Sierra Leone authorities have arrested 39 protesters in the south of the West African nation, following tensions between the local population and a unit of international agro-investor Socfin.
The locals were protesting a multi-million US dollar land deal in which the government is leasing to Societe Financiere des Caoutchoucs (Socfin) 12,500 hectares for oil palm production in Pujehun District.
The initial phase of the deal is worth US$112 million.
Green Scenery, an NGO in Sierra Leone, said some locals had complained they were not properly consulted and were not given information concerning the deal, signed in April.
Farmland in many developing countries has attracted foreign investors in recent years, but a UN Food and Agriculture Organization official last year warned some big land lease deals could risk deepening poverty and ramping up social tensions.
Green Scenery said in a statement that locals had blocked Socfin operations in the area since Oct. 3 because they were angry about not receiving information on the lease agreement, in which a local chief was involved.
The statement did not give details about what information the farmers said they had been deprived of.
Socfin Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd general manager Gerben Haringsma said the company was investing in social -projects and the protesters were in a minority.
“We tried for weeks to reason with these guys [the protesters],” he said. “The government decided to stop it, saying this was getting out of hand.”
Socfin, part of France’s Bollore Group, owns more than 51,000 hectares of palm estates in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
Assistant inspector general of police for the southern region Gerben Haringsma said officers arrested 39 people on Tuesday and took 27 to the country’s second city of Bo for questioning.
“The people were continually rioting, blocking the road, and impeding people from going to work,” he said.
Sierra Leone was devastated by civil war from 1991 to 2002, and held presidential elections in 2007.
Since the end of hostilities the mineral-rich country with abundant resources such as iron ore, bauxite, diamonds and titanium ore, has attracted a number of foreign investors.
African Minerals is developing a site at Tonkolili in the center of the country, which it has said is potentially the world’s largest deposit of the iron ore magnetite.
In the agricultural sector, alongside Socfin Swiss commodities trader Addax, has leased a large area of sugarcane for biofuel use near the town of Makeni.
“In some ways the renewed interest in agriculture is a welcome reversal after decades of under-investment in the agricultural sector that has contributed to rural poverty and urban migration,” Oli Brown, a UN environmental affairs officer in Freetown, said in an e-mail.
“However, agricultural investment needs to be carefully managed and designed to ensure that it contributes to rural development and does not exacerbate food insecurity,” he added.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to