Fearing they won’t be compensated, villagers in southern Laos are opposed to a government plan to grant 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of farmland to a Chinese company for coal mining, people with knowledge of the situation say.
The Zhongya Yuxi Cement Lao Sole Company Ltd. is negotiating with the Lao government for a land concession around two villages in Salavan province’s Ta-Oy district, and expects to sign a contract in mid-November, said an official from the province’s Department of Energy and Mines.
“It’s in the process of negotiating 400 hectares to be explored, maybe starting in November,” he said.
The company already has passed an environmental impact assessment, he added.
Villagers in Laos often lose land to Chinese companies and other investors when the government grants them concessions for mineral extraction, logging and hydropower dam construction.
The villagers are largely powerless in getting compensation, and the loss of their agricultural fields often cuts them off from resources, creates food shortages and makes them poorer.
The government allowed the company to mine coal in a 200-hectare area there in the past, before it decided to expand its investment, said a villager, who like other sources in this report declined to be named so as to speak freely without retribution by authorities.
“From 2017 to 2018 they started mining,” he told Radio Free Asia. “The location of the mining project was very close to the village, and some villagers might have already lost their lands.”
Another official at the Department of Energy and Mines in Salavan province pointed out that the land belongs to the Ministry of Energy and Mines and that the federal government determines who can mine coal there.
Some residents of the two villages that may be impacted have used the land for agricultural purposes for generations, though technically it is owned by the state.
“There are villagers who lost their agricultural lands [in the past], but I don’t think they were compensated,” said a second villager.
Both he and the other villager who spoke to RFA said they didn’t expect to receive any compensation under the upcoming deal because they both previously lost land but received no money.
In 2018, Zhongya Yuxi Cement Lao Sole signed a contract with Salavan province to explore limestone over 10 hectares for a provincial cement factory from 2018 to 2023.
Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.