"People's Action for Corporate Accountability"
20-23 August 2002, Johannesburg, South Africa
The week before the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Sandton, groundWork hosted a conference entitled Corporate Accountability Week in which the theme was "Peoples' Action for Corporate Accountability." SAEPEJ played a key support role and sent the US Co-ordinator to act as an additional groundWork staff person. From August 20-23, 2002, environmental and human rights NGO's sat alongside community groups from around the world to discuss how to hold corporations, engaged in environmental and human rights abuses, accountable to local communities and the world. The week included panel discussions on oil refineries in South Africa and Shell abuses in Nigeria, to issues of asbestos and vanadium mining, to discussions on climate change and genetic engineering. The discussions focused on organizing to hold corporations accountable in both local grassroots communities and on the national and international level.
The week included speakers, panels, films, roundtable discussions, protests and even theater. Below are some snapshots of the various events that happened throughout the week. The week culminated with a resolution signed by over 60 organizations entitted "People's Action for Corporate Accountability." You can read the resolution on the groundWork's website and the projects groudwork was involved in at WSSD. This is not a comprehensive report on all the panels and events that tookplace, but rather a sketch of the various issues and themes the week presented. It is organized under three main headings: Speakers and Discussions, Iscor Prostest, and the Greenwash Awards.
Speakers and Discussions
The conference was opened by and address by Richard Meeran, lead lawyer for the Thor Chemicals and Cape Asbestos legal cases, opened the week with his perspectives on corporate accountability.
Ka Hsaw Wa (Earth Rights International) speaks about his work documenting the Human Rights abuses in Burma around a Total, Unocal and Premier Oil pipeline project in which indigenous people were displaced and forced to work by the Burmese military. Other speakers on the panel "Strategies to hold corporates accountable" were Amit Srivastava (CorpWatch India), Bobby Peek (groundWork) and Barbara Lott Holland [on leftt](Bus Riders Union).
Yin Shao Loong [2nd from left] (Third World Network) addressing how business has worked against the sustainable development agenda.Other speakers on this panel "Corporate accountability and international conventions and institutions" incluided Marcelo Futardo (Greenpeace), Craig Bennett (Friends of the Earth), and Kenny Bruno (CorpWatch).
Farid Esack, groundWork Trustee and social justice and gender activist, address the conference before the panel "The oil refinery struggles in South Africa: An apartheid legacy reinforced!" The panel included representatives from the South Durban Communtiy Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), Sasolburg Environmenal Committee (SEC), Table View Residents Association (TVRA) and the Highveld East Community Environmental Monitoring Association (HECEMA).
Caroline Ntaopane, a Project X-Change participant and a member of SEC, describing the environmental injustices in Sasolburg.
"Communities challenging Shell," a panel including [left to right] Denny Larson (Global Community Monitor GCM), Isaac Osuoko (Earth Rights Action - Nigeria), Marietta Liefferink and her husband (Bryanston Ratepayers Association - South Africa), and [not shown] Margie Richards (Concerned Citizens of Norco - USA), had speakers from all points in the oil production process to discuss their struggles against a WSSD corporate partner, Shell.
To discuss the issues in the mining sector, [left to right] Troy Prince (campaigner around asbestos poinsoning in the Northern Cape), Hlokoza Motau (NUMSA), Philip Matsomela (former Vametco Worker), and Samuel Payne (Yonge Nawe - Swaziland) spoke on the panel entitled "Corportate accountability in the mining sector: Community experience from Southern Africa."
"Waste sites and the challenges in South Africa," with [left to right] Fatima Gibril (Somalia), Sajida Khan (Clare Estate Community), HB Singh (Chatsworth Civil Association), and Collete Caine (Steel Valley Crisis Committee), was a panel that discussed the placing of waste site in communities of color in South Africa and arond the world. The panel discussed community struggles to fight against these hazardous waste sites in their community.
The Strategy Centre and the Bus Riders Union hosted a panel that focused on their frontline organizing campaigns and how they approach the UN system.
Global Community Monitor demonstrating how they use the bucket technology to help communities monitor their air.
Richard Navarro, Chair of Friends of the Earth and community activist, gives the closing address to the conference explaining why peoples' own experiences should lead us to struggle for corporate accountability.
The thirteen Golman Prize award winners who attended a rare meeting of the winners and also meet with conference participants at an evening dinner. To find out more about the Goldman Award and read about its winners go to thier website.