Group Considers Complaint Against Sugar Giant

A London-based sugar trade association aiming to promote a more ethical and sustainable industry will meet early next month to consider a request from Cambodian farmers that it eject U.K.-based sugar firm Tate & Lyle from the group unless it gives them back their land. Some 200 Cambodian families accuse a pair of Thai-owned sugar plantations in Koh Kong province of forcing them out of their homes and off their land since 2006, sometimes violently, and they hold Tate & Lyle responsible because it buys the sugar from the firms. … Equitable Cambodia, a local NGO, filed a complaint against Tate & Lyle on behalf of the family with Buonscro- the sugar trade association whose members include Coca Cola and BP- two years ago. … The Koh Kong families are also suing at the High Court of Justice in London for damages for lost earnings, estimated at nearly $2.3 million.

http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/group-considers-complaint-against-sugar-giant-32001/