Today, the Oakland Institute (OI), in collaboration with the Anywaa Survival Organisation (ASO), released Engineering Ethnic Conflict: The Toll of Ethiopia’s Plantation Development on the Suri People, the latest in its series of comprehensive investigative reports about land grabs and forced evictions in Ethiopia. The report uncovers the truth behind a reported massacre of 30 to 50 Suri people in May 2012 near the 30,000-hectare Malaysian-owned Koka plantation. Based on extensive fieldwork, Engineering Ethnic Conflict reveals the destabilizing effects of foreign investment in Southwestern Ethiopia and examines the role of international aid programs in supporting forced evictions in the country.
“The tragic experiences of the Suri people outlined in this report are just one of many examples of the human rights abuses experienced by pastoralist communities in regions across Ethiopia,” said OI’s Executive Director, Anuradha Mittal. “These incidents are intimately tied to the Ethiopian government’s priorities of leasing land to foreign entities,” she continued.
“Some donor countries and development institutions have heralded Ethiopia for its unprecedented economic growth in recent years, which has in turn led to large-scale land acquisitions by foreign interests,” said Nyikaw Ochalla, Executive Director of the Anywaa Survival Organisation. “What has gone underreported is the tragic on-the-ground impact of this growth on indigenous populations. Engineering Ethnic Conflict exposes this harsh reality,” Ochalla continued.
“Unfortunately the Suri and other marginalized groups have no ability to voice their concerns over these developments on their land. There is little in the way of an independent media in Ethiopia that is permitted to cover this story, civil society that could advocate on these issues have been decimated by repressive laws, any criticism of government is met with harassment and detention. So what options are left for the Suri?” said Felix Horne of the Human Rights Watch.
The Suri pastoralist communities have lived in Southwestern Ethiopia for up to 200 to 300 years. The introduction of the large-scale plantations, including the Koka plantation in 2010, has not only made important grazing lands unavailable to the Suri and devastated their livelihoods–but also disturbed political order between the Suri and other local ethnic groups, escalating violent conflicts.
From coerced displacement of the Suri people to the exacerbation of pre-existing ethnic tensions between local groups in the region, Engineering Ethnic Conflict highlights the unreported nightmare experienced by Ethiopia’s traditionally pastoralist communities.
The report comes at a significant time in US politics. The US Senate included provisions in the 2014 Appropriations Bill that effectively diverts development aid funds for Ethiopia away from projects associated with forced evictions. Engineering Ethnic Conflict raises important questions about whether and how this language is being implemented, and the problematic connections between aid from the World Bank Group and other international donors, including the International Fund for Agricultural Development, for programs that support forced displacement and perpetrate violence against pastoralist communities.
“The stance taken by the US government in 2014 was encouraging, but it remains unclear whether action has been taken to implement the provisions of the bill and monitor the situation on the ground in Ethiopia,” said Mittal. “In light of this opacity and the continued violence and human rights abuses, it is time for the US government, other donors, and international institutions to stop turning a blind eye and take a strong stand to ensure aid in the name of development is not contributing to the ongoing atrocities nor supporting the forced displacement of people,” she continued.
Read the report here
Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.
Showing posts with label foreign investment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreign investment. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Tanzania: Investors Assured Of State Support
Mwanza — GOVERNMENT has assured local and foreign investors that there shall never again be nationalisation in Tanzania as it seeks to promote private investments in key sectors.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Eng Christopher Chiza said that government is committed to promote private sector investments in its key economic sectors and there would be no policy reversal.
"Government has no plans to nationalise your assets," the minister said in his closing remarks of the Lake Zone Investment forum that was organised to promote investment opportunities in the Lake Zone region.
He said government is keen to ensure that the rights and assets of investors were protected.
Policy predictability was mentioned in the forum as among key requirements in attracting local and foreign investments.
Participants said investors would not go where policies cannot be predicted. The minister, who represented the Prime Minister, Mr Mizengo Pinda, said government is committed to continue improving trade and investment climate and promote the growth of the private sector in the country.
