Cambodia: Defending Indigenous rights and resources against HAGL land grab
Source: IDI
Indigenous communities in the once abundantly forested Ratanakiri province of Cambodia were able to leverage a complaint to the International Finance Corporation’s ombudsman to negotiate the return of their sacred lands that had been seized by Vietnamese agribusiness giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai. The communities are still seeking redress for the destruction of their forests, farms and resources, including rehabilitation of their precious water resources.
CASE FILE
Location:
Cambodia, Ratanakiri Provence
Project:
Rubber and fruit tree plantations
Companies:
Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), HAGL Agrico, Heng Brothers, CRD and Hoang Anh Oyadav
Key concerns:
Violation of the right to self-determination
Forced displacement, land grabbing and alienation from customary land used for traditional agricultural practices
Destruction of forests, crops and other productive resources
Destruction of water resources
Destruction of burial grounds, spirit mountains and other sacred sites
Community goals:
Return of land, forest, and water rehabilitation and compensation for damages
Key investors, financiers and directly linked companies:
International Finance Corporation via its financial intermediaries TP Bank and VP Bank; Mr. Duc Nguyen; Truong Hai Auto Corporation (majority shareholder of HAGL Agrico) and its business partners Peugeot, BMW, Kia and Mazda; Van Eck Associates; Lion Global Investors; State Street Global Investors
Our partners:
Equitable Cambodia, Highlanders Association and Indigenous Rights Active Members (IRAM)
<span;>Ratanakiri’s once abundant forests have been decimated over recent years as a staggering number of large-scale land concessions have been granted to logging and agribusiness companies, primarily for rubber plantations.
<span;>With landholdings covering an estimated 5 percent of the province and overlapping with vast tracts of Indigenous community land, Vietnamese company Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) has been responsible for a litany of harms against local communities, amounting to a wholesale assault on their way of life. This has included the illegal seizure of community agricultural land and crops; clear-cutting of forests, including resin trees and other non-timber forest products that communities relied upon for their food, medicine and livelihoods; destruction of religiously significant sacred sites, such as spirit mountains and burial grounds; and considerable damage to community water resources and fisheries.
<span;>Since 2014, Inclusive Development International has been working alongside local partners to help the Jarai, Kachok, Tampuon, and Kreung communities defend their rights in the face of these serious violations.
<span;>In its 2013 report <span;>Rubber Barons<span;>, Global Witness identified that an early investor in HAGL was a Vietnamese private equity fund in which the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), held an equity stake. It was clear that the IFC had failed to do its due diligence on this high-risk investment and monitor where its money was ending up.
<span;>After the report came out, we conducted an awareness campaign throughout the affected communities and then assisted 14 villages to file a complaint to the IFC’s independent accountability mechanism, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO).
<span;>The complaint led HAGL to engage in off-and-on negotiations with the communities through a dispute resolution process facilitated by the CAO. We have accompanied the communities throughout this protracted and often turbulent process, helping them to gain leverage in their struggle from the investors, financiers and other companies that are directly linked to HAGL’s operations.
This advocacy has resulted in a significant reduction in the company’s land concessions in Ratanakiri– sparing two of the 14 villages from land grabs and preventing more than 10,000 hectares of forests from being cleared. It has also led to a commitment to return jointly demarcated sacred areas to the communities, though this land return has yet to be fully effectuated by the Cambodian government.
We continue to support the communities in their quest for a full and comprehensive remediation agreement with the company. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date with this and other cases.
(IBI) Inclusive Development International began engaging with communities affected by HAGL in 2013, shortly after Global Witness exposed IFC’s financial ties to the company in its 2013 report Rubber Barons.
Our further investigations revealed a number of high-profile investors, including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and several investment funds. We confirmed IFC’s exposure to HAGL’s harmful investments in Cambodia through its equity holding in Dragon Capital, an investment fund that held shares in HAGL. These financial relationships meant that IFC’s environmental and social standards, including those relating to Indigenous peoples, land and natural resources, should have been applied to HAGL’s business operations in Cambodia. It also meant that the affected communities were entitled to file a formal complaint to the IFC’s independent accountability mechanism, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO).
The complaint provided extensive evidence of HAGL’s breaches of IFC’s environmental and social Performance Standards resulting from its destruction of forests, waterways, pastures, orchards, spirit mountains, burial grounds and other sacred areas belonging to Indigenous communities in Ratanakiri.
HAGL agreed to return to the mediation process with the communities. However, in March 2020, in a stunning act of bad faith, the company cleared large areas of land that had been earmarked for return to the communities through the government-led demarcation process. The majority of this land was cleared while the indigenous communities were sheltering in place to protect against the spread of COVID-19.
In March 2020, HAGL defied the mediation agreement it reached with communities and carried out sweeping clearances of land that had been earmarked for return to the communities through the demarcation process. The majority of this land was cleared while the communities were sheltering in place to protect against the spread of COVID-19. The areas HAGL cleared in March were among those areas designated for return to Muoy, Inn, Mas and Kak villages. While the communities waited for the official ratification of this land return by the Agriculture Ministry, which had been delayed due to COVID-19, the company bulldozed two spirit mountains, wetlands, traditional hunting areas and burial grounds. The clearances destroyed forests and caused irreparable harm to land of priceless spiritual value to the communities. This experience only strengthened the communities’ resolve to hold HAGL and its financiers to account.