The impunity of a Belgian company SIAT in the Famienkro communities in Côte d’Ivoire became public in 2017 during a Francophone conference co-organised by AEFJN in Abidjan. The case of SIAT in Famienkro exposes the negative impacts of more significant scale acquisition of land without the prior and informed consent of the communities. It is heart-breaking that African national governments are complicit in the corporate impunity of the Transnational corporations (TNC) in their countries. Since the forceful acquisition of the Famienkro communities land for rubber plantation mediated by the national Government of Côte d’Ivoire, neither the affected communities nor SIAT has known peace. The painful loss of dear ones during the land conflicts, displacements of communities, loss of biodiversity and means of livelihood are some of the unending anguishes of the communities due to the activities of SIAT. There is evidence that some communities in Nigeria and Ghana suffer a similar fate because of the company called SIAT. Together, these will be in Belgium for a lobby tour of Europe from June 12-24 to tell their stories to the European population.

The case of SIAT is one of the numerous cases assembled by the Our Land is Our Life platform as evidences for a stringent legally binding UN instrument to stop corporate human and environmental rights violations of TNCs.  AEFJN is pleased to have supplied the official link of this case to the Belgian Working group on land for the European level of the advocacy organising this lobby tour. The communities will have an opportunity to tell their stories on the Civil Society platform in Brussels and hold a session with EU Parliamentarians in which the first Vice-President of RECOWA will participate and deliver the opening remarks. This meeting will be an opportunity to hear first-hand from communities negatively impacted by corporate activities and discuss the newly proposed EU Directive to prevent, cease and mitigate violations of human rights and environmental damage by EU companies.   The communities will equally be in Nuremberg, Germany, for training on Extraterritorial Obligations of Trans-National obligations to strengthen their ability for the struggle. Finally, there will be a public event at Zaventem in Brussels in front of the SIAT corporation headquarters where an exchange between the SIAT management the communities is envisaged.

It is heart-warming to see the communities come this far, and AEFJN is proud to be a  part of their struggle. The Secretariat will be involved in their movement throughout this lobby tour. A policy brief on the case, which AEFJN co-authored, and now endorsed by SECAM[1], RECOWA[2] and the Caritas of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, will be launched. The serious need for collaboration between the Church and the Civil, which AEFJN underlined during the RECOWA plenary in May, is bearing fruit.

Some of the network members have requested a justification for the lobby tour. In response, many large scales land earmarked for oil palm and rubber plantations in Africa over the past decades have either or failed to take off, scaled back or entirely abandoned due to the resistance encountered from the affected communities in different African countries[3]. The resistance of the Famienkro  communities have so far scaled back the rubber plantation of SIAT.

Land conflicts are costly for companies. So many industrial oil palm plantation projects in Africa embroiled in land conflicts discourage companies from pursuing the investments. The resistance to Herakles Farms, for instance, undoubtedly influenced the decisions of the international food corporations; Cargill and Sime Darby to pull back from pursuing the oil palm plantations in Cameroon. The international criticism of development banks for funding Feronia’s plantations in DR Congo may have caused them to refuse to fund other industrial oil palm plantation projects in Africa. Now, we cannot say for sure which projects or how many projects were shelved because of risks of land conflicts or local resistance. However, we know from our experience in different struggles that the opposition has significantly impacted their decisions and capacity to move industrial plantation projects forward[4].

Follow link to read the SIAT Land-Briefing

Chika Onyejiuwa, CSSp

[1] SECAM : Symposium of Ecclesiaitical Provinces of Africa and Madagascar

[2] RECOWA: Reunion of Episcopal Conferences of West Africa

[3]  GRAIN | Communities in Africa fight back against the land grab for palm oil

[4] GRAIN | Communities in Africa fight back against the land grab for palm oil