The minister further said despite attracting foreign investments in the agricultural sector, there would be no land grabbing in the country. He said land to be used for investments would be acquired through proper channels. "Send this message to all that Tanzania's government has no plans to grab land," he said.
He said government will work on challenges that were discussed in the forum as it seeks to promote private sector investments in various areas.
He said improving the business and investment climate in the country was on top of government agenda so as to speed up the growth of the economy and poverty alleviation.
Earlier, the chairman of Lake Zone Investment Forum, Mr George Kahama had asked government to work on their request for the six lake zone regions to be considered as special economic zones. He said the area had the potential of becoming the business and financial hub of Africa's Great Lake region.
Mr Kahama also noted that the six regions making up the Lake Zone deserved to be made special economic zones with a view to attract more local and foreign investments. He said that attracting more investments would help to alleviate poverty through job creation and opening up of more business opportunities.
The Lake Zone Investment Forum was organised by the six regions making up the zone, which are Mwanza, Geita, Shinyanga, Simiyu, Kagera and Mara in collaboration with the Tanzania Investment Centre to promote investments opportunities in the regions.
About 1,000 local and foreign investors as well as major regional players in business and investments participated in the forum.
|
By Henry Lyimo |
Source:Tanzania Daily News |
One Infamous Landgrabber Under Receivership - Africans Pay The Price
Karuturi Ltd, the Kenyan flower production unit of Karuturi Global, is
in financial collapse and been put under receivership. One of the
world's most infamous landgrabbers is in its deepest trouble yet.
On 11 February 2014, CfC Stanbic Bank in Nairobi took over the Karuturi farm in Naivasha while management was assigned to The Business Advisory Group Ltd. The new managers will assess the true financial situation of the firm, which has stopped paying its workers, suppliers and utility providers since many months, and settle the company's outstanding debts, which reportedly exceed US$ 5 million. Until now, the flower farm in Naivasha was its cash cow, responsible for three-quarters of the Karuturi empire's annual global earnings.
Bangalore-based Karuturi Global Ltd is one of the largest foreign agribusiness conglomerates in Africa. In 2007, it began expanding its operations to Kenya and Ethiopia to take advantage of generous tax breaks and cheap land, water and labour. It soon became the world's largest cut rose exporter and acquired over 311,000 ha of fertile land in southern Ethiopia for food production.
Now, this leading example of foreign direct investment in African agriculture is on the verge of collapse -- and Africans are paying the price.
Karuturi's overseas business ventures are causing untold suffering. In Kenya, the workers have been living in inhumane conditions without pay, water or electricity since months. In the last six months, their medical services have been shut down and the school for their children has been closed.[1] On top of this, Karuturi owes the Kenyan government millions of US dollars in unpaid taxes that it hid through doctored invoices and transfer pricing.[2]
In Ethiopia, the Anywaa and other communities that were violently displaced from their lands without consultation to make way for Karuturi's farming operations have lost their livelihoods and been living in exile without proper compensation. Karuturi, however, has been unable to cultivate more than a small fraction of those lands and local sources report that the farms have stopped operations. Last month, the Ethiopian government issued a warning to Karuturi to clarify the standing of its agricultural investment project or see its permit withdrawn.
From tax fraud to labour violations, Karuturi must pay for its crimes, immediately. And the international community must stop supporting such egregious corporate malfeasance in the name of "foreign investment", or worse "development".
From here with more information
On 11 February 2014, CfC Stanbic Bank in Nairobi took over the Karuturi farm in Naivasha while management was assigned to The Business Advisory Group Ltd. The new managers will assess the true financial situation of the firm, which has stopped paying its workers, suppliers and utility providers since many months, and settle the company's outstanding debts, which reportedly exceed US$ 5 million. Until now, the flower farm in Naivasha was its cash cow, responsible for three-quarters of the Karuturi empire's annual global earnings.
