More than 46 "campesinos" from the Aguán Valley, in the far north-east of Honduras, have either been killed or have disappeared since the 2009 coup. In the 1970s, government policy encouraged agricultural cooperatives and collectives to establish themselves in the lightly-populated area, but after 1992 government policy favored privatization. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the new policy and one of the richest men in Honduras, Miguel Facussé, owned some in the lower Aguán, which he planted in African palms for his palm oil venture.