MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

Virtual Truth Commission

General

Corporations and Human Rights, a survey by Human Rights Corporation as part of their World Report 1999. Contact Arvind Ganesan at Human Rights Watch for additional information on Corporations and Human Rights.

Transnational Corporations: An Article by Mark Frank

Globalization and Human Rights. A telecast on Thursday, October 29, 1998 explored how uprisings in Indonesia, massive layoffs of miners in South Africa and protests against child labor worldwide, which have all been reported as separate and distinct events, are linked to the forces of "globalization," the economic engine that is transforming the world in its own image. Host Charlayne Hunter-Gault anchored this informative primer about how the newly globalized economy is reorganizing the world. Should economic trade and investments be linked to promote human rights and democracy? Traveling from Switzerland to South Africa, and from Nigeria to Indonesia for conversations with government officials, human rights activists, corporate executives and financial speculators, the program dissects globalization and examines its impact on the rights of people worldwide. The program also visits the controversial Shell oil fields of Nigeria and Nike shoe factories in Asia, while exploring conflicts within the new world order. Source: The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, 801 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Phone 212-907-1332. Fax 212-682-9185. Email udhr50@unausa.org.

Legal Peril for Multinationals with Human Rights Abuses. In Doe v. Unocal Corp, 1997, Unocal Corp. and Total S. A. were held liable under the ATCA, an original part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, by acting in concert with a foreign government (Burma) in violating universally recognized human rights standards. "The ATCA states: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." Therefore, under ATCA, aliens -- in this case Burmese citizens who alleged that government police forces carried out a program of violence, torture, rape, forced relocation and forced labor against the Burmese farmers living on the route of a pipeline being built as part of a Unocal-Total project -- could sue the U. S. companies in U. S. court, and successfully did so. Joseph D. Pizzurro and Nancy E. Delaney, "Litigation: New Peril for Companies Doing Business Overseas" -- Alien Tort Claims Act Interpreted Broadly. New York Law Journal, November 24, 1997.

Business and Human Rights -- The Bottom Line: Commentary by Arvind Ganesan, , Human Rights Watch, discusses human rights and multinational corporations. Articles include:

Recent Human Rights Violations In Nigeria's Oil Producing Region (February 23, 1999)

Oil Companies Complicit in Nigerian Abuses Rights Group Urges Oil Firms to Help Prevent Niger Delta Crackdown

U.S. Corporation Complicit in Abuses in India Report Charges U.S. and Indian Governments Also Overlook Human Rights Violations

Use of Private Corporations by U. S. Military

See Ken Silverstein, Privatizing War: How affairs of state are outsourced to corporations beyond public control.

Specific Corporations

British Petroleum Company.

Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations. October 1998, European Parliament debated charges against British Petroleum of complicity in human rights abuses in Colombia through the financing of units of the armed forces of Colombia to protect a jointly owned pipeline. The parliament passed a resolution condemning BP for funding death squads in Colombia. The following day, the company denied all allegations and appeared prepared to take an uncompromising position.
British Petroleum has been accused of training Colombian soldiers who have killed protestors. Pratab Chatterjee, "Oil Giant Accused of Aiding Army Atrocities," San Francisco, Dec 29, IPS.
In Casanare department, Colombia, the location of the Cusiana-Cupiagua oil fields developed by British Petroleum, ECOPETROL, Total, and Triton, contracts came up for renewal in June, 1998, as military, paramilitary, guerrilla, and criminal activity increased in the area. The renegotiated contracts between the companies and the Ministry of Defense restructured the flow of funds to avoid direct company payments to state security forces. Payments for security were to be made to the state-owned ECOPETROL as a conduit to the Defense Ministry instead of directly from the companies to the army. At the time of this writing, the oil companies still made direct payments to the National Police.There were also some substantive changes in the contracts. BP, the only consortium member with a human rights policy, reported that human rights clauses were included in the new contract; an auditing mechanism was implemented to monitor the flow of funds; and a committee was established to monitor the performance of the military units providing security for the companies. Human Rights Watch could not assess the effectiveness of these programs because the contract was still not available to third parties. There was apparently no mechanism to ensure that the personnel guarding these installations would be screened for human rights violations. The conduct of private security providers for the BP-led consortium continued to be a problem in 1998. Following allegations in 1997 that the consortium’s private security firm, Defense Systems Colombia (DSC), a subsidiary of the U.K.-based Defense Systems Limited (DSL), had imported arms into the country and trained Colombian National Police (PONAL) in counterinsurgency techniques, a government inquiry was launched to determine the role of this company and the police. DSC refused to cooperate with the investigation. In September 1998, BP reported that it had formed an oversight committee to monitor its private security providers, was developing a code of conduct for DSC, and had urged the company to cooperate fully with the government. At this writing, DSC remained uncooperative. Despite the allegations against DSC and its refusal to cooperate with the government investigation, BP renewed its contract with DSC for one more year. In October, new allegations that DSC and a Israeli private security firm, Silver Shadow, had contemplated providing arms and intelligence services for the Colombian military while they were security contractors for the Ocensa pipeline. Reports alleged that DSC had set up intelligence networks to monitor individuals opposed to the company. BP steadfastly denied these claims and suspended a senior security official while investigating these allegations. The day after these allegations were published, the ELN reportedly blew up the Ocensa pipeline, killing sixty civilians and injuring dozens more. The act of targeting pipelines has been condemned by Human Rights Watch as a violation of the Geneva Conventions and causing unacceptable hardships on civilian populations caught in the middle of Colombia’s decades-old internal conflict. Corporations and Human Rights, a survey by Human Rights Corporation as part of their World Report 1999.

