Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

 Insufficient measures against the pandemic...

Last year, according to Profundo, an independant Dutch research group, 30 million Euros were distributed to Socfin’s main shareholders and directors, out of a net profit Profit The positive gain yielded from a company’s activity. Net profit is profit after tax. Distributable profit is the part of the net profit which can be distributed to the shareholders. of 47 million. [1] This year does not seem very different: 20 million will be distributed from a net profit of 30 million Euros, despite the continuing tensions around the plantations and the health and economic crisis provoked by the Covid-19. [2]

According to an open letter sent to the leaders of the two groups at the end of April, in several countries, Socfin workers may be sent home and forced to take unpaid leave, running the risk of losing their benefits. In Liberia, Socfin is reportedly laying off some employees without notice - and without guarantee to re-employ them later full-time. According to the same letter, in several plantations in Cameroon, Ghana and Sierra Leone, workers in the palm oil and rubber agro-industries controlled by Socfin don’t consider themselves properly protected and complain about unsatisfactory health measures. They are forced to travel long distances packed closely together in trucks, have no water sources to wash their hands and no hand sanitiser either. [3]

In this context of a global pandemic, the company might therefore not be implementing sufficient measures to protect and assure a minimum income to its workers and the families who depend on them.

The management of the Covid crisis by the Socfin and the Bolloré groups comes on top of persistent tensions around the plantations regarding land rights, environmental impacts, sexual and other forms of violence against women and lawsuits.

 Ongoing abuses being denounced: land conflicts, sexual violence, repression and lawsuits

NGOs and local communities are going to courts and complaint mechanisms to denounce the abuses they’ve observed and experienced :

• a year ago, on 27 May 2019, ten NGOs and unions brought a lawsuit against the Bolloré group in the French courts [4] to force implementation of an action plan the company had agreed to under a mediation process handled by the OECD OECD
  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, created in 1960. It includes the major industrialized countries and has 34 members as of January 2016.
  
  http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/ . [5]
• - on the same day, a complaint was filed against Socfin at the World Bank World Bank
  WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.
  
  It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :
  
  1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;
  
  2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;
  
  3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.
  
  As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.
  
  , concerning a series of problems caused by the Salala Rubber Corporation in Liberia: the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank is involved through a loan of US$10 million. [6]
• in October 2019, a hearing was organised in a court in Nanterre with 9 indigenous Bunong representatives from Mondol Kiri, Cambodia to claim the rights of the 80 plaintiffs against the Bolloré group: they demand the restitution of their land, occupied by Socfin-KCD. [7] Farmers from Cameroon have joined their case. [8]
• in October 2019 as well, a complaint was filed by civil society with the Dutch National Contact Point for the OECD against the ING bank for its lack of effective action against abuses on plantations of its client Socfin in Cameroon and Sierra Leone. [9]

Women are also increasingly speaking out about the injustices they suffer around the plantations. In Cameroon, women issued a statement on 8 March 2020 that denounces the working conditions they face, sexual abuse, unpaid debts, destruction of their environment and the theft of their crops, inclunding on plantations companies owned by Socfin (Socapalm, Sosucam). [10]

Land conflicts continue to create tensions. In Nigeria, the communities around the Okomu plantation are trying to reassert their sovereignty over their lands, which they say were acquired by Socfin without their consent. [11] In Sierra Leone in January 2019, mobilizations of communities asking the Socfin group to respect their rights in Pujehun district led to intense repression by the military forces, resulting in the death of two villagers, the arrest of 15 people and the displacement of 2,500 people, mainly women and children. [12]

Finally, the Bolloré and Socfin groups have filed many lawsuits alleging defamation, considered “gag lawsuits” by targeted NGOs and journalists. Since 2009, more than twenty libel lawsuits have been launched by Bolloré or Socfin in France and other countries against articles, documentaries, reports by non-governmental organisations and even a book. [13] At the end of 2019, Socfin brought an action for defamation and invasion of privacy against NGOs representatives and the NGOs themselves, in Belgium and Luxembourg [14], and a defamation suit against Green Scenery in Sierra Leone is still ongoing [15].

It is urgent that these conflicts are resolved and that the lawsuits stop. Foreign companies like Socfin extract immense profits from the lands and labour of communities in Africa and Asia. The time for “business as usual” is over, and the enrichment of directors and shareholders can no longer come before human and environmental rights.

Signed by :

• AEFJN, Belgium
• AFASPA, France
• Amis de la Terre France
• Alliance for Rural Democracy, Liberia
• CADTM France
• COLAT, Cameroon
• Collectif pour la défense des terres malgaches – TANY (France)
• Confédération Paysanne, France
• COPACO, République Démocratique du Congo
• CNRT, France
• CNOP, Congo
• Entraide et Fraternité, (Belgique)
• ERA - Friends of the Earth Nigeria
• FIAN Belgium
• FIAN Switzerland
• GRAIN, international
• Green Advocates USA
• Green Advocates International
• INSPIRIT Creatives, Germany
• JUSTIC’ITIZ, Liberia
• JVE, Côte d’Ivoire
• MALOA, Sierra Leone
• Milieudefensie - Friends of the Earth Netherlands
• Muyissi, Environnement Gabon
• Natural Resources Women’s Plateform, International
• OGARSEAI, Gabon
• OIP, Côte d’Ivoire
• Pain pour le Prochain, Switzerland
• RADD, Cameroun
• ReAct, International
• REFEB, Côte d’Ivoire
• Réseau Foi et Justice Afrique Europe, Antenne de France
• RIAO, République Démocratique du Congo
• SEFE, Cameroun
• SOS Faim, Belgium
• SOS Faim, Luxemburg
• Survie, France
• SYNAPARCAM, Cameroon
• The Oakland Institute, USA
• Union des Villages Déguerpis, Côte d’Ivoire
• We For Her, Côte d’Ivoire
• World Rainforest Movement
• YETIHO, Côte d’Ivoire