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  Security issues / Conflict zones: General materials 1996-2000  

See also other materials on "Security issues / Conflict zones"

2000:

Military aid . . . from the private sector: When the Pentagon decided to send Colombia military help for the war on drugs, it chose to outsource it (Paul de la Garza and David Adams, St. Petersburg Times [Florida, USA], 3 Dec. 2000)

Conflict Diamonds: [U.N.] General Assembly adopts resolution on "conflict diamonds" (United Nations, 1 Dec. 2000)

{···français} Le pétrole en Afrique, la violence faite au peuple: Cette vaste enquête très documentée montre comment l'économie de l'or noir, en Afrique, loin de favoriser le progrès économique et social, vampirise les ressources financières et humaines des pays concernés. (Le Monde Diplomatique, décembre 2000)

Mercedes Benz: Industry and Human Rights -...During the Argentinian dictatorship at least 13 members of the union Internal Commission at Mercedes Benz disappeared...While the criminal prosecution was not allowed in Germany against Daimler Chrysler, German justice did allow proceedings against the company branch in González Catán and the current director of the firm, Tasselkraut...In November 2000 Juan Carlos Capurro, lawyer for the Legal Action Committee of the Argentinian workers’ union CTA (Central de Trabajadores Argentinos), lodged the Mercedes case with the Secretariat of Human Rights in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Gaby Weber, Le Monde Diplomatique, Southern Cone edition, Dec. 2000)

Statement by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on Conflict Diamonds, Security Council, November 30, 2000 (U.S. Mission to the United Nations, 30 Nov. 2000)

Major UN Role Needed to Curb Conflict Diamonds (Oxfam International, 17 Nov. 2000) 

Aceh: ecological war zone - Natural resources are one of the main factors underlying the independence struggle in Aceh, but decades of plunder have left them severely depleted. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

Rio Tinto: blockades and strikes hit Kalimantan mines [Indonesia] - The past months have seen unprecedented direct action by local people and mine workers protesting against injustice at Rio Tinto's PT KEM and Kaltim Prima mines. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

Newmont under siege: Newmont, the US-based mining company, has again come under fire at both its operations in Indonesia. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

Indigenous miners evicted [Indonesia]: There has been further conflict at indigenous mining lands inside the PT Indo Muro Kencana gold concession operated by Australia's Aurora Gold in Central Kalimantan. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

Resource exploitation continues as tension mounts: Indonesian and foreign companies continue to profit from West Papua's resources as the military resumes its tough line with the independence movement. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

Police fire on Unocal protesters [Indonesia]: Twenty three people were injured when police moved in to break up a protest blockade at Unocal's oil and gas terminal in East Kalimantan...The villagers were protesting against the US-based company's failure to meet demands for compensation or deal with pollution problems. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

Villagers shot, one killed in Sosa land dispute [Indonesia]: On 25 August 2000, police shot indiscriminately into a crowd of people gathered outside the factory gates of oil palm company PT Permata Hijau Sawit (PT PHS) in Mananti village, Sosa sub-district, South Tapanuli (Down to Earth Newsletter, Nov. 2000)

What can Business Bring to Balkan Reconstruction? (conference organised by Humanitarian Affairs Review and The Business Humanitarian Forum, with The World Bank and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, and in association with the United Nations Office for Project Services [UNOPS] and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 3 Oct.  2000)

Fueling Genocide: Talisman Energy and the Sudanese Slaughter (Gabriel Katsh, Multinational Monitor, Oct. 2000)

South Africa - A Question of Principle: Arms Trade and Human Rights (Human Rights Watch, Oct. 2000)

Sudan's oil - Fuelling a fire (The Economist [UK], 2 Sep. 2000)

U.S. Initiatives on "Conflict Diamonds" (U.S. State Department, 28 July 2000)

Enron in India: the Dabhol Disaster (Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch, 20 July 2000)

Delight at ban on war diamonds - Special report: Sierra Leone (Andrew Osborn, Guardian [UK], 20 July 2000)

Factory Guards Open Fire in Cambodia (Associated Press, 22 June 2000)

Global Witness Releases Conflict Diamond Report (Global Witness, 20 June 2000) 

