Corporate Crime of the Century Portrayed as Conspiracy Theory
NPR Ombudsman Says No Response Allowed to Mass Transit Mess Up
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER | May 3, 2011
The NPR Ombudsman says that no response will be allowed to a story about mass transit in Los Angeles.
On April 21, 2011, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story about how – after a fifty year absence – light rail is coming back to Los Angeles.
NPR reporter Mandalit Del Barco reported that eighty years ago, electric mass transit dominated the city.
“By the roaring 1920’s, more than 1,000 miles of electric trolley lines and train rails ran through the ever-expanding Los Angeles,” Del Barco reported.
But then in the middle of the century, the electric trolley cars disappeared.
Why?
“LA replaced the last of its streetcars with a web of freeways and bus lines,” Del Barco reported. “That led to conspiracy theories that the streetcars were dismantled by private companies who stood to profit – General Motors, Standard Oil and tire companies. That villainous plot figured into the 1988 movie ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit.'”
In fact, it was more than just conspiracy theories.
It was an actual federal crime that led to the destruction of the nation’s electric mass transit.
The companies involved were indicted, convicted, and fined for destroying the nation’s electric mass transit systems.
Del Barco says she was familiar with the criminal history of the case, but didn’t report it.
We asked the NPR Ombudsman’s office to investigate and issue a clarification – at least tell NPR’s listeners that it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory – that it was an indicted and convicted federal crime.
The Ombudsman office said they would look into it.
Then, late last week, we got an e-mail from the NPR Ombudsman’s office.
“Our office talked to the reporter and editor of the piece,” wrote Lori Grisham of the NPR Ombudsman’s office. “They understand your concerns, but do not believe a correction is warranted. Time is one of the main constraints when it comes to producing a radio story and they were trying to condense a great deal of history into a small amount of time.”
Grisham passed along this from Jason DeRose, NPR’s Western Bureau Chief:
“The piece makes clear there had been better public transit in LA and that it was dismantled. We chose not to describe that demise in detail. There were many, many unproven allegations of conspiracy and two official fines. We chose to characterize the numerous unproven allegations as conspiracy theories to lead into the Roger Rabbit tape.”
Grisham ends her e-mail: “I apologize that NPR will not run a correction. Thank you again for taking time to contact us.”
And thank you Lori Grisham for looking into this.
But that’s just bad form – and one reason why America is angry with NPR.
We sent you the documented proven history of the criminal activity.
And still, Jason DeRose says that there were “many, many unproven allegations of conspiracy and two official fines.”
What gives?
This was proven and convicted criminal conduct.
There was nothing unproven about it.
In fact, the destruction of the nation’s electric mass transit system was perhaps one of the most egregious – and underreported – corporate crimes of the century.
Brad Snell is also not happy with the NPR Ombudsman’s decision.
Snell is in the final stages of writing a history of General Motors.
It will be published in 2013 by Knopf.
“Under our celebrated system of laws, the US Justice Department’s allegation of conspiracy by defendants General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire to monopolize the sale of buses, fuel, and tires by eliminating electric transit was transformed from theory to fact upon their conviction by a Chicago jury in US District Court on March 19, 1949,” Snell told Corporate Crime Reporter. “That judgment was affirmed on appeal (186 F.2 562 (7th Cir. 1951)) and a further appeal by defendants to the US Supreme Court was denied (cert den. 341 US 916), leaving the judgment and convictions in National City Lines as final matters of settled fact and law.”
“In 1990, the Honorable George E. MacKinnon, Senior Judge of the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC, had occasion to review the entire trial record in the National City Lines case,” Snell said.
His conclusion appeared in the Washington Legal Times on May 7, 1990.
“That Chicago trial resulted in criminal conspiracy convictions of the General Motors Corp., Standard Oil of California, and the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. for their concerted effort to replace electric streetcars with buses in numerous large and small cities,” Judge MacKinnon wrote.
“It is not a theory,” Snell said. “These are not ‘unproven allegations of conspiracy.’ It has been settled judicial fact for more than half a century. Beyond a reasonable doubt, as affirmed by the federal courts, and after denial of further review by the Supreme Court of the United States, it is an established and incontrovertible fact that General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire conspired to replace electric transit in cities throughout America in order to effect a monopoly in the sale of buses and related products.”
“To suggest otherwise is to debase and mock our revered and time-honored system of American jurisprudence,” Snell said.
It is unconscionable that the NPR Ombudsman will not even consider running a response.
Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.
Biofuel terrorism in Guatemala
By Annie Bird | Upside Down World | 23 March 2011
Internationally-funded Guatemalan bio-fuel interests evict Mayan Qeqchi families from their historic lands, destroying homes and crops, killing one, injuring more, while thousands are without food or shelter. On March 15, 16 and 17, hundreds of security officers from the Guatemalan National Civil Police, Army and Anti-riot Squads entered 14 small Maya Qeqchi villages in the municipality of Panzos, Alta Verapaz, shooting live ammunition and dispersing tear gas.
Reports from the region indicate that police and soldiers were followed by masked and armed employees of the Chabil Utzaj sugar cane company, who destroyed homes and crops. Families pleaded, to no avail, with plantation ‘owners’ and State authorities to spare the crops because they were close to harvest and families would face starvation without their harvest.
In the first community, Aguas Calientes, 72 families awoke at 5 a.m. surrounded by troops. They were given an hour to gather possessions and food. They begged for more time to gather what crops they could, but were not allowed. The day before, on March 14, a delegation from the community had attended a government sponsored negotiation meeting with farm ‘owners’ in Guatemala City, and were given no notice of the pending eviction. Those too slow in the scramble to leave were attacked with violence, resulting in five injured and four hospitalized. Families with registered land titles in a neighboring farm were also attacked.
The next community, of 32 families, was Miralvalle. The eviction began at approximately 10 a.m., and proceeded in a similar manner. Witnesses report that Antonio Beb Ac, a 35-year-old father of three, was shot in the head by anti-riot troops, though justice system authorities, notoriously corrupt in this region of the country, claim he was killed by a rock.
Evictions continued the evening of March 16 in the community of Quinich. On March 17 reports indicate that evictions occured in Semau, Finca Parana, Tinajas, San Miguelito, Los Recuerdos, Bella Flor, La Isla, Santa Rosa, San Paolo, Rio Frio, El Rodeo and 8 de Agosto. Thousands of people, including thousands of children, are camped out many on the side of the roads with no shelter or food, in the rain.
BIOFUEL-RELATED REPRESSION BUILDS ON 1978 “PANZOS” MASSACRE
This is not the first time the landholders who claim to own the land from which these communities are being evicted have called out the armed forces against the communities.
