Madagascar, Daewoo and Neo-colonialism

So what do Madagascar and South Korea have in common? On the face of it, very little. The former is a country in development, the second is an economic power. One is in Africa, the other in Asia. The Malagasy have uncontaminated land. The Koreans lack cultivatable land. Madagascar has 28 inhabitants per square kilometer. South Korea has 493 inhabitants per square kilometer.

However, the Malagasy government recently signed an agreement with Daewoo Logistics, the shipping and natural resource development arm of Korean conglomerate, Daewoo, to lease 1.2 million hectares of cultivatable land for 99 years to grow corn and produce palm oil. This is an area nearly half the size of Belgium and over half of all cultivable land on the island.

Deals like these are understandable. Asian countries are looking for food security for their growing populations. Countries with undeveloped resources are looking for revenue and job creation. Unfortunately this deal seems to be one-sided because, under its stated conditions, the land is being offered for free. That’s right…zip, nada, zilch.

Deals like these smack of neo-colonialism in Africa. Will Malagasy citizens benefit solely from wage-slave farming jobs?  Will tax levies on subsequent farms generate revenues for the government of Madagascar? Perhaps, but, at what cost? Yet another African rainforest will be clear-cut for profit.

Subsequently I won’t be buying Daewoo products…if I can help it. I suspect that now I’ll have nightmares about bulldozers, displacement of indigenous peoples and trade slavery.