CalEnergy. In December, 1998, CalEnergy of Omaha was accused of business malpractices in Indonesia by investigative journalists at the Wall Street Journal. Pratab Chatterjee, "Oil Giant Accused of Aiding Army Atrocities," San Francisco, Dec 29, IPS.

Carlsberg. Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.

Chase Manhattan Bank. A now infamous Chase Bank internal memo which called for elimination of the Zapatistas was leaked to the public. Most people understand the word eliminate in a political context to mean the ruthless and complete killing of an enemy. Ken Silverstein and Alexander Cockburn obtained a copy of the report and wrote about it, and about Roett's other efforts, in the February 1, 1995 issue of COUNTERPUNCH.

Chevron.

It is worth restating that two U.S. companies, Mobil and Chevron, produce nearly half of Nigeria's oil, while the single largest producer, Shell, is also vulnerable to U.S. pressure because the U.S. is its single largest profit center. The U.S. therefore has the capacity to act effectively and unilaterally against Nigeria. A Proposal to Impose Sanctions on Nigeria by Jennifer Davis, The Africa Fund. Presented to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York. January 30, 1998
Chevron, a San Francisco-based oil multinational, was accused of sanctioning the killing of Ijaw protestors at a well site in Nigeria in May. Pratab Chatterjee, "Oil Giant Accused of Aiding Army Atrocities," San Francisco, Dec 29, IPS.

Chiquita (was United Fruit Company)

Del Monte. The Del Monte multinational in Guatemala threatened to transfer production to plantations in Indonesia if workers refused to renounce some of their acquired rights. International Federation of Free Trade Unions and International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (ICFTU-IUF) has issued a statement on "The Forgotten Victims of the Banana War". [Contact: ICFTU-Press at: ++32-2 224.02.12 (Brussels) cited in an article by ICFTU Online, March 11, 1999. The article highlights a "dirty war" being carried on by multinationals against the banana workers' trade union, taking advantage of the effects of Hurricane Mitch.

Disney. Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.

Dole. In Guatemala, two banana union leaders from the Corporacion Bananera Sociedad Anonima (COBSA), a Guatemalan company which supplies exclusively to the multinational Dole were arrested, according to trade union sources, Julian Guisar Garcia, secretary of the COBSA trade union, and Marvin Leon Ceron Fernandez, leader of the trade union at the "Dublin" plantation, on March 7 and 4 respectively by members of the Guatemalan police. The ICFTU says that a representative of the COBSA security service assisted in the arrest of Marvin Fernandez. The arrests followed uncorroborated accusations by the company that the trade unionists had caused material damage with menaces. The COBSA recently dismissed 465 trade unionists, despite a court ruling against it, and the IUF has reported attacks by armed groups against trade union members and sympathisers. International Federation of Free Trade Unions and International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (ICFTU-IUF) has issued a statement on "The Forgotten Victims of the Banana War". [Contact: ICFTU-Press at: ++32-2 224.02.12 (Brussels) cited in an article by ICFTU Online, March 11, 1999. The article highlights a "dirty war" being carried on by multinationals against the banana workers' trade union, taking advantage of the effects of Hurricane Mitch.