Conflict Diamonds: Possibilities for the Identification, Certification and Control of Diamonds (Global Witness, June 2000)

Officials try to get private enterprise involved in stopping armed conflicts (Jason Topping Cone, Earth Times News Service, 12 May 2000)

Sudan - The Human Price of Oil (Amnesty International, May 2000)

Britain backs ugly war for oil [Sudan] (Julie Flint, Observer, 16 Apr. 2000)

The U'wa-Oxy Standoff [Colombia] (Charlie Cray, Multinational Monitor, Apr. 2000)

De Beers: Come Clean to Be Clean (Editorial, Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, 24 Mar. 2000)

Spoils of War [Angola] (Holger Jensen, Nando Times, 15 Mar. 2000)

Battle against oppression abroad turns to Wall Street: Religious and human-rights activists target stocks and capital markets to stop a war of 'genocide' in Sudan [refers to Talisman, Petronas, PetroChina] (Jane Lampman, Christian Science Monitor, 3 Mar. 2000)

On war: War and money [concerning the publication war, money and survival] (International Committee of the Red Cross, Forum, Mar. 2000)

De Beers Tries to Ensure Gems Don't Finance Insurrection (Alan Cowell, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2000)

Canadian corporate responsibility and the war in Sudan (Ernie Regehr, Project Ploughshares, Ploughshares Monitor, Mar. 2000)

SUDAN: Talisman Energy Abets Tyranny -- Report (United Nations Foundation, UN Wire, 15 Feb 2000)

Protests at PT TEL pulp plant [Indonesia]: Community anger is being directed at the newly completed plant in South Sumatra - The US$1 billion development is financed largely by Japanese, European and North American companies and banks. Equipment and technical services have been provided by Scandinavian, German and Canadian companies backed by Export Credit Agreements. This is yet another example of how the interests of foreign investors and export revenues are being put before the health and sustainable livelihoods of local communities in the name of 'economic development'. Tension between local communities and the management of the Tanjung Enim Lestari (PT TEL) paper pulp plant erupted into violence in mid-December...The estimated 30,000 people living in neighbouring communities have no idea about the potential environmental impacts of the pulp plant. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Feb. 2000)

Undermining the forests: The need to control transnational mining companies - A Canadian case study - Undermining the Forests, a new report published by the Forest Peoples Programme, the World Rainforest Movement and Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links, documents cases from around the world of the disastrous impact that Canadian mining enterprises are having upon the world's forests and forest peoples. Undermining the Forests details cases from around the world that clearly indicate not only the appalling unresolved legacy of past bad practice but the continuation of serious human rights violations, impoverishment and massive and irreparable environmental damage. (Down to Earth Newsletter, Feb. 2000)

Towards a Spiral of Violence? The Dangers of Privatisation of Risk Management of Investments in Africa: Mining Activities and the Use of Private Security Companies; Appendix A: Principales Zones de Gisements [map from Le Monde Diplomatique]; Appendix B: Mining investment in areas of conflict: the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (written by S. Aoul, E. Revil, B. Sarrasin, B. Campbell, D. Tougas [Entraide missionnaire]; presented to the United Nations and Canadian Government by The Working Group on Human Rights in Congo/Kinshasa, Development and Peace, and MiningWatch Canada, Feb. 2000)

Oil Giants Once Again Accused of Abuses [Nigeria] (Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service, 27 Jan. 2000)

Oil For Nothing: Multinational Corporations, Environmental Destruction, Death and Impunity in the Niger Delta [Nigeria] (Essential Action and Global Exchange, Jan. 2000)

Human Security in Sudan (the Harker report) (excerpts from executive summary of report prepared for the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jan. 2000)

The Heart of the Matter: Sierra Leone, Diamonds & Human Security (Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie and Ralph Hazleton, Partnership Africa Canada, Jan. 2000)

Just Earth! Multinationals: Chevron (from Environmentalists Under Fire: 10 Urgent Cases of Human Rights Abuses, joint publication by Amnesty International USA and The Sierra Club, Jan. 2000)

Just Earth! Multinationals: ExxonMobil (from Environmentalists Under Fire: 10 Urgent Cases of Human Rights Abuses, joint publication by Amnesty International USA and The Sierra Club, Jan. 2000)

