Ejeren af den honduranske palmeolieproducent Dinant Corporation kædes sammen med flere mord på fattige bønder i langvarig jordkonflikt. Derfor fordømmer NGOer, at hans firma står som sponsor af konference om bæredygtig palmeolie i Honduras.
OAKLAND, Tuesday August 6: From 6th-8th August, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is holding its 4th Latin American Conference on so-called sustainable palm oil in Honduras, writes Food First in a press release Tuesday.
Environmental and social campaigners have been shocked to learn that one event sponsor is the palm oil company Dinant Corporation, owned and controlled by Miguel Facusse, the largest landowner in Honduras.
They are calling on World Wildlife Fund WWF and three other organisations to withdraw from and denounce the conference being held in Honduras due to the Dinant’s sponsorship of the event and the serious human rights implications.
Mr. Facusse was a key supporter and beneficiary of the June 2009 military coup in Honduras, has been associated with narco-trafficking, and, along with other large oil palm growers, has been linked to the targeted killing of more than 88 members and supporters of peasant organisations since June 2009.
The killings took place in the Aguan Valley, one of the main palm oil producing regions in Honduras.
Annie Bird from Rights Action states:
“By holding its conference in Honduras and by allowing Dinant Corporation to sponsor the event and hold a stall, the RSPO is turning a blind eye to systemic and severe human rights abuses, including forced evictions (tvangsforflytning) of entire communities and over 88 killings for which palm oil companies, especially Dinant, are responsible”.
“The RSPO Conference serves to reinforce the impunity (straffrihed) with which the large-scale palm producers operate.”
RSPO is overwhelmingly dominated by the interests of large corporations like Nestlé, Rabobank and Unilever – all linked to cases of “land grabbing” in Asia, Latin America and Africa.”
According to Tanya Kerssen, Research Coordinator for Food First:
“The case of Dinant is emblematic of (kendetegnende for) how large, elite-controlled companies use palm oil to expand their control over land and other resources”.
“The RSPO is merely window dressing for this continued corporate expansion, which – whether classed as ‘sustainable’ or not – necessarily means the replacement of forests, biodiversity and food production with a large-scale monoculture crop for biofuel and unhealthy edible oils (spiseolier).”
Guadalupe Rodriguez from Rainforest Rescue adds:
“WWF and the three other organisations involved in this RSPO conference must pull out of and denounce this process. They must not, however indirectly, associate themselves with palm oil businessmen involved in repressing, evicting and killing peasants in Honduras’s Aguan Valley.”
Læs hele pressemeddelelsen her: http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/4370
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