During the military governments ushered in by the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup, a handful of non-Qeqchi families gained access to land and land titles in the fertile Polochic Valley where Panzos is located, in large part through a combination of violence and fraud. The communities did not accept the validity of these claims, and made every effort they could, under military governments, to have their land and labor rights recognized.
One man, Flavio Monzon, who was named as mayor in 1954 by the military government and remained in office for 20 years, is reported by community leaders to have amassed approximately 200,000 acres of land while acting as mayor, including much of the area being evicted today.
The historical tension between the large landholders and the Qeqchi communities culminated in 1978 when, according to testimonies, the mayor and landholders convoked communities to a meeting in the town square on May 29. On approximately May 24, a contingent of 30 soldiers, invited by the mayor and landholders, occupied the municipal hall. Early in the morning on May 29, workers hired by plantation owner Flavio Monzon used a tractor to dig a large hole in the Municipal cemetery.
By 9:00 a.m., hundreds of people from the summoned communities had arrived in the town square of Panzos, to find it surrounded by soldiers and police. The army was stationed around the square and on the roofs of the buildings surrounding it. They had blocked all the exits. At the mayor’s signal, they opened fire on the unarmed crowd. Soldiers went after those who tried to escape one-by-one to kill them. Monzon’s hired workers then used the municipal truck to carry at least three loads of bodies to the cemetery and dump them in the hole they had prepared beforehand. The United Nations-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification registered 53 people killed that day. Local people say there were actually many more killed and injured.
Extreme repression continued, with constant kidnappings, torture and extrajudicial executions of community leaders throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. Mass graves are reported in the area where the forced evictions are today occurring, and a torture center used by the military was located that was evicted, Las Tinajas.
Following the Panzos massacre and the ensuing extreme repression, communities abandoned their homes and fled into the mountains, the Sierra de las Minas, surviving unimaginable hardship.
BIOFUELS & MULTILATERAL “DEVELOPMENT” BANKS IN THE POLOCHIC VALLEY: THE NEXT CHAPTER IN THE VIOLENCE
Between 1985 and 2005 the situation slowly improved as the nation transitioned into ostensible “civilian” rule, as the international community accompanied the peace process, ending the 36-year armed conflict in 1996. Communities returned to farming lands some had fled from during “the violence.”
Under the framework of the peace accords, a national fund for land was created to provide access to credit to allow rural communities to buy land. Based on a model being implemented throughout Latin America with the goal of facilitating stable land markets, the fund was highly problematic. Nonetheless it was the only apparent alternative for thousands of communities seeking secure tenure of their land.
Throughout the Polochic Valley dozens of communities sent in their paperwork, requesting to buy lands from the land “owners.” By the mid 2000’s dozens of communities believed they were on the brink of gaining security over their lands, when the possibility of massive agri-business profits appeared in the form of biofuels.
Though sugar cane and palm oil producers may argue that their production is for human consumption, the current investment in these sectors is geared toward generating sufficient production to supply the biofuel markets expected to skyrocket as climate change mitigation strategies mandate consumption and subsidize production of biofuels.
WEALTHY FAMILY CONNECTIONS
In 2006, Carlos Widmann, brother-in-law of then recently-elected president Oscar Berger and owner of the sugar cane refinery Ingenio Guadalupe, secured loans totaling $31 million from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) (a smaller version of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank), with which he moved his refinery operation across the country from the traditional sugar lands of the south-west Coast to the Polochic Valley, where the refinery was renamed Chabil Utzaj.
BIOFUEL INTERESTS PROVOKE ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION
The Widmann family was not a traditional landholder in the Polochic, but Widmann brokered deals with the landholders to rent and then allegedly buy the farms. Mass evictions of communities began, in what the Qeqchi farmers describe as being just like the 1980s, when communities were forced to flee to the mountains. Many again were displaced into terrible conditions in the Sierra de las Minas, like in the 1980s.
Between 1998 and 2006, a large landholding family in Polochic of German descent, the Maegli’s, experimented with African Palm oil production, and by 2006 had 5,000 hectares under palm fruit production in Alta Verapaz, and then began rapidly expanding plantations, and therefore also illegally, forcibly displacing small farmers.
Though studies should be undertaken, it was obvious to observers that forests were significantly impacted by this displacement as hungry families were forced to cultivate forest lands either bordering or within the Sierra de las Minas biosphere.
The new palm and sugar cane plantations needed large scale irrigation. Carlos Widmann and his Chabil Utzaj company literally re-routed the Polochic river while the palm oil producers reportedly changed existing irrigation systems connected to tributaries of the Polochic, wreaking massive havoc throughout the region, particularly due to the re-routing of the river.
Each year since 2006 immense extensions of land have been flooded as the river seeks to return to its natural course, flooding out crops and even flooding portions of the large town of Teleman. The river often deposits 60cm or more of sand on top of large expanses of formerly agricultural lands outside of the cane and palm plantations, strangling all crops and trees. Small farmers throughout the region have been devastated, and ecosystems in the Polochic River and Izabal Lake have been devastated. People have been killed crossing the river.
In late 2009, the Widmann sugar cane operation apparently collapsed, and the lands were abandoned. The reasons are not clear. Mayan Qeqchi communities, most having lived and worked (as almost slave-labour) for generations on these lands, then returned to farm the lands, building huts and sowing subsistence, survival crops. In August 2010 newspapers reported that lands and equipment belonging to Chabil Utzaj were to be auctioned by a Guatemalan bank, Banco Industrial, which managed a trust fund set up to facilitate CABEI funds for Chabil Utzaj.
However, a solution was negotiated between Chabil Utzaj and CABEI, in which at the urging of the bank Chabil Utzaj brought on new investors to recapitalize the company. In the region rumors are circulating that cane plantations would be converted to African palm.
In February 2011, local radio stations ran advertisements apparently from Chabil Utzaj calling on former cane workers to illegally evict the families farming the former cane plantations.
GREENWASHING STARVATION AND ENVIROMENTAL DESTRUCTION
Small farmers in the Polochic live from harvest to harvest. When the harvest is not good, families know they must pass a few weeks when food will be scarce because they must buy or forage for it. When a harvest is lost completely, like when the company destroys their crops by provoking flooding, chopping down crops or kicking families off lands, they face starvation conditions, now rampant in one of Guatemala’s most fertile river valleys.
Recent studies have demonstrated that virtually all the families in the villages affected by the introduction of biofuel production spend significant periods of time feeding five to seven people with only five pounds of corn a week, and nothing else.
Claims that the production of biofuel crops (African palm, sugar) generates jobs are false and misleading. While a large number of jobs are generated for labor during harvest, the cane company brought in outside seasonal labors. One reliable source reported that workers had been brought in from Nicaragua.
