Lawmakers from the European Union (E.U.) are again urging the block’s trade commissioner to investigate Cambodia’s economic land concessions (ELCs) over a raft of alleged rights abuses and to consider revoking the duty free access their owners currently enjoy to member states.
The 754-member European Parliament first asked the E.U. trade commissioner, Karel de Gucht, to investigate the ELCs in a resolution it passed in October.
In a letter sent to Mr. de Gucht last Thursday and obtained Wednesday, 13 of those lawmakers again pressed him for a probe of the ELCs.
Going mostly to industrial scale agri-business outfits at thousands of hectares at a time, the concessions have taken center stage as the country’s most pressing human rights problem, blamed for everything from mass forced evictions to rampant deforestation and illegal logging.
Under an E.U. trade scheme for developing countries, some of those concessions have been exporting their products to member states duty free.
A pair of plantations in Koh Kong province accused of evicting hundreds of rightful landowners since 2006 exported nearly $14 million worth of sugar to the U.K. under the trade scheme in 2011 alone.
In their letter, the E.U. lawmakers say Mr. de Gucht has refused to investigate the ELCs citing a moratorium Prime Minister Hun Sen placed on the granting of new ELCs back in May. But the lawmakers say the premier’s directive did not go far enough, failing to offer the families they have already evicted any compensation.
“The directive does not offer any compensation to the families affected by land grabbing, nor does it address abuses and, worst, land grabbers have obtained millions as a result of [trade] benefits from sugar imports over the last three years,” they said.
“In light of this situation, we ask you to launch an immediate and inclusive investigation into these serious human rights abuses related to economic land concessions for agro-industrial development in connection with agricultural goods being exported to the E.U. and, depending on its findings, the suspension of the [free trade deal] with Cambodia.”
The letter followed a meeting held last week between Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, fellow party member Mu Sochua and some E.U. lawmakers who signed on in Brussels.
“We want accountability of aid and not the total destruction of Cambodia’s natural resources and [a] double standard policy of development. Trade must be tied to human rights,” Ms. Sochua said in an email from Europe on Wednesday. “The E.U. cannot escape its responsibility.”
The government has defended the ELCs, which now cover more than a tenth of all the land in Cambodia, as a key to lifting the country’s rural reaches out of poverty. Rights groups say they have done just the opposite, driving the thousands of people forced out of their homes to make way for the ELCs over the years into debt.
In a special report on ELCs last year, the U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia, Surya Subedi, blamed them for “serious and widespread” human rights abuses.
In December, E.U. Ambassador Jean-Francois Cautain said the European Commission’s directorate general for trade had started on a “thorough analysis” of Mr. Subedi’s report.
