The French wine and beer giant, owner in particular of the Nicolas chain of stores, is the subject of an investigation by the Anti-Terrorist Public Prosecutor’s Office, according to information released this Friday by the Radio France investigative cell. An NGO suspects him of having financed armed militias in the Central African Republic in order to continue his activities in the country.
Sugar cane stretches as far as the eye can see. In this peaceful landscape, life seems interrupted only by the noise of the editing. It’s harvest time. Hundreds of men have been busy since dawn amidst 5,000 hectares of plantations. We are in Ngakobo, a remote area of the Central African Republic, 400 kilometers east of the capital, Bangui. “It’s an atypical small town that you reach after hours of hiking,” says a French humanitarian who has been exploring the region. You can see fields as far as the eye can see and right next to it is a factory.” That factory is the Sucaf RCA sugar refinery, the largest in the country. It is owned by French company Somdiaa, itself a subsidiary of French industrial giant Castel.
The Sucaf RCA factory, part of the Castel Group, is located in Ngakobo, about 400 km from the Central African capital (Nicolas Dewit – Radio Franc).
At its head, businessman Pierre Castel achieved the sugar monopoly in the Central African Republic 20 years ago. A dominant position achieved with the help of former President François Bozizé. The French billionaire, now France’s tenth fortune at the age of 96, has never hidden his closeness to African heads of state. “I know them all. It helps,” he told Challenges magazine in July 2014. Africans are grateful when you support them. None of them betrayed me.”
interethnic war
Today, his group is highlighted by an American NGO, The Sentry, an organization co-founded by actor George Clooney. In a report, she accuses him of having paid money to local rebel militias in order to safeguard his economic interests. Allegations that the Castel Group rejects. But in France, the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office took up the case and launched an investigation into suspected complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In question: Facts that took place ten years ago. In 2012, the political situation in Central African Republic deteriorated significantly. A coalition of armed militias, the “Séléka”, is determined to overthrow President Bozizé from power. Almost everywhere there were clashes between these rebels and the “anti-balaka”, who presented themselves in the villages as self-defense groups. The conflict is interethnic in nature. The Seleka are mostly Muslims – a minority in the country – while the anti-balaka are mostly Christians.
The town of Ngakobo, where the Castel plantations are located, is not immune to outbreaks of violence either. In December, Seleka men attacked the sugar refinery. Two people are killed and nine others injured. In Paris, at the headquarters of the Somdiaa company, the decision is made to close the Sucaf factory.
Ngakobo is hit by civil war violence but the Sucaf factory is reopening as abuses continue. (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
At the beginning of 2014, despite the continuing uncertainty, the company believed that the conditions were in place to resume operations, barely a year after the decision to close. “We are reopening the site, but we are doing it under the protection of the army and within the framework of a control that goes back to the embassy,” explains Pierre-Olivier Sur, the lawyer of Alexandre Vilgrain, CEO of Somdiaa Zeit. After the site reopened, no fewer than twenty NGOs followed each other on site. Everything happened under the control of these NGOs and under international military protection.”
However, the NGOs we contacted told us that they had spent very little time in the town of Ngakobo. As for the soldiers of the Minusca – the United Nations peace-restoration mission in the Central African Republic – they proved not to be very effective in ending the conflicts between armed groups. “I saw the Minusca soldiers in Ngakobo,” says one of the rare French humanitarian workers who stayed in the village for several days. Unfortunately, as was the case all too often in the Central African Republic, their actions and interventions have always been to the soldiers in general, remaining compartmentalized in their camp and in no way preventing the armed groups from freely deploying.”
Suspicion of financial agreement
Attacks, then reprisals, assassinations, thefts… The people of Ngakobo live in fear and terror. One of the most powerful Séléka militias, the “Unité pour la paix en Centrafrique” (UPC), now controls Ouaka province. His gunmen settle in Ngakobo. Some settle in premises managed by Sucaf. The head of the UPC, Ali Darassa – who is now suspected of mass crimes by the United Nations – becomes an almost natural interlocutor for French diplomacy and the leader of the Castel Group subsidiary.
Armed militias are taking over the region where the Sucaf factory is located, and some are even settling on the company’s premises. (Nicolas Dewit – Radio Franc)
But for the NGO The Sentry, Ali Darassa was not just a simple “interlocutor”. The organization, which relies on numerous witness testimonies and internal company security reports, claims a tacit financial agreement was struck between Sucaf and the UPC rebels to ensure the site’s security. According to The Sentry, Ali Darassa and his deputy could have raised €258,000 in cash over five years.
In fact, an internal security report to the Castel Group company that we had access to shows that the UPC would have asked for money to secure the Sucaf site. In this document dated January 21, 2019, the author writes: “Reception in my office by the deputy commander of the Seleka, who is demanding food rights from Sucaf. These are more or less veiled threats. They are demanding that management give them a week a week bonus for backing it up.”
The Castel Group considers these allegations to be fabricated and unfounded and has commissioned an internal investigation. “After almost eight months of intensive work (…) no trace of an agreement between the management of the site and one or another armed group to continue their activity could be detected,” affirms the French lawyer of the group. Bruno Quentin.