Most significantly, the only study of production patterns in the region found that other cash crops produced, such as chili and okra, as well as corn and beans, all require much more intense labor than cane or palm, often double or triple work input per land unit, and in this way maintain much higher and more constant employment levels. These crops also contribute to food security and are cultivated by small producers, while the economic benefits are distributed more equitably. This clearly demonstrates that palm and cane plantations reduce employment, income and food security, even though they may raise the national Gross Domestic Product.
WELFARE FOR THE WEALTHY: SUBSIDIZING ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION & RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
Biofuels, however, are apparently more profitable for large plantation ‘owners,’ in part because they are being subsidized by Clean Development Mechanism and favorable loans from multilateral development banks.
Between 2006 and today, a handful of cane and palm oil producers have received funding from the CABEI, and the IDB’s (Inter-American Development Bank) private sector lending agency, the Inter-American Investment Corporation. In May 2007, the IDB held its Annual General Meeting in Guatemala City, promising financing for biofuel production through funding projects that had been in the planning for several years.
The Ingenio Magdelena, like the Ingenio Guadelupe, received CABEI funds. The Pantaleon sugar operation, of which the Widmann family is a large shareholder, benefitted from an IDB loan.
Given that both the CABIE and the IDB are government-sponsored and -controlled funding agencies, the fact that close relatives of the then president benefit from these resources raises red flags of corruption and nepotisim. Carlos Widmann’s sister was the First Lady, and Widmann’s nephew, son of then President Berger, was on the board of the Guatemalan bank that facilitated the more than $30 million in CABEI funds.
INTERNATIONAL INVESTORS PROFITEERING FROM RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND PUBLIC FUNDS
But the wealthy and powerful in Guatemala are not the only beneficiaries of the enormous windfalls from the massive public spending on market incentives for initiatives purportedly aimed at curbing climate change or from funding from multinational, public development banks.
Central American corporations are taking on business partners from throughout the region, and stock and bond holders in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia are profiting from this new ’emerging market.’
In 2006, the CABEI, for just the second time in its existence, issued publicly traded bonds, placing $200 million worth on the New York market. Since 2006, CABEI has embarked on an aggressive strategy of capitalizing the bank with series of bond releases sold in the US, Europe and Asia, while prioritizing so called “renewable” energy investments like biofuels.
Multilateral banks have participated in creating a burgeoning new array of “mezzanine” investment funds, in which public funds from the WB and the IDB provide seed capital for investment funds deposited with private investment corporations used to levy private sector investment in the funds, which in turn finances a range of private sector investments in infrastructure and “renewable” energy.
For example, the Central America Mezzanine Infrastructure Fund, created in 2005 with WB and IDB investments, was deposited with the Bahrain based “EMP” investments which was later purchased by a Brunai based investment firm.
In January 2009, the WB and IDB collaborated to create the Latin American Capital Management LLC (LACAM), managed by Reservoir Capital Group, described as managers of university endowments and individual investors.
LACAM is dedicated to sugar cane financing!
The “Clean Development Mechanism”, managed by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change, has certified carbon emissions reduction credits for projects undertaken by cane and palm oil companies to reduce their emissions or generate electricity.
The Extractora del Atlantico palm oil refinery received CDM certification in April 2008; the Agroamerica palm oil plant in April 2009; the Ingenio Magdalena cane mill in July 2009; the INDESA palm oil plant in July 2009; and the Olmeca palm oil plant in November 2009.
Agroamerica and INDESA produce palm oil from the Polochic Valley. In August 2010, INDESA received certification from the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), certifying it as being an ecologically sustainable product.
RSPO certification is being strongly promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the WB.
In recognition that biofuel production is devastating environments and communities around the world, the WB and the IDB put a freeze on biofuel loans while they prepared sector strategies. RSPO is seen as a “safeguard” which can separate out the environmentally friendly palm oil; experience in the Polochic Valley shows RSPO is nothing more than greenwashing.
The WB plans to present its palm oil strategy in this month. In May 2010 they held “stakeholder consultations” in Costa Rica with palm oil producers and NGOs. Agroamerica, a Polochic Valley palm oil producer, among other Guatemalan palm oil producers such as Palmas del Ixcan and Agroindustrias Hame, participated. It seems that Polochic Valley palm oil producers are poised to benefit from the WB’s private sector funding agency, the International Finance Corporation.
Defensores de la Naturaleza, a highly criticized environmental NGO that “administers” the Sierra de las Minas biosphere, receives funding from WWF and Conservation International. As part of the “payment for environmental services” scheme they also receive funding from palm oil producers.
USAID sponsored a project to promote “Ecotourism” involving the Defensores de la Naturaleza and INDESA.
Under the new REDD+ initiative, advanced in the Copenhagen COP16 summit, palm oil plantations may be eligible to earn carbon capture credits. In Copenhagen, agreements were advanced to define mandatory national percentages of fossil fuel replacement by biofuels, and for the creation of multinational public funding for technology conversion, which could generate trillions of dollars of potential markets for northern corporations.
These measures will stimulate the expansion of biofuel production on unprecedented levels and strengthen already politically powerful financial and corporate interests in biofuels, some of which appear to have little concern for the real environmental, or human, impacts of biofuel production.
The environmental damages by cane and palm production are already being reported around the world. In the Polochic valley the damages from the destruction of wetlands, the rerouting of the Polochic River and the displacement of families has not been quantified, but observers and communities alike know it is enormous. The corporations earning money through the Clean Development Mechanism and enjoying access to public funds are generating environmental destruction and climate change, not curbing it. It also appears that climate change funds attract investors to initiate these environmentally destructive activities.
WHY DO MAYAN QEQCHI COMMUNITIES THINK THEY HAVE RIGHTS TO THIS LAND?
How communities, who have lived for generations on their lands, are today called ‘land invaders’ and are being charged with trumped up crimes of land usurpation and then brutally evicted by the military, police and private security forces, is the result of a historical process enabled by violence and racism, international investment and by US political and military intervention, and it is ongoing.
In the late 1880s, the Guatemalan government created the National Land Registry. It is not a coincidence that this occurred as the government was promoting international investment to try to boost exports. Around the same time the Guatemalan national army was formed, and from the beginning its focus was controlling the population of Guatemala, enforcing land grants, not defending borders.
The Land Registry allowed people, or communities with existing land titles, most of which had been granted by the Spanish crown prior to Guatemalan independence in 1821, to register them with a centralized national authority. It was established that any lands not registered with the Land Registry were considered to be ‘baldios,’ essentially property of the nation. Anyone could stake a claim on the land by having it measured, and paying a fee to the government. However, laws stipulated that if someone was already using the land, they had prior rights. Over the ensuing years these rights were often ignored, especially in the fertile Polochic valley.
