Villagers in Cameroon have denounced the use of tear gas by authorities to break up their protest on March 25 against the replanting of oil palm trees by the plantation company Socapalm on disputed land in the country’s southwest. Residents of the village of Apouh à Ngog say the land should have been returned to them, and that 6,000 young banana trees they had planted to assert their claim have now been uprooted.

Félicité Ngo Bissou, president of the Association of Women Residents of Socapalm- Édéa (known by its French acronym, AFRISE), accused Socapalm’s Luxembourg-based owner, Socfin, of “using a strategy of intimidation and beatings to prevent us from accessing our lands.”

“That’s why they came armed to the teeth, uprooted all the bananas, and are planting oil palm trees everywhere,” she told Mongabay by telephone on Apr. 3.

Apouh à Ngog is is one of several villages at the center of a long-standing land conflict between residents of the Édéa commune and Socapalm. Villagers say that since the plantation was established in 1969, the company’s activities have steadily encroached upon their ancestral lands, leaving them with little space for farming, housing, or burials. In the case of Apouh, villagers say Socapalm has occupied almost all of their land.

Ngo Bissou told Mongabay that the piece of land where Socapalm has planted new oil palms is part of 3,712 hectares (9,173 acres) that the company is contractually bound to return to the villagers under a clause in the 2000 lease agreement.

In 2023, Socapalm started removing aging palm trees from this area, and in January 2025, Ngo Bissou and a group of women led by AFRISE planted banana seedlings there.

In an interview recorded by a local journalist, Apouh resident Janvier Etamane said Édéa’s subprefect, Hector Fame, the district’s highest-ranking official, had instructed that Socapalm and local residents must reach an agreement before the company could begin replanting. “Suddenly, we saw countless armed soldiers wearing bulletproof vests surrounding the Socapalm workers as they replanted — that’s when we, the villagers, rose up,” Etamane said.

Footage from Socapalm’s operation filmed by Ngo Bissou shows the use of tear gas by the national gendarmerie to disperse protesters.

“The gendarmes on March 25th 2025 were present to prevent trespassing and allow our teams to proceed with replanting the area (this is not an extension),” Socfin spokesperson Ludovic Saint-Pol wrote in response to questions from Mongabay. The replanting went as planned, he said, “with no notable incident,” and the only Socfin security personnel at the scene were members of a village watch committee (local youth recruited by the company to secure the plantation against trespassers), who he stressed are not armed.

Saint-Pol also denied that company workers had pulled up the villagers’ young banana plants. “They were not uprooted. However, we simply continued our replanting work in the designated area, where plots had been cleared in 2024 but had not yet been replanted. At the start of the work, these young plants were no longer visible, as they had been completely covered by the ground cover plant used as part of our program.”

Earlier this year, Socfin told Mongabay that the company is no longer occupying any contested land and the responsibility of returning retroceded land lies with the government. Saint-Pol stated the company’s view that the piece of land at Édéa that was replanted at at the end of March is not part of the land to be returned; it was only acquired by Socapalm in a merger in 2010, and no dispute was raised over it until 2023.

Reached by phone, Édéa subprefect Fame told Mongabay: “If you want to know who mobilized the police, contact Socapalm. I wasn’t the one who mobilized the law enforcement officers.”

In the aftermath of the protest over the replanting, AFRISE and 50 other local and international organizations wrote an open letter to the senior official in the Sanaga Maritime region, where the plantation is located, demanding that the authorities halt Socapalm’s activity and investigate the incident.

Socfin has been accused of land grabbing, human rights abuses, and sexual violence in many of the countries where it operates. The company commissioned sustainability consultancy the Earthworm Foundation to investigate community grievances in Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cambodia in 2023. The consultancy has confirmed many of the allegations.

Its report on Socapalm, published in February, substantiated allegations of land grabbing and sexual harassment at the Édéa plantation. Earthworm noted that despite acknowledging its obligations in 2020, Socapalm has not returned land to the Édéa communities as promised.

Ngo Bissou said villagers have remained at the disputed site while the company continues its replanting exercise accompanied by gendarmes.

Banner image: Villagers protesting the re-planting of oil palms on Socapalm’s plantation at Édéa. Image courtesy Félicité Ngo Bissou/AFRISE.

Source: mongabay.com

By Witness Radio team.