Bangalore-based Karuturi Global Ltd is one of the largest foreign agribusiness conglomerates in Africa. In 2007, it began expanding its operations to Kenya and Ethiopia to take advantage of generous tax breaks and cheap land, water and labour. It soon became the world's largest cut rose exporter and acquired over 311,000 ha of fertile land in southern Ethiopia for food production.
Now, this leading example of foreign direct investment in African agriculture is on the verge of collapse -- and Africans are paying the price.
Karuturi's overseas business ventures are causing untold suffering. In Kenya, the workers have been living in inhumane conditions without pay, water or electricity since months. In the last six months, their medical services have been shut down and the school for their children has been closed.[1] On top of this, Karuturi owes the Kenyan government millions of US dollars in unpaid taxes that it hid through doctored invoices and transfer pricing.[2]
In Ethiopia, the Anywaa and other communities that were violently displaced from their lands without consultation to make way for Karuturi's farming operations have lost their livelihoods and been living in exile without proper compensation. Karuturi, however, has been unable to cultivate more than a small fraction of those lands and local sources report that the farms have stopped operations. Last month, the Ethiopian government issued a warning to Karuturi to clarify the standing of its agricultural investment project or see its permit withdrawn.
From tax fraud to labour violations, Karuturi must pay for its crimes, immediately. And the international community must stop supporting such egregious corporate malfeasance in the name of "foreign investment", or worse "development".
From here with more information
Sunday, January 19, 2014
The Rich Get Richer But Few Signs Of Trickle-Down
With its two-trillion-dollar economy, recent discoveries of billions
of dollars worth of minerals and oil, and the number of investment
opportunities it has to offer global players, Africa is slowly shedding
its image as a development burden. "While global direct investment has
shown some decline, dropping by 18 percent in 2012, in Africa foreign
direct investment rose by five percent," Ken Ogwang, an economic expert
affiliated with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), which has a
membership of over 60 businesses, told IPS.
"Underhand dealings in the mining of diamonds and other rich minerals here have fuelled poverty." -- economic analyst, Jameson Gatawa
Since 2012, Kenya has made a series of mineral discoveries, including unearthing 62.4 billion dollars worth of Niobium - a rare earth deposit. The discovery in Kenya's Kwale County has made the area among the world's top five rare earth deposits sites, and allows Kenya to enter a market that has long been dominated by China.
In 2012, Kenya discovered 600 million barrels of oil reserves in Turkana county, one of the country's poorest regions. It was announced on Jan. 15 that two more wells struck oil, increasing estimate reserves to one billion barrels of oil.
But Kenya, East Africa's economic powerhouse, is not the only African nation that has made fresh mineral discoveries.
"The recent boom in new mining discoveries in countries such as Niger, Sierra Leone and Zambia will attract billions in foreign direct investments. Other countries like Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda will similarly attract billions due to petroleum discoveries there," Antony Mokaya of the Kenya Land Alliance, a local umbrella network of NGOs and individuals working on land reforms, told IPS.
Last year, both Uganda and Mozambique discovered oil. In 2006, an estimated two billion barrels of oil reserves were discovered in western Uganda, but last year's discovery brings Uganda's total oil deposits to 3.5 billion barrels. Mozambique's first oil discovery last year is estimated to be 200 million barrels.
Ogwang predicts that these discoveries will soon see African countries dominating the list of the 15 fastest-growing economies in the world.
"More African countries, Kenya being a model example in East Africa, now favour a market-based economy, which is highly competitive and the most liberal economic system.
"In this system, market trends are driven by supply and demand with very few restrictions on who the actors are. [It is] a favourable environment for foreign investors," he said, referring to the local mobile phone industry, which has been dominated by foreign investors because of its favourable regulatory policies.
"As a result, growth in this sector is phenomenal. In the first 11 months of 2013, Kenya's mobile phone money transactions were 19.5 billion dollars, which is more than the country's current 18.4-billion-dollar national budget."
