Failing to achieve this at home, it is in Brussels that the communities of the Prikro prefecture, in the Iffou region, in eastern Côte d'Ivoire, will try to make their voices heard. Supported by European human rights organisations, including FIAN Belgium and Entraide et fraternité, they have mandated Belgian lawyers to defend their rights on Monday 9 September in Zaventem, at the headquarters of the Belgian company SIAT, which produces rubber and palm oil in West Africa. The company is accused of ” land grabbing, deforestation, threats to their food security, and other human rights violations “, according to a statement published the same day by these organizations, which are demanding that the communities be compensated to the tune of 1.6 million euros in compensation for the damage caused by SIAT in its oil palm and rubber plantations.
The case dates back to 2011, at the end of the post-election crisis in Ivory Coast. SIAT then negotiated a framework agreement on these lands with the State, which registered an area of 11,000 hectares in its name and transferred 5,000 hectares to the Belgian group on a long-term lease. SIAT's desire to seize these lands at all costs has caused a social crisisjudge Nahounou Daleba, responsible for social justice within the association Young Volunteers for the Environment, which supported the advocacy of Ivorian communities impacted by SIAT. First between the communities in favor of the installation of SIAT, who hoped for economic development in the region, and those who were opposed because they did not want to lose their land. Then between SIAT and the opposing communities, who demonstrated several times between 2013 and 2015. The police intervened, with the support of SIAT security guards. The statement judges the company ” complicit in a repression which caused the arrest and arbitrary detention of more than 70 people, led to the death of two people and left dozens injured “.
With the opposition silenced, SIAT razed the land to plant its own crops, destroying in the process the cashew and food fields grown by the villagers, as well as the sacred forest where they collected snails. All were replaced by a monoculture of rubber trees. The promises of job creation made by SIAT never materialized, according to the complainant communities, with the exception of a few positions allocated to clearing the land and the nursery of young rubber trees. The majority of the villagers of Prikro were thus left without work and without land. There has been a widespread impoverishment of our communities, regrets Sinan Ouattara, spokesman for Akou Moro II, the king of the Andohs who live in Prikro. The population is trying to exploit the land it has left, but it is not enough.”
“SIAT turned a blind eye”
The framework agreement with the State stipulated that 2,000 hectares were to be devoted to rubber crops by and for the villagers, and that the same area was to be reserved for food crops. A condition that was never met, according to Florence Kroff, research and advocacy officer at FIAN Belgium: ” SIAT ignored all attempts at discussion and all warnings issued at that time.. There were letters, demonstrations… But SIAT turned a blind eye. “According to the human rights organisations that signed the press release, the Belgian group also failed to carry out an environmental and social impact study before starting its activities, an omission that is illegal under both European and Ivorian law.
Ironically, SIAT, in financial difficulty, was forced to stop exploitation before its rubber trees had time to mature. In March 2024, the Belgian Vandebeeck family, which had created SIAT in 1980 and was the majority shareholder via its holding company Fimave, sold its shares to the Nigerian conglomerate Saroafrica, which now owns 86% of the Belgian group. Also indebted to the NSIA bank, SIAT decided in 2022 to close its Ivorian subsidiary in Prikro and offered its creditor to repay its debt in kind by transferring its emphyteutic lease on the 5,000 hectares. The bank accepted and the plantations are now guarded by NSIA security guards, which do not exploit the land but are actively looking for a buyer.
The villagers were never included in these transactions, complains Florence Kroff: ” Today, we find ourselves in an absurd situation where it is a bank that has the right to exploit these lands, to which the communities do not have access and which no one uses. » A meeting was organized between the complaining communities and NSIA representatives in Abidjan in December 2023, but the discussions were cut short. Contacted by The Worldneither the SIAT group nor the NSIA bank responded to our interview requests.
On Monday, September 9, the affected communities chose to first address the company before considering bringing the matter before the courts in Brussels, which has extraterritorial jurisdiction over Belgian companies. The appeal announced in the press release is therefore first ” an action for liability based on the fault committed by SIAT “, according to Florence Kroff, on whom the claim for compensation is based. ” Prikro communities hope to get redress without having to go to courtshe emphasizes. Communities need to know that justice has been served.” On a financial level, but also on a moral level, insists Nahounou Daleba.
Source: Lemonde