The creation of the Land Registry ushered in a land rush in which outsiders came into the Polochic valley, and by 1915 had claimed over 300,000 acres of land. The Mayan Qeqchi communities, which had been farming the area, became the plantation laborers, following the colonial pattern that tied indigenous laborers to land grants in slave-like conditions.
Large tracts were given to German settlers to begin large scale cultivation of coffee and to US owned banana plantations. The coffee and banana planters had a strong presence, which was followed by an influx of mixed Spanish descent immigrants who also took control of land, usually by a combination of force and fraud.
The 1940s and 1950s were a turning point in the Polochic valley. Many of the descendants of the German planters were expelled during World War II, due to a perceived allegiance to Nazi Germany. The land reform program initiated during Guatemala’s ten year reformist government (1944-1954), and a banana blight, impelled United Fruit Company to leave the area.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Mayan Qeqchi communities and landholders of mixed Spanish and German descent struggled for control of the fertile flatlands in the valley. During most of that time a man named Flavio Monzon served as mayor of Panzos, first named in 1954 by the bloody regime ushered in by the CIA sponsored invasion. During the 20 years he acted as mayor, he and other non Qeqchi families amassed massive landholdings using a combination of fraud and violence.
Elders today describe how, while Mayor, Flavio Monzon offered to help communities obtain registered land titles, they brought him the documentation they had to back up their land rights, and the lands then appeared registered in his name. Sources claim Monzon left office with title to approximately 200,000 acres of land.
During the 1970s, land rights and agricultural worker rights movements grew in Panzos and across Guatemala. By the end of the 1970s, Monzon had turned over the Mayors’ office to Walter Overdick. According to investigations and testimonies from community members, Monzon then took the lead in organizing landholders (of which he was now a major landowner), in close coordination with the Mayor, to put an end to the demands for land titles and better working conditions on plantations.
COLOMBIA VIDEO: Biofuel Terrorism
“Land and Territory—The Key to Peace in Colombia”
CPTnet – 14 February 2011
Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia invites you to watch the video, “Land and Territory: The Key to Peace in Colombia,” produced by The Grassroots Communities and Peace Initiatives Network, which covers the story of three communities and their struggle for land in Colombia. As the title indicates, land, along with legal title, must be returned to these communities and all displaced communities in order for peace and justice to emerge in Colombia. One cannot talk about the Colombian conflict without discussing the takeover of land by multinational companies, both through legal means and through armed paramilitary violence. CPT Colombia is accompanying the communities of El Garzal and Las Pavas, featured in the video, as they struggle to remain on their land and protect their communities.
The “greening” of a shady business – Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil
World Rainforest Movement | Grain | October 2010
Oil palm plantations have spread rapidly around the globe in recent decades, with profound implications for local communities and the environment. A“Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO) was formed to promote sustainable production practices. But is this possible? Or does the RSPO merely amount to the greenwashing of an inherently destructive industry? The World Rainforest Movement produced an analysis.1
Over the past few decades, oil palm plantations have rapidly spread throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, where millions of hectares have already been planted and millions more are planned for the next few years. These plantations are causing increasingly serious problems for local peoples and their environment, including social conflict and human rights violations. In spite of this, a number of interests – national and international – continue actively to promote this crop, against a background of growing opposition at the local level. It is within this context that a voluntary certification scheme has emerged – the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – with the aim of assuring consumers that the palm oil they consume – in foodstuffs, soap, cosmetics or fuel – has been produced in a sustainable manner.2
To pretend that a product obtained from large-scale monocultures of mostly alien palm trees can be certified as “sustainable”3 is – to say the least – a misleading statement, especially for oil palm plantations, with their history of tropical deforestation and widespread human rights abuses.4 This, however, is precisely what the RSPO is doing.
The first shipment of palm oil certified as “sustainable” arrived in the Netherlands in November 2008, under enormous controversy. Greenpeace pointed out that “United Plantations, the company producing the sustainable palm oil, is cutting down trees from vulnerable peat forests in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” It added that this company “does not comply with local Indonesian laws that protect the environment” and that it is “entangled in land conflicts with the local population.” It was not a good start for RSPO’s credibility.5
| Corporations’ firm grasp
The power balance between corporations and NGOs is clearly shown in the RSPO’s current Executive Board (February 2010), where the majority of its members represent corporations or associations of corporations: President: Jan Kees Vis – Unilever Only two environmental/nature conservation NGOs (WWF and Conservation International) and two social/development NGOs (Oxfam and Sawit Watch) are represented on the board. The other 12 members represent oil palm growers (4), palm oil processors and/or traders (2), consumer goods manufacturers (2), retailers (2), banks/investors (2). Additionally, its ordinary and affiliate members include some very well-known corporations typically associated with social and environmental damage – Cargill, Cognis, International Finance Corporation, British Petroleum, Bunge, Syngenta and Bayer, among others. |
The RSPO has been a long, time-consuming and expensive process, involving industry, commerce and some social and conservation NGOs.6 The question is: why did the private sector get involved in it? The answer is given very clearly in an “Overview of RSPO” included in a press release on 24 November 2008:
As a result of all the above-mentioned issues [tropical deforestation, social conflicts over land rights, food versus fuel] some environmental and social NGOs are actively campaigning against palm oil. There is a risk that the adverse publicity might lead the European Union to stop buying palm oil for biodiesel blending or remove tax support for palm biodiesel until palm oil meets the minimum sustainability criteria. Consumer outcry for sustainably produced palm oil in their food, soaps, detergents and cosmetics is also growing louder and must not be ignored.7
When the RSPO process started, the oil palm industry had already managed to achieve a bad reputation as a result of its direct involvement in human rights violations and environmental destruction. Documentation of these include Eric Wakker’s 1999 publication, Forest Fires and the Expansion of Indonesia’s Oil Palm Plantations, and one year later, Wakker and others produced the book Funding Forest Destruction.8
In 2001, having documented the impacts of oil plantations over several years, WRM published its first book on the subject (The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm), which included three case-studies in countries that were major players in Asia (Indonesia), Latin America (Ecuador) and Africa (Cameroon), accompanied by a number of articles describing struggles in those and other countries against oil palm plantations. Apart from the environmental impacts of these plantations, the book documented a large number of human rights violations linked to oil palm expansion.9
The fact that both issues – forest destruction and human rights violations – had been well documented led large corporations linked to the palm oil chain (from plantations to retailers) to think strategically about the negative effects that growing opposition and negative publicity might have on their businesses in the future. What they felt they needed was a mechanism that could certify that the activity – from the production of oil palm fruit to the industrialisation of palm oil – could meet “minimum sustainability criteria” and garner sufficient credibility with importing country governments and consumers.
