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Police
officers injured in confrontation with Addax workers
Three police officers have
been admitted at the Government Hospital, Makeni,
Sierra Leone,
with serious injuries following a confrontation with workers of the CRC
company, an outfit that is involved in the civil works for the sugar refinery
for Addax bio-fuels. Addax was controversially (https://www.brotfueralle.ch/fileadmin/deutsch/01_Service/Publikationen/BFA_Concerns.pdf)
granted a large lease of land for the purpose of planting sugar cane to be
used in the production of bio fuel for the export market. The whole issue of
large scale land leases to multinational companies for the purpose of
bio-fuel production has been controversial, not just in Sierra Leone but around the
globe. There is global concern as to whether this is an environmentally
sustainable way to solve the world’s growing energy needs. In Sierra Leone
and other third world countries that are not
food self sufficient there is the additional concern that land,
labour, water and other resources are being diverted from domestic food
production in order to satisfy the energy needs of rich, developing
countries( www.sierraherald.com/landdeals-sierraleone.htm ). Even if this diversion
of resources is justified, there is the additional question as to why it
should take a Western-based company to organize and profit from it. Why
should it not be possible for Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans to organize
the large-scale production of sugar cane (a crop we have grown for centuries)
without the controversial, long-term lease of massive tracts of land, at
least part of which are claimed by Sierra Leonean citizens.
The circumstances surrounding
this incidence of violence related to Addax’s operations are still murky, as
Addax has attempted to hush the matter up. Superintendent Gibril Turay, LUC,
Makeni police, revealed that senior officials of Addax successfully prevailed
upon the police not to investigate the matter or pursue the police
assailants. Concerned observers have noted that the massive lease of Sierra Leone
lands to foreign commercial interests has the potential to ignite widespread
violent conflict in the country https://www.thisissierraleone.com/farmland-the-new-blood-diamonds-in-sierra-leone/.
See also More
Land Grabbing Sanctioned by Government
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