World Bank to fund ‘risky’ Shell project in Nigeria

May 24— The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Friends of the Earth (FoE) today denounced the World Bank’s plans to approve a $15 million loan to a financial intermediary that would provide subcontracting services to Shell Oil Corporation in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.

The loan, which would be provided by the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), would provide hard currency to banks in the Niger Delta who could then lend to subcontractors providing services to the Shell Oil Corporation.

It is set to be approved next week. Internal IFC documents leaked to IPS and FoE reveal that the IFC recognizes this association with Shell represents a “reputational risk” to the World Bank.

“This loan sets an alarming precedent for a number of reasons,” said Daphne Wysham, an energy policy analyst with the Institute for Policy Studies.

“It is being prepared without any accountability to World Bank policies; and it will provide support to one of the wealthiest and most controversial corporations on the planet in a region where human rights abuses continue to be commonplace.”

“Rather than alleviating poverty among the people of the Delta, this project will simply continue the pattern of environmental devastation, corruption, human rights abuse and corporate subsidies that have plagued the region for decades,” Wysham continued.

“This loan is an end run around vital environmental and human rights protections,” said Carol Welch, deputy director for international programs with Friends of the Earth. “This debacle reveals why we need serious scrutiny of all World Bank oil, gas, and mining projects.”

Shell has been the target of consumer boycotts, human rights, and environmental campaigns since 1993. Mass protests by the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta against environmental devastation and human rights abuses by Shell and the Nigerian government forced the transnational oil company to cease operations in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

The most famous spokesperson for the Ogoni people, the writer and activist Ken Saro Wiwa, was hanged together with eight other Ogoni men, by the Nigerian government in 1995, after speaking out against Shell’s devastation of his homeland. Shell Oil made no attempt to intervene or denounce Saro Wiwa’s hanging. Although Shell has abandoned Ogoniland, oil wells and flow-lines in Ogoniland continue to spew crude oil.

The people of Ogoni, largely fishermen and farmers, have seen their livelihoods destroyed by the constant oil spills. The most recent Shell spill occurred on May 9, 2001, in Ogoniland.

The CIA recently revealed that years of oil spills in the Niger Delta, which have yet to be cleaned up, amount to the equivalent of 10 times the Alaskan Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Nonetheless, the IFC plans to approve the loan via a streamlined process wherein the project would not require an environmental impact assessment, World Bank board approval, or adherence to any World Bank policies or guidelines. This is because the loan provides funding to a financial intermediary and, therefore, according to IFC policies, does not require it to follow IFC guidelines or policies.

Source: Institute for Policy Studies

Secretive Bilderberg group to meet in Sweden

By Peter Starck

Stockholm, Sweden, May 23— EU enlargement and the bloc’s military role, NATO’s future, and developments in Russia and China will top the agenda when senior Western business leaders, politicians and a sprinkle of royalty meet in Sweden this week.

The Bilderberg group, a semi-secret discussion forum for the Western world’s power elite, will hold its annual meeting in the town of Stenungsund on the Swedish west coast on May 24-28, Swedish newspapers reported on Wednesday.

A 900-meter long metal fence has been erected around Hotel Stenungsbaden, the meeting venue, to keep intruders away, regional daily Goteborgs-Posten said, publishing a picture of the fenced-in hotel.

Anti-globalization demonstrators are expected to protest outside and local police see the event as a useful training exercise ahead of the mid-June European Union summit in the city of Gothenburg 30 miles to the south.

The Bilderberg group, named after the hotel where it first met in 1954, was formed early in the Cold War era in reaction to a growing Communist threat. Today, many critics see it as a conspiracy and an agent of a new capitalist world order.

Bilderberg member Jacob Wallenberg, chairman of the board of commercial bank SEB and head of Sweden’s influential Wallenberg family whose empire has a finger in most big Swedish industries, played down the group’s importance.

“This is one of many meetings all over the world where decision-makers get together,” he told the daily Dagens Nyheter, which earlier published the main agenda topics. Invited as speakers, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were groomed at Bilderberg meetings before rising to fame as US President and British Prime Minister respectively.

EU Commission President Romano Prodi, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson and European Central Bank Governor Wim Duisenberg all have a past as Bilderbergers.

“Even though no formal decisions are made...this group, together with many others, has contributed to shaping the kind of capitalism we have today and cemented the world’s leading business elites together,” Goran Greider, editor-in-chief of Dala-Demokraten, a regional Swedish daily, said in a live studio debate on Sweden’s TV4 television.