| No World Bank money for palm oil
Rettet den Regenwald* The World Bank has invested US$2 billion in palm oil cultivation and use since 1965, at least half of it in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil companies such as Wilmar International were regularly granted loans and development funds by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. Over the last 45 years, oil palm plantations have grown eightfold worldwide – 23-fold in Indonesia, according to the World Bank. The World Bank has financed 15 palm oil projects in Indonesia and boasts about the “successful establishment of 100,000 hectares of oil palm plantations”. * Rettet den Regenwald (“Save the rainforest”) is a German-based NGO. For more information, see: http://www.rainforest-rescue.org/index.php |
The “solution”: voluntary certification
The chosen mechanism –the RSPO – was to a large extent modelled on the previous WWF-led process of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). As in the FSC, the RSPO came up with a set of Principles and Criteria resulting from a negotiation process involving a broad range of “stakeholders”; compliance with those standards would be assessed by third-party certification. Both mechanisms also assure consumers that their certified products are sustainably produced: the RSPO through its own name, “Sustainable Palm Oil”, and the FSC through its stated commitment that “products carrying the FSC label are independently certified to assure consumers that they come from forests that are managed to meet the social, economic and ecological needs of present and future generations”.10
The fundamental problem here, however, is that large-scale monoculture tree plantations cannot be socially and ecologically “sustainable”. In the case of FSC, WRM has produced ample documented evidence proving that large-scale monoculture tree plantations are uncertifiable due to their social and environmental impacts.11 The same is true for large-scale monoculture oil palm plantations. The only forms of palm oil production that are ecologically sustainable is that of local communities using natural palm stands in West Africa – where oil palm is a native species.12
However, most of the oil traded internationally – even from West Africa – comes from large-scale monoculture oil palm plantations with profound social and environmental impacts. As with plantations of other trees – such as eucalyptus and pines – the problem is not the species planted but the form and scale in which they are cultivated.
To avoid confusion, it is important to note that industrial production13 of palm oil fruit is carried out in three main forms: 1) large, corporate-owned plantations; 2) smallholder farmers’ land; 3) a combination of both – the “nucleus estate-outgrowers” model. However, in all three cases the result is the same: a large area of contiguous land is occupied by monoculture oil palm plantations.
The impact of such plantations on plant and animal biodiversity is enormous, because they destroy the habitat – usually forest ecosystems – of a large number of species. This impact is magnified by the heavy use of agrotoxins, ranging from herbicides to insecticides, that result in the elimination of yet more animal and plant species. The chemicals pollute local water resources, which are also affected by the extensive drainage systems put in place for the plantations. Monoculture plantations, moreover, provoke erosion, because land formerly covered by forest is cleared prior to plantation, leaving the soil exposed to heavy tropical rains.
The consequences of plantations for local communities are often severe, particularly in corporate-owned plantations that appropriate large areas of land which had hitherto been in the hands of indigenous or peasant populations and had provided for their livelihoods. The dispossession generates resistance from local people, who are then confronted by repression from state forces and the oil palm companies themselves. The violation of land rights is thus typically followed by other human rights violations, including even the right to life.
Leaving aside other social and environmental impacts, it is a well-known fact that most of the plantations owned by companies involved in the RSPO process have been established at the expense of tropical forests. In spite of that, the fruit harvested from those same plantations will be industrialised and sold as “sustainable” palm oil. This is made possible by one of the RSPO’s criteria (7.3), which states that certification will check that “New plantings since November 2005 have not replaced primary forest”. This of course means that all deforestation prior to that date will not be taken into account, and that plantations where such deforestation occurred will still receive the RSPO seal of approval. Given that oil palms can be harvested for up to 30 years, this implies that much of the palm oil traded with the RSPO “sustainable” seal in the next 10–20 years will be harvested from plantations that have “replaced primary forest”.
The scenario most likely to result from the RSPO process is that in the future there will be two production sectors supplying different markets. On the one hand there will be a group of companies with certification that will attempt to a greater or lesser extent to comply with the principles and criteria adopted by the RSPO, while on the other hand there will be a second group of uncertified companies that will continue with “business as usual”. The first will cater for markets like the European Union, where consumers – and governments – demand compliance with certain social and environmental standards, while the second will supply all the other, less demanding markets.
To complicate matters further, what is being certified is not the overall performance of an oil palm company, but specific plantation areas. This means that it is possible that one company will have some of its operations certified under RSPO principles and criteria while it carries out other operations that violate those same principles. This would be a likely scenario in plantations owned by one company in different regions within a country, as well as in different countries.
The final result will be that the cultivation of oil palm will continue to expand, and the accumulated impacts of both “sustainable” and other plantations will continue to have serious impacts on people and their environment. The RSPO will have fulfilled its main objective: growth (as stated in the RSPO website: “Promoting the Growth and Use of Sustainable Palm Oil”).
Global oilpalm area, 1980–2009 from 4.3m to 14.7m hectares
Source: FAOSTAT
Sustainable, improved or greenwashed?
The problem with the RSPO is that it conveys the message that palm oil can be certified as “sustainable”. Confronted with that claim, the only possible response from anyone who knows about the impact of large-scale oil palm monoculture is that RSPO certification is a fraud.
Most people would of course agree that a company that complies with some of the more progressive social and environmental criteria included in the RSPO’s principles and criteria will have improved its performance. Even when the wording of almost every criterion allows for some “flexibility” in its interpretation, some criteria are at least a step forward as compared with currently prevailing practices. For instance, criterion 6.5 establishes that “Pay and conditions for employees and for employees of contractors always meet at least legal or industry minimum standards and are sufficient to provide decent living wages.” It is not much to require “minimum standard” wages, and it is difficult to define what the phrase “decent living wages” means, but it is obviously better than nothing.
Some social organisations, particularly in Indonesia have seen this process as an opportunity for helping to open up political space for indigenous peoples and affected communities. It is clear to them that the RSPO cannot solve the fundamental problems of land tenure and community rights, but it has been successfully used by some communities to assert their rights, and to force member companies to respect the rights of communities affected by their oil palm operations. As some companies attempt to apply the RSPO standard, this is helping to show that companies and the industry overall will not be able to respect indigenous peoples’ and communities’ rights unless there is legal reform.
The bigger question, however, is not whether the RSPO contributes to improving current practices –which it probably will in some cases – but whether it can be a useful means for addressing the industry’s most severe impacts on forests, local peoples, soils, water, biodiversity and climate. And the answer is: no.
With forests, the RSPO legalises past, present and future destruction of all types of forest, with the exception of “primary forests” and “rare, threatened or endangered species and high conservation value habitats”. As for the rights of local people, the criteria do not provide sufficient safeguards against the further expansion of oil palm plantations over their territories, which will deprive them of their lands and means of livelihoods and adversely affect their health. When it comes to soils, water and biodiversity, the RSPO will serve only to disguise the inevitable impacts of oil palm plantation management on these three crucial resources, while forest destruction will add further CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.
