Families Call for Boycott of Senator’s ‘Blood Sugar’

4 July 2012
The Cambodia Daily
Agricultural production / Agriculture and fishing / Economic land concessions and plantations / Economy and commerce / Land / Land tenure and land titling / Public land lease / Sugar
Boycott Blood Sugar / boycott campaign / Clean Sugar Campaign / compensation / CPP / CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat / evicted / farms / Forests / international firms / Koh Kong / Kompong Speu / land / Ly Yong Phat / NGOs / Oddar Meanchey / paltry / Plantations / poisoning water / poverty / protests / sugar / sugarcane plantations / villagers / water

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off their farms and out of their forests in recent years for paltry, if any, compensation, pushing them deeper into poverty and poisoning their water. With the help of a few local NGOs, they have named themselves the Clean Sugar Campaign and hope their drive to “Boycott Blood Sugar” will win them their land back, or get them the compensation they believe they deserve. At least seven sugarcane plantations in Koh Kong, Kompong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces have been linked to the senator either through government documents or the word of local officials. …