Bilderberg participants abide by the so-called Chatham House rule, which forbids everyone present from disclosing what anybody else has said.

“The secrecy is regarded as very provocative. Men in power talk towards consensus behind closed doors on timely issues on the political agenda,” Ulf Bjereld, a political science professor at Gothenburg University, said.

Bilderberg members include former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, US Senators Christopher Dodd, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, France’s central bank governor Jean-Claude Trichet and former IMF heads Michel Camdessus and Stanley Fischer.

Also listed are the chairmen of car makers Fiat, Giovanni Agnelli, and DaimlerChrysler, Juergen Schrempp, former British finance minister Kenneth Clarke, Dutch Queen Beatrix and Xerox Corp CEO Paul Allaire.

Source: Reuters

Powell attacked in Kenya over US AIDS policy

By Adrian Blomfield

Nairobi, Kenya, May 27— Secretary of State Colin Powell (pictured right) came under fire on Sunday from Kenyan AIDS activists angry at what they called the US government’s inadequate response to the fight against the disease.

Powell, in Kenya on a four-nation tour of Africa, pledged to keep the search for an AIDS cure high on Washington’s agenda but reacted more cautiously to calls for cheaper AIDS drugs for the world’s poorest continent.

“President Bush and his administration will do everything they can to seek out and find that cure, a cure that will hopefully be available to people all over the world,” he told an AIDS workshop in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slum.

Earlier Patricia Ochieng, an HIV-positive activist with the Kenya Coalition for Access to Essential Medicines, appealed to Powell to allow Africa to import cheap generic AIDS drugs, a move bitterly opposed by the global pharmaceutical industry.

“I do have a very special appeal to you and the US government to give more funds to Africa for treatment and to promote generic competition,’’ she told Powell in a departure from the text of a speech approved by US officials.

Ochieng said anti-retroviral drugs could have saved the lives of her husband and child, who both died of AIDS.

“I felt so bad knowing that there were drugs that could maybe have prolonged his life but we could not afford this medicine and yet they were there.”

The Kenya Coalition described a recent pledge by the US government for $200 million toward UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s appeal for a global AIDS fund as woefully inadequate.

“This contribution represents merely two percent of the up to $10 billion that health experts are estimating will be needed a year to control AIDS in Africa,” it said in a statement released to coincide with Powell’s visit.

AIDS drugs controversy

Activists said they had been prevented by US officials from unfurling a banner saying “Put lives before profit” during the workshop.

“I got called by the (US) chief of security and told, ‘If you cause any trouble or put up the banner you are really, really going to get it from the police,’” said Bertha Gachui, a member of the coalition.

US embassy officials said they had no information about the alleged incident.

The coalition also urged Powell to support a controversial bill expected for debate in Kenya’s parliament early next month that would allow the country to import cheap generic medicines, including antiretroviral AIDS drugs that have helped reduce the number of AIDS deaths in the West by 75 percent.

The legislation is opposed by multinational drugs giants which last month were badly bruised in South Africa after abandoning a court case seeking to challenge a similar law.

Triple combination AIDS drugs cost well over $1,000 per patient each year, campaigners say. With more than half of Kenya’s population earning less than $1 a day, only about 1,000 of Kenya’s 2.2 million AIDS sufferers have access to the drugs.

Powell expressed his sympathy over the problem but made no firm pledges to reduce the cost of the drugs.

Source: Reuters

Dam project displaces thousands of Borneo’s indigenous people

By Reese Erlich

Long Lawen Village, Malaysia, May 21— As village elder Sian Enjau performs a tribal war dance, he shouts loudly before pouncing on an imaginary human prey.

Enjau, whose ear lobes are distended with heavy earrings, is performing the ancient head hunting dance of the Kenyah — one of Borneo Island’s 37 ethnic groups, who are known collectively as Dayaks or “people of upper river regions."

But these days, the Dayaks have a tangible and far more difficult war ahead of them. About 10,000 of Borneo’s 200,000 indigenous peoples have already been forced off their ancestral lands so the Malaysian government can build a massive dam, scheduled to open in four years.

The $5 billion Bakun Dam on the Balui River will flood a rain forest area the size of Singapore and is expected to generate 2,400 megawatts of electricity, making it the biggest hydroelectric dam in southeastern Asia.

Government officials maintain that the dam will help bring new industry and much-needed economic development to Sarawak’s 2 million inhabitants.

But critics say the dam will destroy the habitat of more than 100 endangered species, produce far more electric power than needed and unnecessarily displace tribal minorities, including the Kenyah, Ukit, Kayan and Penan tribes.