A “consensual” brawl
However, representatives of the group admit to having given in to a form of blackmail by armed groups. As elsewhere in the country, the Seleka militias had set up tollbooths around the town of Ngakobo. “There were UPC checkpoints demarcating the entrance to the city. On the one we came through, I saw two children no older than 12 with their Kalashnikovs in their arms,” says a French humanitarian. In these areas not under government control, goods could not circulate without a tax being paid to the armed groups.
The Seleka militia had set up checkpoints and only allowed vehicles that paid a tax through. (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
The Castel Group’s sugar transporters therefore had to pay the militiamen if they wanted to enter or leave the site. In an internal company document we saw, an employee at the Ngakobo factory wrote on May 16, 2017: “Ali Darassa and his employees have imposed a customs tax of 150,000 CFA francs.” [environ 230 euros] by truck transporting sugar from Ngakobo to Bangui. The tax must be paid when leaving the site.” The brawl is said to have lasted for several years. Another document from November 2020 states that “new taxes have been levied by the Seleka for the transport of sugar.” They are asking for 80,000 CFA francs per truck. If the truck is not loaded on the same day, it has to pay an additional 40,000 francs.
Did the Sucaf airlines pay the UPC on every flight? “I believe in it,” replies Pierre-Olivier Sur, the lawyer for the former CEO of Somdiaa, of which Sucaf is a subsidiary. , as a matter of habit, and with the absolute consent of everyone, including the French embassy.” French diplomacy declined to answer questions from Radio France’s investigative unit on the matter, saying “a criminal investigation is ongoing”.
But according to the NGO The Sentry, the alleged “deal” between Sucaf and UPC would have gone further. UPC militiamen were reportedly responsible for seizing sugar imported from Sudan to be illegally marketed in the Central African Republic. This sugar would then have been repackaged in Ngakobo in bags labeled “Sucaf”. The Sentry claims that a commission levied on the resale of this sugar would have been attributed to the UPC rebels. “According to the research, Sucaf’s resale of smuggled sugar amounted to one million euros in 2015 alone,” says Clémence Witt, the NGO’s French lawyer. We also know from testimonies that the percentage given back to armed groups could reach 50%. Once again the Castel Group is contesting en bloc.
An agreement was reportedly reached between the UPC militiamen and the Sucaf factory. Several hundred thousand euros could have been handed over to the militiamen. (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
In total, the rebels were paid a few thousand dollars, but “at the push of a button,” emphasizes lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur. In his view, this affair is not comparable to the one against the cement manufacturer Lafarge, which is suspected of having paid millions of dollars to members of the terrorist organization Daesh to continue its activities in Syria (listen to our program about Lafarge in Syria on). “We did not cross the yellow line. We are way below that,” emphasizes Me Sur. Above all, there is no causal link between this money, which we distribute in a minimalist manner, and the abuses that, if any, could be called crimes against humanity.”
For the former head of Somdiaa, the sums that could have been paid to the rebel militias would therefore be ridiculous. However, that money could have been used to fuel the armed conflict in this country, one of the poorest in the world. “We’re not dealing with extremely large amounts, but if we see the price of a Kalashnikov on the informal Central African market, a few thousand dollars can buy us a certain number of them,” explains Benoît Lallau, teacher and researcher at Sciences Po Lille, specialist in conflicts. And of course that can put a strain on local war dynamics.”
“They shot him at point blank range”
The state has not controlled anything in Ouaka province since October 2013. UPC General Ali Darassa is appointed Military Prefect. From then on he felt at home everywhere. He doesn’t hesitate to go to the premises managed by Sucaf in Ngakobo to stay overnight or use the factory’s WiFi network. When he landed in the village, he was accompanied by dozens of men in work overalls in pickup trucks equipped with rocket launchers or machine guns. The population seems to be terrorized by these militiamen, judging by this Sucaf document to which we had access: “On December 14, 2020, the students of the Sucaf primary school left the school after the arrival of Ali Darassa. The number of Seleka entering the school yard frightened the children, who all ran out of the classrooms. There is widespread panic.”
Tragic events will occur almost daily for several years. On February 7, 2015, the factory was attacked with rockets. Three people working on the crystallization floor were injured and evacuated to the hospital. A few hours later that same day, a welder from Sucaf was killed by Ali Darassa’s men. “They shot him at close range,” says a safety report from the Central African factory. Another report speaks of an “escape in the village” on July 8, 2016, after the “murder of MEINE, who was returning from the plots where he had cut the sticks”.
The UPC militia terrorizes, murders and robs the residents of Ngakobo and several employees of the Sucaf factory are murdered (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
In these conditions, hasn’t the Somdiaa company put its employees at risk? It employed many anti-balaka, sworn enemies of the UPC, on its plantations. “The cost-benefit balance is well thought out,” replies lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur. Will we close the refugee camp? [Ngakobo abritait un site de déplacés près du village ouvrier, ndlr] ? Are we going to lay off the 1,200 people? Are we going to leave more than 10,000 people without schools, without hospitals and without motherhood?” For Me Sur, it was primarily a “humanitarian” decision made by keeping the factory open during the war.
