|
On 17 December 2017 five peasant families in Mpongwe District have been forcefully evicted from their land and their houses being destroyed. This eviction was the culmination of a land conflict between the local community of Lupala and the Zambia’s largest agribusiness company Zambeef. Zambeef Products PLC is a London Stock exchange listed Agribusiness conglomerate that owns an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 hectares of land in Zambia.
The German development finance institution (DFI) Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG) is a long-standing investor in Zambeef. Until today, DEG invested at least some USD 50 million in the company. Back in 2016, FIAN has informed DEG about the boiling land conflict in Lupala area and company staff treatment of the villagers. Due to legal pressure and personal threats from Zambeef (information retrieved from multiple interviews with locals) there has been a fluctuation of villagers so that five families - some 40 people - have been still living in Lupala at the time of the eviction in December 2018. Until today the people are struggling to get land – alternative land – as the means to become economically active and produce food to survive. One family is still for almost two years living in a shelter construct close to their former house and farm land.
Two days after the eviction, FIAN has demanded from the German government and DEG to conduct a human rights analysis of the eviction. Both refused the demand while the German government (BMZ) repeatedly explained that it is not responsible for this and referred FIAN to the DEG.
The question arises to what extend BMZ is in a position to regulate DEG in a way to comply with its extraterritorial human rights obligations. As BMZ is chairing the board of DEG and DEG is a 100% owned by the state bank KfW, it has considerable direct influence on DEG. Despite this position, the state institution dodges away its accountably and obligations. | 
