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Thai Sugar Firm Meets With Koh Kong Evictees
Koh Kong Sugar has offered to settle its yearslong dispute with Cambodian families who accuse its plantations of stealing their land, but the farmers remain wary of being able to secure a fair deal. The firm, a subsidiary of Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL), made the offer during a meeting Saturday in Bangkok with community representatives and the NGOs helping them. The 200 families say the loss of their farms to KSL’s two sugarcane plantations in Koh Kong province has driven them into poverty, and they want the land back. But Teng Kao, a representative of the families, said the firm preferred to pay them off…Koh Kong Sugar’s general manager, Thanakorn Burintarachart, who represented KSL at the meeting, did not respond to a request for comment.