite being one of the largest consumers of
Colombia's palm oil products, remains unaware of the devastating impact of
cultivation of this crop on the lives of indigenous and Afro-Colombian
communities."
Colombia
palm oil biodiesel plantations: A "lose-lose" development strategy?
2/18/2008 Food First: "Palm oil production for biodiesel is expanding
rapidly in the global south. While not as prolific as Indonesia and
Malaysia, Colombia is the fourth largest palm oil producer in the world
and the largest in Latin America. The Colombian government—in
collaboration with paramilitaries and palm agroindustries—is violently
removing Afro-Colombian, indigenous, and peasant communities to expand
monoculture palm plantations in an effort to demobilize paramilitaries and
stimulate economic development in rural areas. With substantial financial
backing from the US International Agency for Development (USAID) and the
Colombian Agrarian Bank,2 and institutional support from the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB),3 the palm oil agroindustry is
reaping large profits at the expense of the food sovereignty of small
farmers and marginalized communities."
Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution
6/4/2007 Guardian: "Four years ago Colombia had 172,000 hectares of palm
oil," President Alvaro Uribe told the Guardian. "This year we expect to
finish with nearly 400,000." "Four years ago Colombia didn't produce a
litre of biofuel. Today, because of our administration, Colombia produces
1.2m litres per day." Investment in new installations would continue to
boost production, he added." [Uribe is listed in a
declassified DIA report as an important Columbian narco-trafficker.]
Biofuel gangs kill for green profits 6/3/2007 London Times: "The
paramilitaries are not subtle when it comes to taking land,” said Dominic
Nutt, a British specialist with Christian Aid who recently visited
Colombia. “They simply visit a community and tell landowners, ‘If you
don’t sell to us, we will negotiate with your widow'."
Colombia – Palm Oil and the consequences of development 4/20/2007
International Cry: "We were told of one case where paramilitaries
displaced 25,000 people and stole from them, 30,000 hectares of land. This
land was cleared and African palm plantations were sown as the
paramilitary said it was not collective property. The international
community challenged this and ordered the companies to return the land to
the rightful owners. This was ignored. In the last 20 years, more than 3
million people have been displaced. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian people
are killed by the government, paramilitaries and guerrillas."
 Carbon
Blood Money in Honduras 3/10/2012 Common Dreams: "Small farmers in
this region have increasingly fallen under the thumb of large landholders
like palm oil magnate Miguel Facussé, who has been accused by human rights
groups of responsibility for the murder of numerous campesinos in Bajo
Aguán since the 2009 coup. Yet Facussé’s company has been approved to
receive international funds for carbon mitigation under the UN’s Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM)."
DRUG PLANE BURNED ON PROMINENT HONDURAN'S PROPERTY 9/3/2011 Wikileaks:
"Post's JIATF-S TAT provided information to the HAF March 14 about a known
drug trafficking flight with a 1,000 kilo cocaine shipment from Colombia,
which resulted in a fruitless air interdiction attempt. Separately, a law
enforcement source provided information that the aircraft successfully
landed March 14 on the private property of Miguel Facusse, a prominent
Honduran, who is one of the nation's wealthiest individuals, leading
industrialist, and uncle of former Honduran President Carlos Flores
Facusse."
Honduras:
killings continue as Aguán becomes "new Colombia" 8/30/2011 WW4
Report: "African oil palms have replaced bananas as the main commercial
crop in the valley, and tensions increased as landowners like Facussé saw
the potential for the palms in the biofuel business, which could attract
carbon credits and international financing. To maintain their estates, the
landowners have hired private guards and supplied them with arms.
Campesino groups consider the guards paramilitaries and blame them for
most of the 51 killings of campesinos that they say have taken place in
the past two years. Meanwhile, narco traffickers and other criminals have
reportedly moved into the area."
Honduras Re-Admitted to the OAS: 3 killed; 2 kidnapped in the Aguan
6/16/2011 Honduras Human Rights: "There are reports that approximately 400
private security guards, employed by African palm producers in the region,
are being trained in the Rio Claro base in Tocoa, Colon , home of the 15th
Army Battalion. The security guards reportedly are from the Orion security
company, employed by the Exportadora del Atlantico, and others are
employed directly by the Dinant palm oil and derivatives company. The
trainers wear Honduran military uniforms, and rarely leave the base though
they have been reported to participate in forced, illegal evictions.
During these evictions security guards have been reported to change into
military uniforms; close collaboration between police, military and
security guards has been reported. Local informants claim the trainer’s
accents, stature and coloring lead people in the region to believe they
are not Honduran. Many suspect they are Colombian. In October 2009, the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the use of Mercenaries, Private
Security and Paramilitaries reported the Honduran African palm producers
were recruiting security forces in Colombia particularly among former AUC
members – a right-wing paramilitary group. There have also been reports of
Chinook helicopters flying to and from the Rio Claro base, which leads
many to believe US troops maintain a presence on the base. On January 8,
2011, Juan Chinchilla, a Honduran land rights activist, was kidnapped and
tortured. Able to escape the evening of January 9, while being moved from
his illegal detention center, Chinchilla reported that participants in his
torture spoke English and another language he was not able to identify."
[Israeli?]
ROHRABACHER CODEL 2/24/2010 Cablesearch.org: "Congressman Dana
Rohrabacher (R-CA) visited Honduras January 31-February 2 and called on
Hondurans to "turn the page" on the political events of the summer.
Congressman Rohrabacher commended the Honduran people for their commitment
to democracy and said he would urge the U.S. government to re-instate
revoked U.S. visas. Congressman Rohrabacher expressed concern that
establishment of a "truth commission," as called for by the
Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, would have the effect of continuing to divide
Hondurans. Congressman Rohrabacher, who was accompanied by several
American businessmen and investors, endorsed US investment and
particularly lauded the benefits of the development of biofuel industry in
Honduras. He enthusiastically promoted a start-up biofuel company, SG
Biofuels... In his conversation with President of Congress Juan Orlando
Hernandez on February 1, Congressman Rohrabacher told Hernandez that he
was an emissary of Honduras' friends in Congress, in particular member of
Congress Ileana ROS-LEHTINEN."
Miguel
Facussé: Fencing off Paradise 5/1/2005 Envio: "In Tocoa, in the
northeastern department of Colón, it is said that Facussé offered 3
million lempiras to Carlos Escaleras, who ran as the mayoral candidate for
the leftist Democratic Unification party (UD). Escaleras didn’t accept the
offer and continued to openly criticize Facussé’s decision to set up a
plant there to extract African palm oil without any apparent concern for
the potential damage from vapors and chemicals to the hundreds of families
living in numerous neighboring communities. A few months after the offer
and Escaleras’ continued environmentally based criticism, he was gunned
down by hired assassins. The crime has been lost in the thick fog of
impunity hanging over Honduran justice, although human rights
organizations did manage to get the case passed on to the OAS’s
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights."
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