"Years-Long Mediation Leaves Bunong Farmers Indebted to Multinational Rubber Firm", 27 September 2023

More than a decade after subsidiaries of multinational rubber firm Socfin Group forcibly cleared and seized the farms, burial grounds and sacred forests of Bunong indigenous communities in Mondulkiri province, the company now seeks to collect tens of thousands of dollars from these farmers for the cost of “land preparation” and other fees.

Beginning in 2007, the Cambodian government awarded several economic land concessions for industrial rubber farming to subsidiaries of the Luxembourg-based Socfin Group, whose corporate slogan is “responsible tropical agriculture.” The company’s Asia subsidiary Socfinasia— which includes all its Cambodia-based rubber plantations — reported profits of more than $75 million last year.

… Some Bunong villagers remain embroiled in a legal fight against Socfin’s largest shareholder Bolloré.

… After Socfin’s subsidiaries faced protests and backlash from human rights groups for bulldozing Bunong lands, the company offered more than 850 impacted families several options for compensation starting in 2009. Many unwillingly accepted some form of compensation, according to a 2011 report from the International Federation for Human Rights…

The evaluation report touted the UN’s support for the mediation, stating that the OHCHR had a “balcony view of the mediation process…to vouch for its fairness” and was “wholly supportive.” The report noted the OHCHR provided “gap funding” and paid for the community’s legal support during the mediation.

Socfin said it “communicates transparently” with the OHCHR Cambodia office to “ensure that [Socfin’s] activities fully comply with applicable standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.”…