Obviously, evictions and land clearing were not authorized, nor was there any social and environmental impact assessment, because at the time of land clearing the concession contract was not even signed. Peaceful villager protests were blocked violently backed up my military forces. Villager’s livestock was shot, some persons beaten up and injured and one community activist, who documented the land clearing in 2006, was killed (2;6). His death has never been properly investigated. Inadequate compensation was offered by the company and people were resettled and repressed, such as through shooting of their livestock when crossing concession land. Most lost their livelihood assets and access to important natural resources, such as community forests. In absence of alternatives some were forced to start working as plantations workers on the land belonging to them (2;3;6). In a human rights impacts assessment, 85 children, some of them aged 8 years, where found to work for the companies (2). Release of toxic chemicals from the processing factory into the environment caused further significant environmental problems (3).

People protest against the sugar companies since 2006, trying to get back their land and to receive compensations for the losses, however, with little success. Supported by NGOs, villagers filed formal complaints in Cambodia against the involved companies (July, 2012; see (1)), as well as in the UK against Tate & Lyle (March 2013), claiming human rights abuse and ownership of the land (3). Some of the families received 2000$ as compensation from Tate & lyle (4), which however cannot replace the lost livelihoods, others are still waiting for any compensation or solutions. In July, 2013 Bonsucro, an initiative for responsible and sustainable sugar growing suspended Tate & Lyle, which refused to cooperate with villagers for the investigation of their complaints (3). On behalf of the villagers, NGOs further lobbied to revise the EBA agreement, underlying the need to investigate its devastating impact on human rights, to which the European Union finally agreed (5). While the EBA agreement was set up to ‘support development’, on the ground, it produced a sugar rush by providing bonus payments for national and international companies that established a sugar industry at a devastating cost of local communities and the environment.

Koh Kong Plantation Co. Ltd (KKPC) and Koh Kong Sugar Co. Ltd (KKSI) are both owned by Thai KSL group holding 70% of the shares, as well as by Ve Wong Corporation of Taiwan and Ly Yong Phat, a Cambodian ruling party senator and business tycoon (2).

The concession land has been granted under the Economic Land Concession (ELC) scheme of Cambodia, which provides concessions for the development of large-scale agriculture under a lease agreement of up to maximum 99 years. Lease agreements are commonly set for 70 years (see legal ELC framework, below).

Both companies received two adjunct Economic Land Concessions (ELC), amounting to 9,400ha and 9,700ha respectively, to develop industrial sugar plantations and processing factories (2). The total size of 19,100ha exceeds the legal limit of 10,000ha per ELC (see legal framework). The concession land overlaps with villagers’ land, protected areas, and other concession land.

Since 2010, Tate &Lyle imported 48,000 tons of sugar from both companies, with an estimated value of 24 million € (2).

456 families were dispossessed by the ELCs in Sre Amble District (1). Based on average household size this corresponds to more than 2,100 persons.

1490 ha of farmers land were affected by clearing (1). Other sources say that families lost 5000 ha of land (3).

According to the 2001 Cambodian land law, the formal land owners are the villagers, since they have been living over 5 years prior on the land area (see land law framework).