Ford Motor Company. On Monday Nov 30, 1998, Washington Post reported that historians and lawyers researching class-action suits for former prisoners of war have found evidence that major U.S. automakers collaborated with Germany's Nazi regime...Washington attorney Michael Hausfeld, who is involved in a class action suit against Ford Motor Co. by former Russian prisoner and forced laborer Elsa Iwanovat, told the Post similar legal action could be taken against GM. ``There are many indications that there were surreptitious contacts taking place'' between the automakers and their German affiliates even during the war, Steinberg said. Researchers were trying to determine if the automakers directly or indirectly profited from the use of forced labor. The U.S. automakers have vigorously denied that they assisted the Nazi war machine or that they significantly profited from the use of forced labor. A U.S. Army report by investigator Henry Schneider dated Sept. 5, 1945 accused Ford's German branch of serving as ``an arsenal of Nazism, at least for military vehicles'' with the parent company's ``consent'', the Post said....Similar allegations have been leveled at General Motors Corp and a book scheduled for publication next year will accuse the company of playing a key role in Adolf Hitler's invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union, the Post said. ``General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland,'' author Bradford Snell told the Post. He said Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer had told him in 1977 that Hitler ``would never have considered invading Poland'' without synthetic fuel technology provided by General Motors... Both General Motors and Ford insist that they bear little or no responsibility for the operations of their German subsidiaries, which controlled 70 percent of the German car market at the outbreak of war in 1939 and rapidly retooled themselves to supply war materials to the German army. But documents in German and American archives indicate that there were contacts and that U.S. firms did profit from their German units' use of forced labor, the Post reported. Ford spokesman John Spellich defended the company's decision to maintain business ties with Nazi Germany because the U.S. government did not cut diplomatic relations with Berlin until Washington declared war on Germany in December 1941, the Post said. That made it illegal for U.S. firms to have any contacts with their subsidiaries in Germany. Spellich said the Schneider report mischaracterized the activities of the U.S. parent and noted that managers at Ford's headquarters were frequently kept in the dark by their German subordinates over events at its German plant in Cologne. But he acknowledged that company historians had found documents showing that after the war American Ford received dividends from its German subsidiary worth approximately $60,000 for the years 1940-43, the Post said. GM spokesman John Mueller told the Post that General Motors lost day-to-day control over its German plants in September 1939 and ``did not assist the Nazis in any way during World War Two.'' Ford has mobilized dozens of historians, lawyers and researchers to fight the civil lawsuit, the Post said. Company officials were not immediately available for comment. " US automakers said to have collaborated with Nazis" ,

Freeport-McMoRan.

Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.
In December, 1998, Freeport McMoRan of New Orleans was accused of business malpractices in Indonesia by investigative journalists at the Wall Street Journal. Pratab Chatterjee, "Oil Giant Accused of Aiding Army Atrocities," San Francisco, Dec 29, IPS.

Gap. Corporations such as Gap Incorporated and Nike, earlier criticized for labor rights violations in overseas plants, retreated in 1998 from previous hostility to rights-oriented criticism and worked to improve global practices through programs in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and trade unions. Among other initiatives in the United States, President Clinton’s Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP) and the Council on Economic Priorities’ Social Accountability 8000 (SA-8000) program, were two that promoted global codes of conduct on fair labor practices and credible independent monitoring with those codes. Corporations and Human Rights, a survey by Human Rights Corporation as part of their World Report 1999.

General Motors Corporation. On Monday Nov 30, 1998, Washington Post reported that historians and lawyers researching class-action suits for former prisoners of war have found evidence that major U.S. automakers collaborated with Germany's Nazi regime...Washington attorney Michael Hausfeld, who is involved in a class action suit against Ford Motor Co. by former Russian prisoner and forced laborer Elsa Iwanovat, told the Post similar legal action could be taken against GM. ``There are many indications that there were surreptitious contacts taking place'' between the automakers and their German affiliates even during the war, Steinberg said. Researchers were trying to determine if the automakers directly or indirectly profited from the use of forced labor. The U.S. automakers have vigorously denied that they assisted the Nazi war machine or that they significantly profited from the use of forced labor. A U.S. Army report by investigator Henry Schneider dated Sept. 5, 1945 accused Ford's German branch of serving as ``an arsenal of Nazism, at least for military vehicles'' with the parent company's ``consent'', the Post said....Similar allegations have been leveled at General Motors Corp and a book scheduled for publication next year will accuse the company of playing a key role in Adolf Hitler's invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union, the Post said. ``General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than Switzerland,'' author Bradford Snell told the Post. He said Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer had told him in 1977 that Hitler ``would never have considered invading Poland'' without synthetic fuel technology provided by General Motors... Both General Motors and Ford insist that they bear little or no responsibility for the operations of their German subsidiaries, which controlled 70 percent of the German car market at the outbreak of war in 1939 and rapidly retooled themselves to supply war materials to the German army. But documents in German and American archives indicate that there were contacts and that U.S. firms did profit from their German units' use of forced labor, the Post reported. " US automakers said to have collaborated with Nazis"

