"Liberia: GVL Violates Villagers’ Rights Then Sues Them For Palm Theft"

Things were about to change for Lincoln Weah and his friends but he did not know. It was July 7, 2022. Weah had just returned from setting up his palm oil production worksite in a palm farm around the Bellehful village. Suddenly, a group of guards of Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) and armed police arrested him. Wearing palm-oil-stained clothes, they accused Weah of stealing palm nuts from GVL’s plantation and demanded he took them to the worksite. “When we reached there, they began to beat me, forcing me to call the names of my friends in the village,” Weah tells The DayLight. “They promised that when I showed the people who are making palm oil on the farm, they would let me go.”

Weah believed the guards and police officers and named his three workmates. But it was a trick. As soon as he disclosed their names, the beating intensified, according to Weah. A picture obtained from the NGO Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) shows the 32-year-old sitting on the blackened ground of the worksite, surrounded by guards and policemen. Other pictures show metal drums of palm nuts, the men carrying a handheld palm mill and Weah detained by a police officer.The arrest is the beginning of a series of ordeals the men face that continues today: prolonged pretrial detention, loss of properties and a threat to their livelihood. David risks a possible forfeiture of his benefits for a decade of service to GVL. Following their arrest, four of the men spent five nights inside the police cell. They were later transferred to the Central Prison in Greenville, according to the men and court records. The other man was transferred the next day, the records show.

A GVL spokesman justified the actions of the guards and police. “GVL has the responsibility to protect its personnel, properties and rights utilizing legal means, including the involvement of police and other authorities where appropriate,” Alphonso Kofi, tells The DayLight in an email.