Sugar firm under fire

Asia’s largest sugar company has been accused of torching hundreds of homes, orchestrating the imprisonment of a pregnant activist and using security forces to beat villagers – among a raft of other grave human rights abuses – by communities in Oddar Meanchey province. The allegations levelled against Thai conglomerate Mitr Phol Sugar Corporation in a complaint to the Thai national human rights commission include further accusations that the firm had confiscated land, killed livestock, looted crops and employed child labour. Local rights groups Licadho and Equitable Cambodia filed the complaint, obtained by the Post yesterday, on May 21 on behalf of 600 villagers in Oddar Meanchey’s Samrong and Chongkal districts. It says the actions of the firm, which holds almost 20,000 hectares of economic land concessions in those districts and whose shell companies are allegedly linked to ruling-party senator Ly Yong Phat, had led to “extreme food insecurity and impoverishment [for] affected households”. …

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013060366024/National/sugar-firm-under-fire.html