Widespread civil society opposition
In contrast to the Forest Stewardship Council – and probably as a result of experience with it – few civil society organisations have joined the RSPO process, and many are actively opposing it.
In October 2008, a large number of national and international organisations responded to the first Latin American meeting of the RSPO with an “International Declaration Against the ‘Greenwashing’ of Palm Oil by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil”.14 The choice of Colombia as the site of the meeting only confirmed the concerns of those organisations. The Colombian military and paramilitary forces have routinely used murder, torture, rape and “disappearances” in evicting whole communities to make way for oil palm plantations.
The declaration called the RSPO “a tool for the expansion of the palm oil business” and “another attempt at camouflaging and denying the true situation, providing ‘a green-wash’ to make a model of production that is intrinsically destructive and socially and environmentally unsustainable, appear to be ‘responsible’.” It gave several reasons for rejecting the RSPO, including:
- that the principles and criteria proposed by RSPO to define sustainability include large-scale plantations;
- that the RSPO is designed to legitimate the continuous expansion of the palm oil industry;
- that any model that includes the conversion of natural habitats into large-scale monoculture plantations cannot, by definition, be sustainable;
- that the RSPO is interested in economic growth and opening up markets for palm oil, not social and environmental sustainability;
- that the RSPO is dominated by industry and does not genuinely consult affected communities;
- that the participation of NGOs in RSPO, such as the WWF, only legitimates an unacceptable process;
- that the RSPO allows companies to certify individual plantations, eluding overall assessment of their whole production.
A year later, just before the RSPO’s 2009 general assembly in Malaysia, an open letter was sent to RSPO and WWF by a number of organisations under the heading “Oil palm monocultures will never be sustainable”.15 The letter stated:
We are deeply concerned that RSPO certification is being used to legitimise an expansion in the demand for palm oil and thus in oil palm plantations, and it serves to greenwash the disastrous social and environmental impacts of the palm oil industry. The RSPO standards do not exclude clear cutting of many natural forests, the destruction of other important ecosystems, nor plantings on peat. The RSPO certifies plantations which impact on the livelihoods of local communities and their environments. The problems are exacerbated by the in-built conflict of interest in the system under which a company wanting to be certified commissions another company to carry out the assessment.
The need to step up the struggle
Regardless of the good intentions of the NGO representatives participating in the RSPO process, or even those of participants from other sectors, it is obvious that the majority of the members and affiliate members of the RSPO do not question the expansion of oil palm monocultures. On the contrary, they are actively seeking to boost both production and consumption in traditional markets (food, soaps, detergents and cosmetics) and in the emerging market of agrofuels. While it is true that many aspects of the production process can be improved, it is equally true that the model as a whole – even with these improvements – continues to be unsustainable.
The RSPO process did not emerge out of the blue, but was in fact an industry response to the many local resistance struggles and national and international campaigns waged to denounce the current situation. Therefore, rather than supporting or opposing the RSPO process, what is most important now is to step up these struggles and campaigns to curb the further advance of this essentially destructive industrial model. The key challenge today is not to improve large-scale monoculture oil palm plantations, but rather to halt their expansion.
1 – This article is an edited version of a briefing by the WRM. The full briefing, which was published in March 2010, can be downloaded from: http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/briefings/RSPO.pdf
2 – The website of RSPO is: www.rspo.org
3 – Although the concept of sustainability is open to many interpretations, most people would probably agree with the following definition from Wikipedia: “Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of well-being, which in turn depends on the well-being of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.”
4 – See section on oil palm plantations on the WRM’s website at http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/palm.html
5 – http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/241082,greenpeace-first-sustainable-palm-oil-shipment-not-sustainable.html
6 – The RSPO was established in 2004 and the process for starting certification was completed in August 2008
7 – http://www.rspo.org/resource_centre/Press%20Release%20-%20Post%20RT6_1.pdf
8 – Eric Wakker et al., Funding Forest Destruction. The Involvement of Dutch Banks in the Financing of Oil Palm Plantations in Indonesia, Amsterdam, Bogor, Castricum: AIDEnvironment, Telapak and Contrast Advies, 2000.
9 – In September 2006, WRM published a second book: Oil Palm: From Cosmetics to Biodiesel – Colonization Lives On.
10 – http://www.fsc.org/vision_mission.html
11 – See WRM web page section on certification: http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/FSC/index.html
12 – Wild groves are harvested by subsistence farmers, who extract the oil by traditional methods. In West Africa, palm oil is a major food item and it is typically used for making foodstuffs, as its natural flavour has a distinguishable effect on dishes. Palm oil is also used to make palm wine and local medicines. The leaves may also be used to make thatches, which are used as roofing material in certain areas.
13 – Harvesting from wild groves or small scale plantations is not considered to be “industrial production”.
14 – See: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/17-11-2008-ENGLISH-RSPOInternational-Declaration.pdf
15 – http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/RSPO_letter.html
GOING FURTHER
WRM, “RSPO: The ‘greening’ of the dark palm oil business”, Montevideo, March 2010.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/briefings/RSPO.pdf
“International Declaration Against the ‘Greenwashing’ of Palm Oil by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil” signed by 256 Organisations.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/17-11-2008-ENGLISH-RSPOInternational-Declaration.pdf
“Oil palm monocultures will never be sustainable” Open letter to RSPA and WWF.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/RSPO_letter.html
“Sustainable monocultures no thanks!”, GRAIN, Against the grain, June 2006.
http://www.grain.org/articles_files/atg-6-en.pdf
The WRM website, with a special resource page on plantations: http://www.wrm.org.uy/
War on Trees: Harry Reid, Ag Extension Agents, and Chinese biomass companies promote liquidation of old growth forests… in Nevada
Pinyon and juniper trees, demonized by ranchers, miners and water mining entities, are being eyed by Chinese “biomass” companies with the backing of politicians.
Ken Cole — Wildlife News — January 18, 2011
Pinyon Juniper Forest, Nevada. Photo – Katie Fite
Recently the Nevada Pinyon-Juniper Partnership, aided by USDA, set up a conference to discuss pinyon and juniper trees. At the conference were several players in government and business who have an interest in the removal of pinyon and juniper trees in the Great Basin. Bob Abbey, the director of the BLM, attended the meeting.
Most people don’t think of the Great Basin when they think of old growth forests but the pinyon-juniper forests there are ancient forests with several hundred year old trees that provide important habitats and food for many species of birds like pinyon jays, Clark’s nutcrackers, black throated gray warblers, small mammals, nesting raptors. The charismatic seed-caching Clark’s nutcracker faces catastrophic food shortages in the Rockies due to whitebark pine die-off. It relies on large-seeded pines – and the pinyon pine has a superb large seed that was also vital to supporting Native American cultures in the Great Basin.
