Archived press release

People bear witness to corporate abuse

20 August 2002

Governments will line up to praise big business at the UN Earth Summit, which starts next week in Johannesburg. But a new website - Radio Earth Summit (www.radioearthsummit.org) features audio stories from people around the world with a very different story to tell:

• Listen to Sheelu Frances talking about how her brother and pregnant sister in law were living at Bhopal during the infamous Union Carbide explosion almost 10 yeas ago, and how her young nephew has suffered since. Hear her claims that Dow Chemicals - now owners of Union Carbide – still refuse to accept liability for this dreadful accident.
  
  
• Hear Vladimir Chuprov from the Ural Mountains in Russia explain how lower environmental standards in the East are being exploited by corporations threatening the local environment and people’s health.
  
  
• Meenakshi Raman from Indonesia tells how they won a long fight, which included suffering detention without trial, to prevent Mitsubishi Chemicals dumping radioactive waste near a community in Malaysia, but how the company has simply moved its operations to China.
  
  
• Yuval Tamir is a 41-year-old former diver with the Israeli Nav a l Seals, who has suffered two cancers. He used to dive in waters polluted with carcinogenic compounds released by Haifa Petrochemicals , but says that nobody will accept responsibility and that the pollution continues.
  
  
• Hear Patrick Duma, from Secunda, South Africa, describe how the poor black community living next door to the Sasol Chemical plant suffers ill health and how growing up in that community means growing up ill. He says Sasol deny any linkages with the high rates of cancer and asthma and instead blame it on HIV / AIDS.
  
  
• Listen to Theo Anderson from Ghana describe how mining companies such as Goldfields Ltd damage the environment and how poor cocoa farming communities are threatened by powerful logging companies. Theo suggests that multi-national companies are now more powerful than many national or state governments.

At Radio Earth Summit (www.radioearthsummit.org) you can also hear Arundhati Roy describe the power of the big dam building companies in India, as well as a number of other first hand stories [1]. Dozens of people have also made imaginative – and often amusing – noises to try to drown out the misleading voice of big business at the Earth Summit.

Mike Childs, Earth Summit Coordinator for Friends of the Earth, said:

“Many world leaders will be going to Johannesburg to say how they are going to save the world with the help of big business. The major developed countries, such as the UK and the USA, are dead against any new global controls on big business. Sadly they don’t want to listen to the first hand accounts of people suffering at the hands of the increasingly powerful multinational corporations. Radio Earth Summit aims to make a noise so loud that the siren calls of big business are drowned out.”

Notes

Other first hand accounts on Radio Earth Summit are listed below. All audio on Radio Earth Summit is broadcast quality and can be downloaded free of charge and free of copyright. The stories, together with the noises made, will be played at a giant art installation at the talks, see: www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/corporates/news/earth_summit/hear_our_voice.html

Radio Earth Summit will also be broadcasting each day at the Summit via radio in the area and on the web.

Other first hand accounts include:

• Juan Amandares from Honduras,
  
• Lorraine Dixon from Australia,
  
• Jacobo Martinez from El Salvador,
  
• Percy Schmeiser from Canada,
  
• Patrick Duma from South Africa,
  
• Belmond Tchoumba from Cameroon,
  
• Ricardo Navarro from El Salvador,
  
• Emmy Hafield from Indonesia, Bobby Peek from South Africa,
  
• Milagros San Jose-Ballesteros from the Phillipines,
  
• Michael Anderson from Australia,
  
• Cam Walker from Australia,
  
• Andre Pereira de Carvalho from the Amazon.

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust