a look at corporations in south america inspired by Manuel Rozenthal, speaking at Sommet des Peuples+1 in quebec city.

A few weeks ago at the peoples summit +1 in quebec city, I had the opportunity to hear colombian activist Manuel Rozental speak about some of the problems and possibilities in colombia. It is his feeling that within the next three years, colombia will be in one of three situations:

* in a state of permanent war due to multinational interests

* a fascist regime will be elected and the popular movement will be exterminated

or

* the popular movement (minga) will emerge successfully and in solidarity with other nations.

He asked the audience, the canadian public, to look at the ways in which we can make choices in our lives that do or do not contribute to the exploitation of columbian peoples.

I have done a small amount of research in the last few weeks, and I have found many cases of very unsound business practices of major corporations in latin america. I thought I might share these.

In columbia, major corporate players are united brands (fruit company), colgate palmolive, chrysler, goodyear, purina, quaker and british petroleum. These corporations have supported on going war and conflict, non democracy and military rule in order to keep their profits high.

In guatamala; bank of america, united brands, beatrice boods, colgate palmolive, delmonte, goodyear, monsanto, standard oil, texaco. us bankers have acknowledged that they have provided loans to companies that supported death squads to kill dissidents (aka labour and proletariat organizers). kmart and jc penney have been publically noted in america for their sweatshops in guatamala.

In brazil; ford, volkswagen and mercedes benz have had factories with poor labour conditions, and below minimum wage pay. alcoa, anderson clayton, atlantic richfield, ford, general electric, general motors, johnson and johnson, union carbide, us steel and alcan have operated/are operating in brazil during military dictatorship. In 1990, citicorp, chase manhatten and bank of america held one quarter of brazil's foreign debt. 200,000 Indiginous peoples living in the amazon basin have been uprooted (estimates that 100,000 have been killed) and relocated. Foreign corporations that have made huge land grabs include king ranch of texas, swift armour (Subsidy of BRASCAN) and volkswagen.

In the dominican republic, canadian mining corporation falconbridge, nestle, royal bank, shell, colgate palmolive, exxon, texaco and phillip morris have supported military rule and opposed fair wages for their workers.

Of course this list is far from comprehensive. It gives us an idea of how many ways north americans can act to change the way we act as global citizens if we do truly want to support justice and democracy for all people.

Reading:
Cockroft, James: Latin America: History, Politics, US Foreign Policy