World Bank Slammed for Dinant Loan Linked to Honduran Killings
World Bank Slammed for Dinant Loan Linked to Honduran Killings
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
January 14th, 2014
An independent ombudsman has confirmed that World Bank officials should have raised serious questions about human rights abuses before approving a $30 million loan to Corporación Dinant in Honduras in 2009 for a palm oil plantation project. Despite the findings, the Bank has refused to cut ties to Dinant.
Dinant, a major Honduran snack food and agricultural company owned by Miguel Facussé, has cashed in on a recent boom in demand for biofuels to become one of the biggest players in this field in the Honduras - it manages 22,000 acres of palm tree plantations, exporting half of the produce to other countries. (Palm trees yield a fruit which can be processed to produce biofuels that is in high demand by governments who want industry to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels like coal and petroleum in order to meet international obligations to mitigate global warming under the Climate Change convention)
Much of the palm oil development in the Honduras is taking place in the Bajo Aguán valley where an escalating conflict is taking place between large land owners and thousands of landless peasants.
“At least 19 farmers in this region have been killed in the context of conflicts with biofuel industry interests and given that Honduras, since the June 2009 military coup, has been ruled by an illegitimate and repressive regime,” wrote Rights Action, a Washington DC based group that works in Central America. “Concurrently, Dinant is immersed in numerous explosive land conflicts in which credible charges of violent actions, including murders, and fraudulent land acquisitions had been levied against the company.”
More:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15917
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