Bulletin articles
Human rights violations and crimes perpetrated by Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are no isolated facts. Rather, as documentation of such violations in Latin America and many denunciations in other continents show, they are of systemic character. Even so, corporate violations enjoy a widespread level of impunity.
On December 9, 2013, a meeting was called in Pujehun District over the lease of 6,500 hectares of prime farmland in this southeastern part of Sierra Leone. Local sources said elders called the meeting to allow people to again express their grievances to the Paramount Chief over the lease of land to the Socfin Agricultural Company.
Photo: E. Benjamin Skinner
Malaysia
Malaysiahas become a destination for migrant workers from other Southeast Asian countries– mainly Indonesia, Thailand, andBangladesh – who usually occupy low-wage unskilled jobs in different sectors including the labor-intensivepalm oil industry.
Photo: credito: Greenpeace/Alex Yallop
On 25 November 2013, the President of Cameroon issued three decrees granting 19,843 ha of native land to SGSustainable Oils Cameroon/Herakles Farms in southwest Cameroonfor the establishment of a large-scale oil palm plantation.
300 indigenous people protested against Sarwak's dams at the congress of the International Hydropower Association (IHA) this May in Kuching - Photo: Bruno Manser Fonds
A history of resource exploitation, corruption and human rights abuses
Photo: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/
The criminalization of social protest upheld by local communities is a worldwide phenomenon. In Latin America, the Latin American Observatory of Mining Conflicts (OCMAL), a network comprising social organizations, has issued the following declaration denouncing the violent repression of opposition against the mining companies in the region:
In the business world, “sustainability” promises, among other things, that economic activity does not violate the rights of the communities affected, and that future generations will be able to continue to benefit from the natural setting where the activity is practiced. NGOs, companies and governments who promote “sustainable forest management” (SFM) claim that this is possible to achieve in tropical forests, using certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as a guarantee.
On 10 November 1995, it should be remembered by all who struggle for social and environmental justice that the Nigerian military junta executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and other eight Ogoni People leaders. They challenged, resisted and struggled against the severe negative impacts of oil extraction on their communities, while defending their territories and livelihoods. This should never be forgotten.
Oil has been historically extracted disregarding the costs that the process entails to the local people and the environment. Thus oil extraction has become a direct cause of the deforestation of large areas of tropical forests where some of the world's most promising oil and gas deposits lie, degrading the forest as a whole through its impacts on water, air, wildlife and plants.