A group of Berkeley, California environmentalists are footing half the bill to build an alternative electric project in a Kenyah village to show that there are less disruptive alternatives to large dam projects.

Most Dayaks still live in traditional longhouses in remote areas, utilize communal lands for cultivation and hunting and use dugout canoes to travel down rivers and tributaries. And most displaced villagers strongly oppose the dam.

“I really protest it,” said Enjau. “A majority of us don’t want Bakun to be built.”

Critics also say the dam is yet another example of environmental degradation of the Sarawak ecosystem. Malaysia’s largest state, Sarawak is also one of its richest in terms of natural resources such as oil, lumber and natural gas. It is also home to the forest-dwelling Dayaks.

Three-quarters of Sarawak, or about 21 million acres, was originally covered with primary tropical rain forest. Today, less than 1.2 million acres are left, along with a few scattered national parks and reserves, thanks to the clear-cutting practices of timber companies. Some experts predict that the state will be logged out within four to five years.

Many displaced Kenyah complain that they can no longer live off the land as they once did in their villages, since hunting and fishing grounds are miles away.

Unable to farm rice the traditional way — by allowing cleared plots to lie fallow after two seasons — they now must use expensive fertilizers and pesticides.

Many Kenyah are unemployed and will soon exhaust their government stipend. Moreover, alcoholism and drug addiction have become serious problems, a first for many of the tribes, according to tribal leaders. Some restless teenagers inhale glue or take the mind-altering drug ecstasy.

“They have a new environment and can’t adapt themselves,” said Asap-Koyan resident Baya Asan. “My kid doesn’t go to school now.”

Not surprisingly, some Kenyah have opted not to go to the government- sponsored resettlement village. Two years ago, some 400 moved to ancestral lands above the Bakun Dam to form the new village of Long Lawen.

To date, the government has not established a medical clinic or a primary school, services that were provided in the prior village they were forced to vacate. The Kenyah now rely on their own resources — and the help of US activists.

The Berkeley environmentalists are tapping water from the Lawen River on the edge of the village to run a small electric turbine that will generate 10 kilowatts of electricity. The mini hydro project is scheduled to begin operation in late July.

The electric project, which is partly sponsored by the Berkeley Borneo Project, will provide enough power to light the village’s 67 homes in the evening and run other equipment during the day.

Joseph Richards, a civil engineer and community organizer for Green Empowerment, a nonprofit group from Portland, Ore., said the project will help develop cottage industries that will “give them (Kenyah) more viability on the land.”

The project will tap into the Kenyah’s communal traditions by providing power for a communal saw mill, rice hulling machine and icehouse. The Kenyah plan to collectively own the facilities and pay villagers to operate them. To be sure, the Bakun Dam — with its 2,400 megawatts that can light up large cities — dwarfs the Long Lawen power system. But Richards argues that hundreds of such mini programs are a viable alternative to massive dams and can provide enough electricity for rural development.

Most important, says Richards, smaller projects are environmentally friendly and help maintain traditional cultures.

“In Asian and other developing countries, it is a tremendous opportunity not to have the conventional energy infrastructure ever develop,” said Richards.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Puerto Ricans protest stiff Vieques jail terms

A US Navy security guard yells at civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton during his arrest for entering US Navy lands on May 1, 2001, in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 28— About 10,000 people rallied outside a federal prison on Monday to protest sentences meted out to those charged with trespassing on US Navy land during demonstrations against bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

The rally outside the Metropolitan Correction Facility in the San Juan suburb of Guaynabo was organized by religious leaders to show support for more than 40 prisoners serving time there for civil disobedience in Vieques.

The rally mixed prayer, music and speeches, with many protesters waving the flags of Puerto Rico and Vieques.

US Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat from New York, told the crowd that the bombing on the US Caribbean territory was a problem for the whole nation, not just for Vieques.

“And when we win, it will not just be good for the people of Vieques...It will make the United States of America a stronger democracy which respects the rights of all its citizens,” Rangel said.

The federal court is under increasing criticism for the sentences handed out to the protesters. About 180 people have been arrested on trespassing charges since April 26, the day before a Naval battle group began five days of ship-to-shore shelling and air-to-ground bombing exercises on Vieques.

Of those, 43 people have been sentenced on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Judges have been sentencing first-time offenders to 30 days in jail plus $500 fines. Repeat offenders have been dealt with more severely.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who had previously been convicted in connection with a New York protest, was given a 90-day sentence for trespassing on Navy land on May 1.

