Liberia: Land deals with foreign firms could sow seeds of conflict

Pa Sando, the town chief of Konja, in Grand Cape Mount county in Liberia, looks out across the farmland. 'I used to pick cocoa on this farm for more than 30 years. My grandfather planted it for us,' he says. 'All this area here was mine, and now it's all gone.' The land has been leased by Sime Darby Plantation (Liberia) Inc, owned by the Malaysian-based multinational Sime Darby, to grow trees for palm oil. Sando said he was never asked whether he wanted to give up his land – only that he saw the bulldozers in the bush and then his land was taken.