Mennonite groups oppose land speculator

A speculative land deal in the southern Ukraine is causing consternation among North American Mennonite groups with ties to the former Soviet state.

Paul Willms, formerly of Leamington, Ont., and now an American resident, is asking Mennonites on both sides of the border for $1 million to begin the process of reclaiming a half-million acres of land in the Zaporozhya region of the Ukraine that were once Mennonite farmland. If successful, Willms’ Delaware-registered Caobo Company would establish a land trust and begin developing a variety of agribusinesses and real estate developments.

At this point, Willms has mailed more than 15,000 glossy proposal packages to Mennonites across Canada and the U.S., asking them to invest at least $1,000 US each in his company. Those who invest must also sign a waiver giving up their own claim to any land the Ukrainian government might give the company.

Willms is hoping that investment by Mennonites in his venture will not only give him the needed capital to move ahead with the first phase of his plan, but also give it some legitimacy with the Ukrainian government. Caobo has requested that the land – now owned in part by individual Ukrainians – be turned over to the company in the name of those Mennonites it was expropriated from by the former Soviet government nearly a century ago.

Mennonite organizations are upset and worried.

“I certainly don’t think it’s ethical for a private company to negotiate with the Ukrainian government for the return of ‘Mennonite’ lands to a small, and perhaps only nominally Mennonite group, and then to claim that justice has been done to the Mennonites,” said Pam Peters-Pries, Mennonite Church Canada’s Support Services executive secretary.

Erwin Warkentin, general manager of the Mennonite Foundation, shares Peters-Pries’ views. “Can this company claim to speak for all Mennonites that have suffered loss as a result of leaving the Ukraine? And is this really the Mennonite way of looking at this, to claim restitution?”

The charity Friends of the Mennonite Centre Ukraine (FOMCU) is also concerned that the Caobo Company’s for-profit plan might damage the charity’s reputation and humanitarian efforts in the region.

The investment itself is risky, Warkentin notes. The company has no plans to pay dividends to its subscribers in the near future. The information package indicates that, if successful, Willms (as CEO) and his partner will collectively own 73 percent of the company’s 8.2 million offered shares if all million new shares are purchased by Mennonite investors. If that happens, the new investors will then collectively own about 12 percent of Caobo’s outstanding stock.

When asked by Canadian Mennonite magazine what would happen to investors’ money should the project get turned down by the Ukrainian authorities, Willms didn’t answer directly.

—Ross W. Muir and Tim Miller Dyck, for Meetinghouse