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Background on Body Shop supplier Daabon Organic's displacement of Las Pavas Community

In the early hours of 14 July 2009, members of the National Police and the Mobile Riot Police Squad surrounded the community of Las Pavas, blocking the movement of the families living there and those accompanying them.   Later, at around 1:00 p.m., the police entered the community, destroyed seven campesino homes, seized tools, and fulfilled the order to displace the 123 families, which include several pregnant women and approximately 100 children, including newborns.

(from COLOMBIA URGENT ACTION: Ask Colombian government to guarantee safe return to the families of Las Pavas)

 

The Body Shop, the cosmetics giant that claims to source ingredients from companies that protect local farmers' rights, buys palm oil from an organisation that pushed for the eviction of peasant families to develop a new plantation.

Daabon Organics, a Colombian firm that provides the British chain with 90% of all its palm oil, was part of a consortium that asked the courts to remove farmers from a sprawling ranch 320km north of the capital Bogotá with a plan to grow African palm. Police in riot gear evicted the farmers in July.

(From Body Shop ethics under fire after Colombian peasant evictions, The Observer, 13 September, 2009)

 

On 21 August 2009, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPTers) Laura Ciaghi, Chris Knestrick and Eloy García visited the displaced community of Las Pavas and, accompanied by a member of the community, viewed firsthand the ongoing destruction of the communal forest once used for wood gathering, hunting, and fishing.  The forest lies about a two-hour walk outside the township of Buenos Aires, where the displaced families are living.  During their visit, the CPTers could hear the noise of the power saws and bulldozers clearing the trees around them.

(From COLOMBIA: The destruction of Las Pavas's communal forest continues)

 

Las Pavas community member sings ballad about destruction of his home