Oil and diamonds fuel war in Angola (Alex Vines, Human Rights Watch, in Human Rights & Business Matters, newsletter of Amnesty International UK Business Group, autumn 1999/winter 2000) 

Repression is bad for business - Lesson from Indonesia (Human Rights & Business Matters, newsletter of Amnesty International UK Business Group, autumn 1999/winter 2000)

Corporate investment in zones of conflict: The case of BP in Casanare, Colombia (Dr. Jenny Pearce, University of Bradford Dept. of Peace Studies, in Human Rights & Business Matters, newsletter of Amnesty International UK Section Business Group,  autumn 1999/winter 2000)

Investing in unstable regions (Nick Killick of International Alert, and Jordana Friedman, in Human Rights & Business Matters, newsletter of Amnesty International UK Business Group, autumn 1999/winter 2000)

The Business of Peace: The Private Sector as a Partner in Conflict Prevention and Resolution (Jane Nelson/ Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum [now International Business Leaders Forum], International Alert, Council on Economic Priorities, 2000)

1999:

Canadian Gold Mining Interests Involved in Police Shootings in Ghana, West Africa (MiningWatch Canada / Mines Alerte, 22 Dec. 1999)

A Crude Awakening: How Angolan State corruption and lack of oil company and banking transparency has contributed to Angola's humanitarian and development catastrophe (press release, Global Witness, Dec. 1999)

A Crude Awakening - The Role of the Oil and Banking Industries in Angola's Civil War and the Plunder of State Assets (report, Global Witness, Dec. 1999)

Fight for Sudan's Oil is Killing Civilians: Canadian company part of consortium developing fields being cleared by force in civil war (Damien Lewis, Globe and Mail [Toronto], 5 Oct. 1999)

Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process (Human Rights Watch, Sep. 1999)

Deep in The Republic of Chevron [Nigeria] (Norimitsu Onishi, Sunday New York Times Magazine, 4 July 1999)

Good intentions are not enough: A report on BP Amoco's involvement in the Casanare region of Colombia (CAFOD, Catholic Institute for International Relations, Christian Aid, Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK, July 1999)

Arsenals on the Cheap: NATO Expansion and the Arms Cascade (Human Rights Watch, Apr. 1999)

Bulgaria - Money Talks: Arms Dealing with Human Rights Abusers (Human Rights Watch, Apr. 1999)

The Enron Corporation: Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations [India] (Human Rights Watch, Jan. 1999)

The Price of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigeria's Oil Producing Communities (Human Rights Watch, Jan. 1999) 

1998:

Sudan - Global Trade, Local Impact: Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan (Human Rights Watch, Aug. 1998)

Colombia: Human rights concerns raised by the security arrangements of transnational oil companies (Human Rights Watch, Apr. 1998)

Algerian killings fuel oil groups' concern: An increase in violence risks disturbing the isolated existence of foreign companies -...Developments are compounding foreign company concerns over employee safety and the public relations dilemma about working with a controversial regime. (Roula Khalaf & Robert Corzine, Financial Times, 5 Jan. 1998)

Algerian horrors:...The least it [the Algerian Government] can do now is accede to the growing demand, voiced in particular by Mary Robinson, the UN's human rights commissioner, for impartial external investigators to be given full access so that responsibility for the massacres can be established as clearly as possible. The longer it refuses that demand, the more it brings suspicion on itself, and the more uncomfortable investors must feel doing business with the generals in Algiers. (editorial/leader, Financial Times, 5 Jan. 1998)

1997:

Killings in West Papua [Indonesia] (Survival International, 2 Sep. 1997)

Running on Empty: Shell in Nigeria (NGO Taskforce on Business and Industry, 1997)

1996:

Shell has human rights rethink (Simon Beavis and Paul Brown, The Guardian [U.K.], 8 Nov. 1996)

undated:

Developing Peace: The South African Experience Of The Role Of Civil Society In Facilitation And Mediation (Theuns Eloff, Chief Executive, National Business Initiative, South Africa, for The Art of Mediation workshop, INCORE [Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity, Northern Ireland])