Actions At Annual General Meetings
1. Balfour Beatty
Balfour Beatty are currently seeking a £200 million loan from the Department of Trade & Industry to build the Ilisu Dam in the Kurdish region of Turkey. This will evict 25,000 people, destroy towns and villages and threaten conflicts with Syria and Iraq over water flows.
Fifty members of the Ilisu Dam campaign stripped off in the Annual General Meeting, revealing "Stop the Ilisu Dam" across their T-shirts, and asked the board members questions about ethical and environmental responsibility. The board members fled and Group 4 security grappled with the protesters.
Contact: Ilisu Dam Campaign, Box 210, 266 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2, 01865 200 550, ilisu@gn.apc.org
2. Rio Tinto, 12. May
The notorious Rio Tinto mining company is currently polluting and violating human rights in such places as Kelian, Indonesia, where the local community is demanding compensation for land, crops and property.
A statement from the Kelian community association (LKMTL) was read out at their AGM, despite the local police preventing the community representative from attending. Tinto's chairman claimed the corporation was very concerned, but made no suggestions on resolving the situation. The Chairman of the South African Mineworkers Union and others also spoke on behalf of other countries where conditions were bad.
Contact: Partizans, 41a Thornhill Square, London N1. 020 7700 6189, partizans@gn.apc.org.
3. British Aerospace, 4. May
BAe exports arms to every dodgy dictatorship and war machine it can. Activists at their AGM caused 30 minutes of disruption by tying themselves together. Many were removed, but those who remained kept the pressure on board members with awkward questions.
Simultaneous protests took place at BAe sites around the country. In Usk, activists blockaded the Glascoed munitions factory, bringing traffic to a standstill on the main road between Usk and Pontypool. They were told that they were breaking the law but replied that they were there to uphold international law, in preventing the manufacture of weapons which would be used illegally to murder innocent civilians.
Contact: CAAT.
4. Premier Oil, 15. May
Premier Oil held their AGM in London on 15th May. A large number of Human Rights campaigners joined the usual company directors and shareholders to highlight the corporation's complicity in the ongoing human rights disaster in Burma.
Their latest project involves the construction of a major pipeline throughout Burma stretching to the Thai border. Facing tough questioning in the AGM, Charles Jamieson, chief executive, reckoned that the company's presence in the country was actually helping to bring about necessary change!
Essential to the oil development programme is a railway being built entirely by slave labour, with children often as young as 10 making up a significant part of the workforce.
Those not working to 'standard' are punished by torture and death. Human Rights studies estimate that 60,000 people a day are forced to work on the railway, and that every 18 months around 300 die. So there we have it, Premier Oil, a prime example of a multinational corporation working for thegood of the people.
Contact: Burma Action Group, Bickerton House, 25-27 Bickerton Rd, London N19 5JT, http://www.freeburmacoalition.org.