Ogwang says that even more importantly, African countries are increasingly strengthening their partnerships with the East.
Statistics by the Africa Economic Outlook, which provides comprehensive data on Africa economies, show that China is the largest destination for African exports, accounting for a quarter of all exports.
Trade with Brazil, Russia, India and China - the economic bloc referred to as BRICs - now accounts for 36 percent or 144 billion dollars of Africa's exports, up from only nine percent in 2002.
In comparison, Africa's trade with the European Union and the United States combined totals 148 billion dollars.
But Terry Mutsvanga, director of the Coalition Against Corruption, an anti-corruption lobby group in Zimbabwe, cautioned that Africa will first have to rein in its corrupt politicians before its resources can enrich its own people.
According to the World Bank, some of the world's poorest people live in Africa, with one out of two Africans living in extreme poverty.
"Without Africa dealing with the cancer of political corruption blighting the continent and robbing it of revenue from mineral resources through corrupt politicians receiving bribes from investors ... the continent shall [continue to have] the worst poverty levels globally," Mutsvanga told IPS.
Independent economic analyst Jameson Gatawa from Zimbabwe agreed.
"Underhanded dealings in the mining of diamonds and other rich minerals here have fuelled poverty. The rich are getting richer with the poor becoming poorer," Gatawa told IPS.
For 54-year-old Sarudzai Mutavara, a widow who lives in the midst of Zimbabwe's Marange diamond fields, poverty remains a daily reality.
Zimbabwe is one of the world's top 10 diamond producers. But six out of every 10 households in Zimbabwe, a country of about 13 million people, are living in dire poverty. This is according to a 2013 poverty assessment report by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.
"Here in Marange, the diamond wealth has not [helped] in any way to change our lives for the better, but rather for the worse as we have strayed further into poverty," Mutavara told IPS.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is another African country rich in diamonds, with its mineral wealth estimated in the trillions of dollars. But according to the United Nations, about 75 percent of its people live below the poverty line.
More than half of these have no access to drinking water or to basic healthcare. Three out of every 10 children are poorly nourished, with up to 20 percent of them predicted to die by the age of five.
While Ogwang says Africa's best economic years are yet to come, it remains to be seen if the billions of dollars Africa has in natural resources will trickle down to people like Mutavara.
From Here
"Underhand dealings in the mining of diamonds and other rich minerals here have fuelled poverty." -- economic analyst, Jameson Gatawa
Since 2012, Kenya has made a series of mineral discoveries, including unearthing 62.4 billion dollars worth of Niobium - a rare earth deposit. The discovery in Kenya's Kwale County has made the area among the world's top five rare earth deposits sites, and allows Kenya to enter a market that has long been dominated by China.
In 2012, Kenya discovered 600 million barrels of oil reserves in Turkana county, one of the country's poorest regions. It was announced on Jan. 15 that two more wells struck oil, increasing estimate reserves to one billion barrels of oil.
But Kenya, East Africa's economic powerhouse, is not the only African nation that has made fresh mineral discoveries.
"The recent boom in new mining discoveries in countries such as Niger, Sierra Leone and Zambia will attract billions in foreign direct investments. Other countries like Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda will similarly attract billions due to petroleum discoveries there," Antony Mokaya of the Kenya Land Alliance, a local umbrella network of NGOs and individuals working on land reforms, told IPS.
Last year, both Uganda and Mozambique discovered oil. In 2006, an estimated two billion barrels of oil reserves were discovered in western Uganda, but last year's discovery brings Uganda's total oil deposits to 3.5 billion barrels. Mozambique's first oil discovery last year is estimated to be 200 million barrels.
Ogwang predicts that these discoveries will soon see African countries dominating the list of the 15 fastest-growing economies in the world.
"More African countries, Kenya being a model example in East Africa, now favour a market-based economy, which is highly competitive and the most liberal economic system.
"In this system, market trends are driven by supply and demand with very few restrictions on who the actors are. [It is] a favourable environment for foreign investors," he said, referring to the local mobile phone industry, which has been dominated by foreign investors because of its favourable regulatory policies.