Heineken. Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.

Mobil Oil Company

Nike.

Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.
Corporations such as Gap Incorporated and Nike, earlier criticized for labor rights violations in overseas plants, retreated in 1998 from previous hostility to rights-oriented criticism and worked to improve global practices through programs in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and trade unions. Among other initiatives in the United States, President Clinton’s Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP) and the Council on Economic Priorities’ Social Accountability 8000 (SA-8000) program, were two that promoted global codes of conduct on fair labor practices and credible independent monitoring with those codes. Corporations and Human Rights, a survey by Human Rights Corporation as part of their World Report 1999.
Royal Dutch/Shell
Total. Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.
Union Miniere. Documents, found by a South African truth commission researcher investigating an apparently unrelated matter, claim that the explosives used for the bomb that downed the aircraft in which U. N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold was flying in 1961 were supplied by a Belgian mining conglomerate, Union Miniere. The company had extensive interests in copper-rich Katanga, and is known to have backed to Tshombe's use of mercenaries, including the group led by South Africa's Colonel "Mad Mike" Hoare....On September 14 1961, a message couriered to the SAIMR's offices in De Villiers Street, Johannesburg, recorded: "DC6 aircraft bearing Transair livery is parked at Leo to be used for transport of subject. Our technician has orders to plant 6lb TNT in the wheelbay with contact detonator to activate as wheels are retracted on taking off." An earlier message records that "Union Miniere has offered to provide logistic or other support. We have told them to have 6lb of TNT at all possible locations with detonators, electrical contacts and wiring, batteries, etc." A report dated September 17 records: "Device failed on take-off, and the aircraft crashed a few hours later as it prepared to land." An official inquiry blamed pilot error. ....The documents have been dismissed as fakes by a former Swedish diplomat, and both MI5 and the CIA have denied any involvement in Hammarskjvld's death. However, they bear a striking resemblance to other documents emanating from the SAIMR seven years ago, when it was headed by self-styled commodore Keith Maxwell-Annandale and forged links with both South Africa's military intelligence and the National Intelligence Services. These documents show the SAIMR masterminded the abortive 1981 attempt to depose Seychelles president Albert Reni. It was also behind a successful 1990 coup in Somalia. Marlene Burger, "CIA and MI5 linked to Death of UN Sec. General",Electronic Mail & Guardian , Johannesburg, August 28, 1998, reprinted at South Movement, September 4, 1998

United Fruit Company (Chiquita)
Unocal.
- Cited in Human Rights Watch, Corporations and Human Rights for corporate complicity in human rights violations.
- In Doe v. Unocal Corp, 1997, Unocal Corp. and Total S. A. were held liable under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 for actions of the Burmese government -- a program of violence, torture, rape, forced relocation and forced labor against Burmese farmers living on the route of a pipeline being built as part of a Unocal-Total project -- because the government's actions were on behalf of Unocal and Unocal knew of the human rights abuses. The Burmese plaintiffs successfully sued Unocal in U. S. courts. Joseph D. Pizzurro and Nancy E. Delaney, "Litigation: New Peril for Companies Doing Business Overseas" -- Alien Tort Claims Act Interpreted Broadly. New York Law Journal, November 24, 1997.
- Unocal’s financial situation was precarious as well. On April 30, 1998, Standard & Poor, the international investment rating service, downgraded Unocal’s corporate outlook from “stable” to “negative.” The decision was based on low oil prices, a “somewhat weak financial profile,” and “the company’s exposure to political risk” due to controversies surrounding its operations in Burma and Afghanistan, as well as political and economic turmoil in Thailand and Indonesia. Corporations and Human Rights, a survey by Human Rights Corporation as part of their World Report 1999.
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