A massacre in a refugee camp
Note that the investigations by the French judiciary do not relate to a possible endangerment of the Sucaf staff. But the Central Office for Combating Crimes Against Humanity (OCLCH) gendarmes will look into another allegation from The Sentry: possible material and logistical assistance to armed militias. Indeed, passages from safety reports written at the factory during the civil war may indicate that the head of the UPC regularly came to ask for small “services” from Sucaf employees or managers.
The leader of the UPC militiamen, Ali Darassa, regularly visited the Sucaf factory to request “services”. / (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
Excerpts:
July 14, 2017: “The factory manager met with Ali Darassa today. Ali Darassa has requested diesel and sugar.”
December 14, 2020: “Ali Darassa asked our workshop to fix the headlights on his pickup trucks. He has promised to go tonight when his headlights are fixed.”
February 7, 2021: “Arrival of Ali Darassa on site with four pick-up trucks and heavily armed men. One of their pickup trucks has a punctured tire. They demand the use of our tires.”
According to The Sentry, if these repairs took place, one would have to consider possible complicity in crimes by providing funds. One event in particular raises questions on this subject. On November 14, 2018, the UPC boss again asked Sucaf to fix one of its Toyota pickups. A few hours later, 95 kilometers away, militiamen from the former Seleka coalition attacked a camp for displaced Christians in the village of Alindao. The site is completely burned down. 112 people die, including many women and children. For the United Nations, the Alindao massacre could be classified as a crime against humanity. The NGO The Sentry raises the possibility that the Toyota vehicle that could have been repaired in Ngakobo was used for these abuses.
Sucaf provided services to Ali Darassa’s militia (repairs, repairs, refueling) who committed abuses in the region. (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
For its part, the Castel Group once again rejects incriminating and unconfirmed allegations. For reasons of justice, the suspicion of complicity in the provision of funds is usually very difficult to substantiate, we also say on the part of the investigators. “There must be a moral element, that is, knowledge of the use and the means made available to commit possible abuses,” explains General Jean-Philippe Reiland, head of the “Centre for Combating Crimes Against Humanity.” “. very complicated cases where it is necessary to prove the responsibility of the company – or its managers – for the alleged actions.”
The question remains: why does Ali Darassa continue to be welcomed into the walls of the Sucaf factory after such abuses? News of the Alindao massacre did indeed spread very quickly. A few hours later, a Sucaf employee mentions this in his report, which is sent to the headquarters of the parent company Somdiaa in Paris. “This man tried to take power by force,” replies the lawyer of Alexandre Vilgrain, the former head of Somdiaa. He has institutionalized his authority and power. When he arrives, we open the doors for him. He’s the prefect. What did you want to do?” says Pierre-Olivier Sur.
“We had to retire”
Without specifically mentioning the case of the Castel Group and its subsidiaries, the head of the Central Office for Combating Crimes Against Humanity warns business leaders. Sustaining economic activity in a war zone exposes companies to reputational and crime risks. For her part, The Sentry’s French lawyer is convinced that Castel should have ceased operations at the beginning of the war. “The vast majority of economic partners and companies that intervene in war zones withdraw as soon as a conflict arises or the security situation deteriorates,” affirms Me Clémence Witt [dans le cas de la Sucaf en Centrafrique, ndlr]The time period is particularly problematic. The facts denounced in this report would have a period of late 2014 to early 2021, she continues. We have been supporting a group that commits atrocities for six full years. Prudence, moderation and justice would have called for a retreat.”
For six years, the Sucaf continued to operate, supporting a militia that was carrying out horrific atrocities in the region. (Nicolas Dewit – Radio France)
This withdrawal will finally take place in June 2022 through the liquidation of the Sucaf company, by decision of the Somdiaa Board of Directors. “It was clear that the situation in the Central African Republic in the areas where Sucaf RCA was operating was becoming more complex day by day, making it almost impossible to carry out the activity and with no prospect of improvement,” reasons Bruno Quentin in an email , the French lawyer of the Castel Group.
The Russians are in control
Even today, the situation in Ngakobo, like the rest of the Central African Republic, is extremely chaotic. Russian militiamen from the Wagner paramilitary group have seized most of the country’s resources. They are also leading a campaign aimed at destabilizing French interests and in particular the Castel Group’s beer activities. Wagner is suspected of being behind an arson attack that devastated the group’s beer warehouse in the capital Bangui in March 2023.
In this context, it will certainly be difficult for the anti-terror prosecutor’s office to conduct investigations. “Today, the Central African Republic is in a very strong alliance with Moscow. Cooperation with the French judiciary is difficult to imagine,” said Judge Mathieu Olivier, a journalist with Jeune Afrique. In a country still in civil war and where France is not, he does “At the moment I don’t really have an exceptional image, it will be very complicated to carry out investigations on the ground.” The NGO The Sentry, For her part, which has already made numerous documents available to investigators, states that several witnesses, who would have enabled her to write her report, were willing to testify before the French judiciary.
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