The sentences are markedly harsher than those for protesters arrested during military maneuvers on Vieques between May and October 2000. Of the 480 people charged with trespassing then, about half have gone to trial and most were sentenced to time served or to a few hours of detention.

Congressmen criticize ‘harsh sentences’

Fifteen US Congressmen complained about the latest sentences in a letter last week to Attorney General John Ashcroft, and New York Gov. George Pataki and Puerto Rico Gov. Sila Calderon also criticized the sentences as “excessive.”

Several high-profile protesters, including environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr., actor Edward James Olmos and Democratic US Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, were arrested on trespassing charges and still await sentencing.

The Navy has used the 33,000-acre (13,360 hectare) island off the east coast of Puerto Rico as a bombing range for 60 years and insists it needs the range to maintain military preparedness. It has met growing opposition since a botched bombing raid killed a civilian security guard two years ago.

Opponents say the bombing hurts the environment and threatens the health of Vieques’ residents.

Rangel called for an immediate end to Navy exercises, criticizing an agreement that will let Vieques residents vote in November on whether the Navy should leave in 2003 or stay indefinitely in exchange for $40 million of economic aid.

“If they can take it someplace else after the referendum, they can take it someplace else right now,” Rangel said.

Manuel Mercado, a 60-year-old doctor who served in Vietnam and attended Monday’s rally, said “Nobody believes they need Vieques for national defense. They need it to test the products of their defense contractors.”

He criticized the referendum plan as an opportunity for the Navy “to buy off the people of Vieques.”

Monday’s rally was preceded by one in Havana on Saturday in which President Fidel Castro led thousands of Cubans in calling for an end to Navy training on Vieques and for the liberation of jailed protesters.

Puerto Rican Independence Party Sen. Fernando Martin defended his party’s participation in the Havana rally.

“Any international support is good,” said Martin, whose photograph with Castro was published in local newspapers to great criticism. “All who support Vieques should be welcomed.”

Source: Reuters

US, British planes bomb northern Iraq

Baghdad, Iraq, May 23— Iraq said US and British planes bombed civilian targets in the north of the country on Wednesday, causing damage to farmland, but no casualties were reported.

An Iraqi military spokesman said anti-aircraft guns and missiles fired at the planes attacking targets in Nineveh province at 3:45am EDT.

There was no immediate comment on the Iraqi report from the United States and Britain.

British and American planes continue to drop bombs on Iraq as they patrol “no-fly zones” set up after the expulsion of Iraqi invasion troops from Kuwait in 1991, claiming that they are necessary to protect Kurdish dissidents in northern Iraq and anti-Baghdad Muslim Shi’ites in the south from possible attack by Baghdad forces.

The US government continues to support UN sanctions on Iraq that have caused the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqi civilians.

Iraq does not recognize the no-fly zones and vowed in 1998 to challenge the patrols with anti-aircraft installations.

The no-fly zones are not recognized or supported by the United Nations.

Source: Reuters

FTAA protesters get jail sentences

By Eva Cheng

Australia, May 31— Eight protesters who took part in the April 20-22 protests in Quebec City against the US-led plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) have been sentenced to up to nine months imprisonment.

Stephane Paquet, based in Quebec City, was arrested a week after the protests and sentenced on May 15 to nine months in jail for “mischief of over [C]$5000” (smashing windows including a bus stop shelter) and “participating in a riot.”

Paquet was further sentenced to a three-year probationary period. Should he be arrested for participating in any “unlawful” demonstrations, he will be subjected to mandatory imprisonment of two years.

According to the Independent Media Center, the police even visited Paquet’s brother and made him sign a declaration denouncing him.

The cops seemed to be particularly annoyed by the fact that Paquet, who had once served in the Canadian Armed Forces, was wearing a combat uniform during the protests. The judge even went so far as to call him a “savage.”

Paquet’s case came not long after Jean-Pierre Belanger’s, a fellow protester and also a Quebec City resident, who was sentenced to six months imprisonment. Belanger was arrested as soon as he stepped out of a Quebec City hospital where he had been treated for an injury inflicted by a rubber-coated bullet which had exposed the bone at his ankle. He was charged with issuing a “death threat to a police officer.”

Vaughn Barnett, from Fredericton in New Brunswick province, is still in custody following his arrest on April 22. He was charged with “obstructing police work” after having peacefully scaled the “Wall of Shame” security fence. But Barnett, a student in law, asserted he had a moral and constitutional right to take those steps because “the fence was unlawful.”

Source: Green Left Weekly: www.greenleft.org.au