In the Hoima District, Western Uganda, an urgent and immediate action is crucial to halt an ongoing land grab. The work of community land rights defenders, activists, and local leaders has unfortunately been criminalized, with thirty-four (34) people from Rwobunyonyi, Kirindasojo, and Kihohoro villages falsely accused and sent to different prisons in the Hoima district.

Criminal files No. CRB 330-2022 has Busobozi Patrick, Kaija Phillip Osborn, Mbabazi Isaya, Wembabazi Denis, Tumusiime David, and Abitegeka David charged with aggravated robbery, while the CRB 84-2023 file has Magezi Lawrence, Kaahwa Nelson Komugisa Junior, Mugenyi Vincent, and others on murder charges. The files have been established to gang the work of community defenders and activists.

According to sections 189 and 286 (2) of the Penal Code Act cap 120, both offenses carry the death penalty upon conviction.

As observed above, community land rights defenders, activists, and local leaders have been targeted since 2022. The number of targeted defenders keeps on growing. Sadly, those who have been remanded to prison are still waiting for their cases to be tried, which is tantamount to judicial harassment and persecution.

Witness Radio findings indicate that one Fred Kato Mugumba allegedly orchestrated the land grab. He is backed by officials from Hoima police, Hoima district Office of Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP), and judicial staff. Mugambe and his accomplices aim to evict over 500 small-scale farming families from their ancestral land.

If the land grab is successful, the community will suffer a devastating loss of 800 hectares of land used for food cultivation. This loss will lead to children dropping out of school, families breaking apart due to lack of resources, and a significant increase in food insecurity, hunger, poverty, and illiteracy levels in Uganda.

The affected communities have a deep-rooted connection to the land, having lived on it for over 50 years without disruption. The ongoing persecution by Mugamba and his agents is, therefore, particularly shocking and unjust.

The same land almost ended the life of Junior Lands Minister Sam Mayanja, who was targeted with gunshots when he visited the contested land on August 24, 2023, to protect land grab victims. The current situation highlights the urgent need for intervention from a powerful office.

Witness Radio has, among other interventions, petitioned the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) and urged the Chief Prosecutor’s office to call the file from Hoima High Court.

The office of the DPP is a constitutional body mandated to direct police to investigate any information of a criminal nature, institute criminal proceedings against any person or authority in any court other than a court-martial, take over and continue any criminal proceedings instituted by any person or authority, and discontinue at any stage before judgment any criminal proceedings.

Uganda is experiencing an influx of land-based investments, which have fueled land-grabbing tendencies and criminalization of community land rights and environmental defenders and activists’ work.

In the petition, Witness Radio alleges that Fred Kato Mugamba fabricated these charges in collusion with John Angwadya, a former local council member and chairperson of one of the targeted villages, Rwabunyonyi, as part of a strategy to facilitate the unlawful eviction of the community from their land.

“It is deeply concerning that the accused remain in protracted detention despite the constitutional guarantee of a fair and speedy trial and right to liberty. This is a clear violation of defenders’ fundamental rights and raises serious concerns about the criminal justice system’s integrity in this matter. The prolonged delay in their trial and the apparent ulterior motive behind the charges necessitate immediate intervention to prevent the miscarriage of justice,” the petition reads in part.

Despite multiple attempts by the community to engage various stakeholders, including Hoima’s district leadership, the Hoima District Police, the State House Land Protection Unit, and the State Minister for Lands, Dr. Sam Mayanja, their efforts have been futile. Instead of finding justice, those who resist are met with criminal charges and continued evictions, leaving many families landless and helpless.

“The efforts of our clients and community individuals engaging the different offices are viewed as a threat to the evictors, hence fabricating different charges against the accused persons to pave the way for the land grabbers to occupy the land in the absence of the accused persons. It is evident that the pending charges of murder and aggravated robbery are being made as a tool to harass and deprive our clients and family members,” the petition further reads.

In the petition to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Witness Radio has called for an urgent review of the circumstances surrounding the arrests and prosecutions of the accused. Witness Radio is requesting the issuance of a Nolle Prosequi to quash the charges and the immediate release of the prisoners.

The organization also demands that the case be expedited to prevent further unwarranted deprivation of liberty and calls for an independent investigation into any potential abuses within the criminal justice system.