"As a result, growth in this sector is phenomenal. In the first 11 months of 2013, Kenya's mobile phone money transactions were 19.5 billion dollars, which is more than the country's current 18.4-billion-dollar national budget."
Ogwang says that even more importantly, African countries are increasingly strengthening their partnerships with the East.
Statistics by the Africa Economic Outlook, which provides comprehensive data on Africa economies, show that China is the largest destination for African exports, accounting for a quarter of all exports.
Trade with Brazil, Russia, India and China - the economic bloc referred to as BRICs - now accounts for 36 percent or 144 billion dollars of Africa's exports, up from only nine percent in 2002.
In comparison, Africa's trade with the European Union and the United States combined totals 148 billion dollars.
But Terry Mutsvanga, director of the Coalition Against Corruption, an anti-corruption lobby group in Zimbabwe, cautioned that Africa will first have to rein in its corrupt politicians before its resources can enrich its own people.
According to the World Bank, some of the world's poorest people live in Africa, with one out of two Africans living in extreme poverty.
"Without Africa dealing with the cancer of political corruption blighting the continent and robbing it of revenue from mineral resources through corrupt politicians receiving bribes from investors ... the continent shall [continue to have] the worst poverty levels globally," Mutsvanga told IPS.
Independent economic analyst Jameson Gatawa from Zimbabwe agreed.
"Underhanded dealings in the mining of diamonds and other rich minerals here have fuelled poverty. The rich are getting richer with the poor becoming poorer," Gatawa told IPS.
For 54-year-old Sarudzai Mutavara, a widow who lives in the midst of Zimbabwe's Marange diamond fields, poverty remains a daily reality.
Zimbabwe is one of the world's top 10 diamond producers. But six out of every 10 households in Zimbabwe, a country of about 13 million people, are living in dire poverty. This is according to a 2013 poverty assessment report by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.
"Here in Marange, the diamond wealth has not [helped] in any way to change our lives for the better, but rather for the worse as we have strayed further into poverty," Mutavara told IPS.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is another African country rich in diamonds, with its mineral wealth estimated in the trillions of dollars. But according to the United Nations, about 75 percent of its people live below the poverty line.
More than half of these have no access to drinking water or to basic healthcare. Three out of every 10 children are poorly nourished, with up to 20 percent of them predicted to die by the age of five.
While Ogwang says Africa's best economic years are yet to come, it remains to be seen if the billions of dollars Africa has in natural resources will trickle down to people like Mutavara.
From Here
Thursday, October 03, 2013
Foreign Investment Fuelling Discontent
Seeds of Discontent
The documentary film by director Geoff Arbourne looks at the community of Licole, located in the region where the company Chikweti Forests of Niassa has set up large tree plantations. Chikweti Forests of Niassa is a subsidiary of Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), a Sweden-based investment fund, co-owned by Dutch pension fund ABP, the Diocese of Västerås (Sweden), and the Norwegian church endowment, OVF.
The documentary film was launched just five days before the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th round of talks. CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform that seeks to ensure food security and nutrition for all. Transnational Institute (TNI) and FIAN as part of the "Hands off the Land Alliance" are campaigning for effective measures to stop land and resource grabbing, such as the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, which were adopted by the CFS in 2012. "Seeds of discontent" is a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions in rural communities such as Licole.
"Cases like this one [in Mozambique] are happening every day, all over the globe" argues Philip Seufert of FIAN International, member of the Hands off the Land Alliance. "Communities are confronted with investors who arrive and promise a lot to them: jobs, 'development', money, a bright future. But what really happens, then, is that communities find their valuable land no longer available for farming, people have to work under bad conditions for the investors, communities get divided against each other, and all nice promises turn out to be empty. The people of Niassa have to be able to realize their right to adequate food and to live a life in dignity. While the Mozambican state has the main responsibility to ensure this, European home states of foreign investors carry responsibilities as well."
