The Dak Lak People’s Court on Thursday sentenced six farm workers to between five and seven years in prison on charges of “destroying assets,” amid a longstanding dispute between an indigenous Ede village and a coffee company.
According to a report from state-owned media outlet, Cong Ly, Y Luh Nie and Y Coh Nie were each sentenced to seven years in prison; Y Luong Hlong, Y Nguot Hdok, and Y Hoan Bya, to six years in prison; and Y Rosi Nie to five years.
The six men were found guilty of cutting down and destroying coffee trees belonging to a local company, causing a loss of over VND2.7 billion (around US$108,000), according to the indictment, which also alleged the group incited and aided neighbors to create petitions to claim their land back.
Residents of Ea Pok town have long struggled with Ea Pok coffee, which has for decades held the rights to cultivate land residents say was once theirs.
According to the indictment summarized by Cong Ly, in 1987, the state-owned Ea Pok Coffee Company invested in planting coffee in Cu Mgar district. Local residents were contracted to look after the coffee trees and were allowed to keep a small part of the harvest as payment. The arrangement left many in debt, villagers reported to Radio Free Asia in 2022.
In 2018, the Ea Pok Coffee company was privatized, and the government’s share was reduced to 32 percent. A year later, villagers petitioned the government to restore their farming rights, without success.
After going private, the company announced it would replace some of the coffee trees with durian, avocado, and jackfruit. Though residents opposed the plan, the company started destroying coffee trees in 2022 to clear the way for the new crops leading to mass protests in May 2022.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Abby Seiff.