Alcoa claim that they are one of the most ethical corporations in the world. Really? Below is a message sent to us from our friends fighting Alcoa in Trinidad and Tobago”, where Alcoa wishes to cut down pristine rainforests and displace houndreds of people in order to mine the bauxite (aluminium ore) and build gas powered smelters. As in Iceland, there is a popular opposition to Alcoa in Trinidad and Tobago, yet the government welcomes Alcoa’s supposed ‘business.’
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A report from Trinidad’s Occupied Territory:
03/10/2006
Living in Chatham, in the Cedros Peninsula was very different from living anywhere else in Trinidad. Everybody knows everybody, people help each other and it was safe to walk the roads of Chatham at any time, day or night.
All that has changed on Sept. 10th, when Alcoa’s armed forces moved into Chatham.
Right now, armed so-called security guards with no visible identification roam the area of the proposed Alcoa smelter plant estate. Dressed like workers with overalls and hard hats, but armed, you see them everywhere on the property. Guard dogs are on the loose at night and what was once a safe place on the Island is no more, thanks to Alcoa enforcers Wade Hughes and Randy Overbey, who claimed in the press that they needed ‘security to restore law and order’.
Did law and order get restored? On the contrary, lawlessness and crime came to peaceful Chatham with a vengeance. Last Sunday night, a couple living right on the border line of the ‘proposed Alcoa estate’ was tied up, robbed and the young lady was gang raped by three men, only identified as being ‘negro’ and ‘not from the Chatham area’.
This home invasion and robbery happened just two days after the Member of Parliament for the area, Larry Achong, made the statement “They shoulda arrest forty and beat them.” commenting on the arrest of several anti-smelter activists two weeks ago.
Gang rapes and home invasions are something totally unheard of in the Chatham area and resident’s fear of Alcoa and their army of thugs has increased to an unbearable level. The Chatham Residents are now considering petitioning the United Nations for help. Welcome to Trinidad’s very own ‘Gaza Strip’, courtesy of Alcoa Inc.
Alcoa is unleashing its terror with full force. Just when you thought that the events in Sao Luis, Brazil where almost 6,000 people where forcefully ‘evicted’ and people’s houses burned down to make way for Alcoa’s ‘smelter in the park’ couldn’t possibly happen in this day and age, Alcoa is showing its true face once again.
P.S. Alcoa has been voted #8 ‘most socially responsible corporation’ by a Swiss firm.
P.S. P.S. Alcoa’s enforcer Wade Hughes claims in his letters to the editor that Alcoa’s Trinidad smelter will comply with all US EPA emissions standards and environmental standards .
P.S. P.S. P.S. In August of 2006, the US Justice department has demanded over 9.1 million US dollars in penalties from Alcoa for 1,819 violations of EPA pollution standards and environmental laws in the US.
www.nosmeltertnt.com
I’m just beginning to get a little microscopic view of the all too familiar connection between a host of well groomed indviduals (selected for their connections with wealth / power) working in the upper echelons of political/industrial networks and international organisations like the Trilateral Commission. A spider web of cohesion and convergence hidden from view that envelopes communities around the world in a way of life that they do not want. Lagos in mind at the moment. surely we need a Thinking Man’s Guide on the companies, the way their corporate power works through an obtuse hierarchy of control like that of a chinese doll, hiding a myriad of organisations within its oligarchy, and the way these hundreds of satellite operations interpolate their agenda in political systems behind closed doors. The idea that ‘everything is connected’ needs to be illustrated better than what it is now.
What troubles me most of all is the connection between military hardware, war zones and these sprawling networks. Yet, I haven’t come across a publication that clearly maps the way these networks connect with government systems. Leaving aside the individual characters who play their part for a season
The political development in Iceland typifies why a thorough illustration of contemporary political/industrial systems should be introduced into educational curriculums worldwide as mandatory – eschewing the role of popular nationalistic history as propogandist at best.
Perhaps activism could turn its energies more towards educating the young in schools and gaining a status of excellence in preparing children for understanding the ethical/moral questions they need to face when seeking work. Coupled with this, an education about how the current industrial/political systems work and an introduction to the economic principles or beliefs that support the systems. i.e. introducing the question whether growth for growth’s sake is intellectually robust as our Victorian idealogs made them out to be.
Collecting incisive data for such a scheme would depend on getting key people inside to be code breakers and squealers, offering them ‘safe houses’ in the event of institutional thuggery by MI6 etal.
Tackling worldwide corporatist control requires some fundamental sea change in strategy and one of these has to be about educating youth through easy read tracts, comics, shows, stalls, performance and stimulating presentations at youth centres, rolling out of educational material to schools, promoting embargos, forming a relationship with every newspaper setting up newsfeeds about the latest ‘exposure’, dropping magazines and flyers in every public place, getting libraries involved, doing exhibitions. The public are not aware.
Assumption that the public is becoming conscious of issues is not reflected in their buying habits and life style. The downturn in economic scale frightens these political networkers and their paymasters but I think most thinking people realise that we’ve more or less come to a defining moment in our long and happy ride on the tidal wave of consumption and I believe many are ready to be recruited but the mechanism for doing this isn’t evident yet.
There’s loads of activity in the anti dept among loads of seemingly independent groups carving out their political history but none in the collectivisation of these groups under an international umbrella equivalent to say the Trilateral Commission. Is there? Am I too green to notice there is one? pun not intended.
I am so sorry for my country Trinidad and Tobago! I love the island but unfortunatley its run by idiots, Manning and his posse. The only vision 2020 that he can achieve is 2020 BC in which case he isn’t doing that bad! Congrats Patrick! Lets hope the people learn the lesson PNM is crap, UNC is crap. I hope COP can make a difference but don’t think they will get support in time for next elections!
So when PNM wins again because people will vote them back (just wait and see) then as they say CRAPO SMOKE YUH PIPE!