Sierra Leone arrests 39 in oil palm land lease dispute
* SOCFIN part of France’s Bollare GroupBy Simon AkamFREETOWN, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Sierra Leone authorities have
arrested 39 protesters in the south of the West African nation,
following tensions between the local population and a unit of
international agro-investor Socfin .The locals were protesting a multi-million dollar land deal
in which the government is leasing to Societe Financiere des
Caoutchoucs (Socfin) 12,500 hectares for oil palm production in
the Pujehun district.The initial phase of the deal is worth $112 million.Green Scenery, an NGO in Sierra Leone, said some locals have
complained they were not properly consulted and were not given
information concerning the deal, signed in April.Farmland in many developing countries has attracted foreign
investors in recent years, but a U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organisation official last year warned some big land lease deals
might risk deepening poverty and ramping up social tensions.Green Scenery said in a statement locals had blocked Socfin
operations in the area since Oct. 3 because they were angry
about not receiving information on the lease agreement, in which
a local chief was involved.The statement did not give details of what information the
farmers said they were deprived of.Gerben Haringsma, the general manager of Socfin Agricultural
Company Sierra Leone Ltd, told Reuters the company was investing
in social projects and the protesters were in the minority.”We tried for weeks to reason with these guys (the
protesters).”“The government decided to stop it, saying this was getting
out of hand,” he added.Socfin, part of France’s Bollore Group , owns more
than 51,000 hectares of palm estates in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and
Cameroon.David Sesay, assistant inspector general of police for the
southern region of Sierra Leone, said officers arrested 39
people on Tuesday and took 27 to the country’s second city of Bo
for questioning.”The people were continually rioting, blocking the road, and
impeding people from going to work,” he said.Sierra Leone was devastated by civil war between 1991 and
2002, and held presidential elections in 2007.Since the end of hostilities the minerals-rich country with
abundant resources such as iron ore, bauxite, diamonds and
titanium ore, has attracted a number of foreign investors.African Minerals is developing a site at Tonkolili in the
centre of the country which it has said is potentially the
world’s largest deposit of the iron ore magnetite.In the agricultural sector, alongside Socfin Swiss
commodities trader Addax, has leased a large area for sugarcane
for biofuel use near the town of Makeni.”In some ways the renewed interest in agriculture is a
welcome reversal of decades of underinvestment in the
agricultural sector that has contributed to rural poverty and
urban migration,” Oli Brown, environmental affairs officer with
the United Nations in Freetown, said in an email.”However agricultural investment needs to be carefully
managed and designed to ensure that it contributes to rural
development and does not exacerbate food insecurity.”