"The beautiful and uncommon intimacy of the footage provided a powerful palette for the film", Geoff Arbourne says about the film. "In just a few weeks we witnessed the dangers and disappointments of these kinds of investment deals and saw how the experience of one forestry company affected people's attitudes, hopes and dreams".
See video and more here
'a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be
well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end
up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions' - this quote demonstrates the futility of chasing after 'benevolent' capitalism. There may well be benevolent capitalists to be found here and there, however the system as a whole is based on the division between those who must work and those who simply live from the exploitation of those workers. Only the total abolition of this system in favour of the egalitarian system of socialism can bring about the end of such practices described above.
JS
The documentary film by director Geoff Arbourne looks at the community of Licole, located in the region where the company Chikweti Forests of Niassa has set up large tree plantations. Chikweti Forests of Niassa is a subsidiary of Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), a Sweden-based investment fund, co-owned by Dutch pension fund ABP, the Diocese of Västerås (Sweden), and the Norwegian church endowment, OVF.
The documentary film was launched just five days before the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th round of talks. CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform that seeks to ensure food security and nutrition for all. Transnational Institute (TNI) and FIAN as part of the "Hands off the Land Alliance" are campaigning for effective measures to stop land and resource grabbing, such as the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, which were adopted by the CFS in 2012. "Seeds of discontent" is a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions in rural communities such as Licole.
"Cases like this one [in Mozambique] are happening every day, all over the globe" argues Philip Seufert of FIAN International, member of the Hands off the Land Alliance. "Communities are confronted with investors who arrive and promise a lot to them: jobs, 'development', money, a bright future. But what really happens, then, is that communities find their valuable land no longer available for farming, people have to work under bad conditions for the investors, communities get divided against each other, and all nice promises turn out to be empty. The people of Niassa have to be able to realize their right to adequate food and to live a life in dignity. While the Mozambican state has the main responsibility to ensure this, European home states of foreign investors carry responsibilities as well."
"The beautiful and uncommon intimacy of the footage provided a powerful palette for the film", Geoff Arbourne says about the film. "In just a few weeks we witnessed the dangers and disappointments of these kinds of investment deals and saw how the experience of one forestry company affected people's attitudes, hopes and dreams".
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22644#sthash.zWqAq6Nt.dpuf
The documentary film by director Geoff Arbourne looks at the community of Licole, located in the region where the company Chikweti Forests of Niassa has set up large tree plantations. Chikweti Forests of Niassa is a subsidiary of Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), a Sweden-based investment fund, co-owned by Dutch pension fund ABP, the Diocese of Västerås (Sweden), and the Norwegian church endowment, OVF.
The documentary film was launched just five days before the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th round of talks. CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform that seeks to ensure food security and nutrition for all. Transnational Institute (TNI) and FIAN as part of the "Hands off the Land Alliance" are campaigning for effective measures to stop land and resource grabbing, such as the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, which were adopted by the CFS in 2012. "Seeds of discontent" is a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions in rural communities such as Licole.
"Cases like this one [in Mozambique] are happening every day, all over the globe" argues Philip Seufert of FIAN International, member of the Hands off the Land Alliance. "Communities are confronted with investors who arrive and promise a lot to them: jobs, 'development', money, a bright future. But what really happens, then, is that communities find their valuable land no longer available for farming, people have to work under bad conditions for the investors, communities get divided against each other, and all nice promises turn out to be empty. The people of Niassa have to be able to realize their right to adequate food and to live a life in dignity. While the Mozambican state has the main responsibility to ensure this, European home states of foreign investors carry responsibilities as well."
"The beautiful and uncommon intimacy of the footage provided a powerful palette for the film", Geoff Arbourne says about the film. "In just a few weeks we witnessed the dangers and disappointments of these kinds of investment deals and saw how the experience of one forestry company affected people's attitudes, hopes and dreams".
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22644#sthash.zWqAq6Nt.dpuf
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