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UK palm oil consumption fuels Colombia violence, says report
Britain's passion for chocolate, cakes and crisps is fuelling a violent campaign to force Colombian peasants off their land to make way for oil palm plantations, a report claims today…The surge in demand [for palm oil] has sustained a ruthless landgrab by rightwing paramilitary groups in Colombia's rural areas, War on Want...says in its report…The report details numerous land seizures in the south-west Pacific region where subsistence farmers have been expelled and in some cases killed by armed groups allegedly seeking to cash in on the palm oil bonanza…[The] president of the National Palm Growers Federation…told the Guardian…there were only a few isolated cases of land seizures.