forpressfoundFood + The 14 Worst Corporate EvildoersMon Dec 12, 2005 12:27
The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers
By A Global Exchange Report - Interesting related links you'll find below.
Posted on December 12, 2005,
Printed on December 12, 2005 http://www.alternet.org/story/29337/
Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account.
Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.
Several of the companies below are being sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a law that allows citizens of any nationality to sue in US federal courts for violations of international rights or treaties. When corporations
act like criminals, we have the right and the power to stop them, holding leaders and multinational corporations alike to the accords they have signed.
Around the world--in Venezuela, Argentina, India, and right here in the United States--citizens are stepping up to create democracy and hold corporations accountable to international law.
CATERPILLAR
For years, the Caterpillar Company has provided Israel with the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to end its corporate participation house demolition by cutting off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military.
In a letter to Caterpillar CEO James Owens, The Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights said: "allowing the delivery of your ... bulldozers to the Israeli army ... in the certain knowledge that they are being used for such action, might involve complicity or acceptance on the part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights..."
Peace activist Rachel Corrie [http://tinyurl.com/74qgo] was killed by a Caterpillar D-9, military bulldozer in 2003. She was run over while attempting to block the destruction a family's home in Gaza. Her family filed suit against Caterpillar in March 2005 charging that Caterpillar knowingly sold machines used to violate human rights. Since Corrie's death at least three more Palestinians have been killed in their homes by Israeli bulldozer demolitions. - [FPF - http://tinyurl.com/8djx5]
CHEVRON
The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18
billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. Llocal communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions.
Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in
the Niger Delta.
Additionally Chevron is responsible for widespread health problems in Richmond, California, where one of Chevron's largest refineries is located. Processing 350,000 barrels of oil a day, the Richmond refinery produces oil flares and toxic waste in the Richmond area.
As a result, local residents suffer from high rates of lupus, skin rashes, rheumatic fever, liver problems, kidney problems, tumors, cancer, asthma, and eye problems.
The Unocal Corporation, which recently became a subsidiary of Chevron, is an oil and gas company based in California with operations around the world. In December 2004, the company settled a lawsuit filed by 15 Burmese villagers, in which the villagers alleged Unocal's complicity in a range of human rights violations in Burma, including rape, summary execution, torture, forced labor and forced migration.
The next culprit is Coca-Cola, and you can read the rest here at:
Url.: http://www.alternet.org/story/29337/
VERY MUCH RELATED:
''A Cabal of Criminality'' Url.: http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=96628;title=APFN
Torture? Doctors? White coats smeared with blood...
Url.: http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=96630;title=APFN
FWD. BY:
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
* Help all the troops - of whatever nationality - to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries: AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE WERE FORCED TO PAY FOR BY TAXES - [http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm ] - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
-0-
Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]