The refuge provided by these trees are probably the only reason that central Nevada has any elk at all. They are one of the important components that keep the entire Great Basin Ecosystem together because they retain snow later into the year due to their shade and absorb CO2. Their destruction would promote global warming and desertification by making the area hotter and drier.
The history of animosity towards pinyon juniper trees is a long one. As with sagebrush, for many years ranchers have been getting BLM and FS to use our tax dollars to fund removal of p-j forests to promote livestock forage. They recruited the College of Agriculture at the University of Nevada, Reno, to concoct biased science to justify p-j killing projects. Test projects were initiated, but not evaluated, where p-j forests were chained, cut down or burned, that often resulted in unforeseen (to some) effects such as cheatgrass invasion. A false comparison was concocted where researchers claimed that p-j forests should have an open understory like seen in ponderosa pine forests which are subject to frequent repeated fires. Generally p-j forests are subject to small, spotty fires or major stand replacing fires.
By conveniently ignoring the fact that the p-j forests were heavily utilized during the mining days of the 19th century for fueling smelters, ranchers try to promote the false assertion that p-j are “encroaching” into areas where they previously didn’t grow when, in actuality, they are recolonizing areas where they were cut down. Proposals to destroy p-j forests by dragging huge chains between two tractors were made but they were shot down in court by Western Watersheds Project in 2002 so the proponents of p-j thinning have gone back to the drawing board.
Now it is being claimed that p-j are responsible for reductions in sage grouse populations because sage grouse avoid areas with tall structures or trees used by avian predators for perches to prey on them. This has been a very convenient argument because it distracts away from the fact that a century and a half of overgrazing has brought devastating changes in the form of weeds, sagebrush destruction, soil erosion, increased fire frequency, and other habitat degradation to the lower elevation areas that sage grouse depend on. While the ranchers squeeze the lower elevation habitat they are putting pressure on the agencies to kill p-j on higher elevation habitat under the guise of sage grouse “habitat restoration”.
On top of this pressure from the ranchers, foreign mining companies, who have bought up ranches and gained control of a number of grazing allotments, eye the p-j with disdain because the trees are in the way of expansion of existing and new mines. If the trees are cut down under another guise then it is easier to argue that they should be allowed to expand their operations. Another proponent of p-j thinning in Nevada is the water mining Southern Nevada Water Authority who has also bought up ranches and gained control of a number of grazing allotments. They eye the p-j with disdain because they transpire precious water that they want to mine and pipe to water Las Vegas.
Now a new player enters the p-j matrix. With the support of Senator Harry Reid, county commissioners, and ranchers, A-Power, a Chinese company, is pushing to use the p-j for “biomass” to fuel power generating facilities. Nothing could be more unsustainable than using ancient forests of the Great Basin for biomass.
Interestingly, a Chinese windmill assembly plant near Las Vegas is controlled by an entity named RePower that also has curried favor with Reid.
In an effort to move forward with landscape level p-j destruction projects a number of groups are formulating a plan for a 2 million acre “demonstration project” where they would thin the forests using money from the sales of public lands under the authority of the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act or other federal funds that are supposed to be used for sage grouse restoration. This money would then be funneled through the Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition which is a non-profit with a history of funding research which supports vegetation killing under the guise of “habitat restoration”. This would be done to reduce federal contracting requirements. As recently as 2008, current BLM director Bob Abbey was a “trustee” of the ENLC.
Great Basin pine nuts are prized, limited harvest occurs, and the value of nut production would far exceed the value of beef that could be produced by the destroyed land.
An Ecological Bomb in the Mediterranean
The Ships of Poison Cover-Up
By MICHAEL LEONARDI | January 21, 2011
While the global and Italian national media focuses on allegations of Berlusconi’s latest sexual exploits including reports of hedonistic orgies with teenage prostitutes at his luxurious villas, the much more devastating story of the intentional sinking of ships laden with radioactive and toxic materials into the Mediterranean Sea has quietly developed some new twists and turns in another of Italy’s notorious and grand cover-ups. Surely Berlusconi’s sexcapades make Bill Clinton’s impeachable blow job pale in comparison, but the the tabloid headlines could be replaced by the indignation of the Italian Media at least, with the intentional contamination of the beloved blue waters of the Mediterranean and the dismantling of the Italy’s social democracy rather than dedicating the entirety of their attention to prostitutes being paid to entertain one of our most sick and twisted world leaders.
We pick up this story in June of 2010 with the revelations that there is indeed what Italian state prosecutor Bruno Giordano called an “ecological bomb” in the valley of the Oliva river that flows down the mountains and past the towns of Aiello Calabro and Amantea on its way to the Tyrrhenian Sea. This is where it is believed that the cargo of the Jolly Rosso was intentionally dumped and buried. State agencies found the valley to be contaminated with thousands of cubic meters of industrial mud laced with very high levels of cobalt, nickel, mercury, lead, and other heavy metals. They found the presence of cesium 137, and they found more contaminated locations than previously anticipated, leading investigators to believe that not only was the cargo of the Jolly Rosso dumped here but that the area was then used as an illegal dumping grounds for years. There are no industries in this area that produce these materials so it is clear that they were produced and shipped in from other places. A formal request has been made to the minister of the environment Stefania Prestigiacomo to declare this zone an environmental disaster area and to begin cleaning it up. More than six months later there has been NO response.
State secrets still cloak the investigation into the case of what the Italian’s call the Navi dei Veleni Ships of Poison. State secrets still mask the murders of key investigators into the network of international business men, the Italian military, SISMI (the Italian secret service), NATO and state governments as they worked together to create and hide a network of waste and arms trafficking traversing the high Seas from the major Italian port of La Spezia to Alessandria, Egypt, Beruit, Lebanon and onward to Africa and Mogadishu in Somalia. Key investigators into the story of the Ships of Poison, Naval Captain Natale de Grazia, journalist Ilaria Alpi and cameraman Miran Hrovatin lost their lives for what many believe was their discovering of key truths that could expose an international network involving the Italian government that traded military weapons for the disposal of hazardous industrial wastes. Alpi and Hrovatin were gunned down in Mogadishu on the 20th of March 1994 by a Somali commando unit. Captain Natale de Grazia died of sudden cardiac arrest on the 13th of December 1995 only days before he was to deliver his report on his investigation into the Ships of Poison.
