A few months ago the NI [New Internationalist] received an email from Almaz Mequanint, an Ethiopian now resident in the US. She described her former life in Wonji, a sugar-refining town in Ethiopia. We forwarded her email to the Dutch company HVA, which built and ran the places she describes. Clemens JM Rolink, the current General Manager of HVA International NV, replied. This is a shortened version of what they had to say. They paint two quite different pictures – we leave readers to judge which is the more convincing.