Weekly Report - 23 June 2011 (WR-11-25)

HONDURAS | Land deal. The peasant organisation, Movimiento Campesino del Aguán (Muca) and prominent businessman Miguel Facussé, head of the Dinant Corporation, have reached a deal following mediation efforts by the government of President Porfirio Lobo, ending months of tension over land rights in the Bajo Aguán area, some 600km north-east of the capital [WR-10-46]. Under the deal the government will buy 4,045.7 hectares (ha) at a price of some US$7,000/ha from Facussé with the objective of selling it on to the peasants in the long term. The deal is a U-turn for Facussé who initially claimed much of the land was worth US$15,800/ha. His change of heart has been attributed to the negative publicity generated by the dispute, which left more than 42 dead, and caused two European sources (the German Investment and Development Bank, DEG and France's EDF Trading) to pull funding for his biodiesel project – which was to be supplied from his African oil palm farms in the Bajo Aguán.

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