Now fast forward to 2011 and several recent developments that should be grabbing headlines. Two Italian journalists, Andrea Palladino, journalist for the communist daily il Manifesto and Vincenzo Mulè, journalist for Terra (Earth) News, have reported on a secret document that has come to the surface in the Parliamentary Commission on the Cycle of Garbage in Italy. This document dated December 11th 1995 describes financing by the Italian government under Lamberto Dini to the Italian Secret Service for the management of trafficking in arms and nuclear waste. While parts of this document have been acknowledged by the parliamentary commission, it still remains state secret. This document became state secret in 1995 and state secrets in Italy are supposed to be bound by a statute of 15 years that should have been up in 2010, however, this document still remains a secret.
Just this week, in an unexpected move from the Parliamentary Commission on the Cycle of Garbage in Italy, the investigation into the murder of journalist Ilaria Alpi and her cameraman Miran Hrovatin was reopened after being closed since 2006. It is believed that Italians paid the Somalis with weapons in exchange for using their sea and land as dumping grounds for toxic and radioactive wastes and that Alpi and Hrovatin had discovered too much. They were gunned down just days after Alpi had interviewed the Sultan of Bosaso, her notes from this interview were never found. Many believe that Alpi was killed because of what she had discovered about the ties between the Italian military and corrupt elements of the Somali leadership. This was all taking place during the time of Blackhawk down and the U.S. led occupation. According to the mafia turncoat Francesco Fonti, they had seen an exchange involving the Italian military and were assassinated for this reason. Their case was reopened because of a note about their deaths that was found among the belongings of Italian businessman Giorgio Comerio by Captain Natale de Grazia’s investigation.
This shady Italian businessman named Giorgio Comerio plays heavily into the reopening of this investigation. Comerio had come up with an idea for disposing of hazardous and radioactive wastes by torpedoing these wastes into the Sea floors. He was notorious for the trafficking of waste and part of a network intent on collecting insurance for old ships that were in need of disposal. His name has been associated with the purchase of the Jolly Rosso, the ship that beached on the shores of Amantea from the Messina shipping company. Old ships it seems are difficult and expensive to dispose of so Comerio and some mafia bosses came up with the bright idea of sinking them and collecting on their insurance policies while at the same time disposing of industrial wastes. Comerio has testified that “disposal at Sea was the only viable option for disposing of radioactive wastes at that time, as sending them off in the space shuttle was too dangerous because of the possibility of an explosion in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
In Captain Natale de Grazia’s investigation he found a report about the killing of Alpi and Hrovatin in Comerio’s files. It has been stated that De Grazia also found a copy of Ilaria Alpi’s death certificate at Comerio’s house on Lago di Como, but that this document disappeared from case files that were in the offices of state prosecutor Francesco Neri in Reggio Calabria. Neri says he remembers this document in the files and that De Grazia’s investigation had discovered it a Comerio’s house but that it has mysteriously disappeared.
Natale de Grazia’s investigation was also focused on another Italian businessman linked to the waste trade from La Spezia. De Grazia was focusing on the major port of La Spezia where NATO operates its undersea research center NURC and where arms and waste shipments are a big business. Orazio Duvia was identified by De Grazia as a key figure in the trafficking of both arms and toxic and radioactive wastes. He was the owner and operator of a mega and quite possibly largest industrial hazardous waste dump in Italy, the landfill of Pittelli on one of the hills overlooking the gulf of La Spezia. According to the research of Andrea Palladino, the CIA looked to the corrupt and criminally operated Pittelli landfill as a model for industrial waste disposal. In May of 1995 De Grazia reported to a group of forest rangers that Duvia’s landfill was one of the logistical platforms for the shipping and sinking of wastes. In this presentation that he made under the code name “pinnochio” in order to protect his identity, he described the sinking of a ship called the Rigel said to be full of nuclear waste and sunk in the waters of the Ionian Sea off the coast of Calabria.
Captain Natale de Grazia was said to be in perfect health by his friends and family. He had however voiced concern about his investigation to his brother in law and had indicated that he may have been treading in dangerous waters as his discoveries led him to conclusions that would be highly uncomfortable for the entire Italian and possibly international power structure. His sudden cardiac arrest happened just days before he was to give his report.
All indicators point to a collusion of forces in this horrific saga of the Ships of Poison, a collusion between SISMI (the Italian secret service), the Italian government, big business, NATO and organized crime families from the Calabrian based crime syndicate l’ndrangheta. Many are now hoping that the reopening of the Ilaria Alpi/Miran Hrovatin case will finally bring the truth to light, but this is doubtful. The Parliamentary Commission on Italy’s Garbage Cycle is being led by a good friend and lawyer of Silvio Belusconi, Gaetano Pecorella. Pecorella began his political career as a radical communist but has moved sharply to the right over the years culminating in what is considered to be the legal mind of the Berlusconi phenomenon. Unless he’s being riddled by some kind of catholic guilt for a life of vile hypocrisy, things don’t bode well for a truly transparent investigation. Pecorella has also defended elements of the Neapolitan based mafia the Camorra noted for its traffic of garbage and creation of the continuing garbage crisis in Naples and surrounding areas.
Italy is at a very critical juncture and whether Berlusconi survives yet again or not is only part of the problem. The Italian economy is in turmoil, the public eduction system is being dismantled and the health care system is under attack while being wrought with corruption. Civil unrest over the past several months has led nowhere but to heightened tensions with an increasingly militarized police state. The country is divided and while a growing majority is crying out for change a large minority still supports the despicable leadership of the neo-fascists running the country. Only time will tell if the mass movement of the past months will bear the fruits of change toward a sustainable economy that are sorely needed. America’s military presence in Italy must be challenged and dismantled for any real change to happen and the center-left has traditionally rubber stamped America’s imperial presence on the peninsula.
Michael Leonardi is currently living in Toledo, Ohio and can be reached at mikeleonardi@hotmail.com
Previous coverage of the Ships of Poison saga.
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi09182009.html,
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi10092009.html,
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi11042009.html .
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Aaron Siri’s Book: Vaccines, Amen
By Maryanne DemasiMaryanne Demasi | Brownstone Institute | June 15, 2026
For decades, vaccines have been treated as the sacred cow of modern medicine. I was taught that they were the holy grail. To question them was heresy. To raise concerns about safety was to risk professional exile.
Aaron Siri makes it clear in Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines that the story we’ve been told about vaccine science rests far more on belief than proof.
“No child should be sacrificed on the altar of the religion of vaccines,” Siri writes, as he turns his focus to America’s overcrowded childhood immunisation schedule.
I assumed little in this book would surprise me. I’ve spent years reporting on drug safety, regulatory capture, and the corruption of science. But Siri showed me how wrong I was.
Siri is not a doctor or a scientist. He is an attorney, and this, he says, is his advantage. In court, rhetoric won’t save you. Evidence does. As he puts it, he doesn’t get to say “trust me” the way many doctors do. “I need to prove claims with real data.”
And he does. … continue
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