DEVELOPMENT:
Civil Society to 'Try' Multinationals
Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS,  (IPS) - Leading civil society groups are preparing to challenge leaders at the European-Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) summit in Vienna this week.

Heads of state and governments from 60 countries will meet May 11-13 for the fourth EU-LAC summit. The summit agenda covers issues as diverse as human rights, the environment, development, trade, and cooperation over drugs and terrorism.

Civil society groups plan to raise concerns over all of these.

Participants at an alternative civil society summit want EU and LAC leaders to stop promoting the free trade agenda, and have organised a 'people's tribunal' May 11 on violation of human rights by corporate power.

A jury at the tribunal will decide if there is evidence to press 'charges' against corporate power backed by governments. The panel of jurors will include intellectuals, legal experts, writers, trade union leaders and activists. The tribunal may then hold a 'trial' where representatives of transnational corporations will be invited to participate.

Friends of the Earth groups from Europe and Latin America have 'summoned' four European companies -- the Vion food group, the French water and energy giant Suez, the Andritz AG wood processing machinery company and the Spanish electricity group Unión Fenosa -- to the tribunal for what the group calls their involvement in social, environmental and human rights violations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"These companies have spread throughout the world, facing off with workers, communities and even entire regions and countries, and creating merciless competition that undermines human rights everywhere," Claudia Torrelli from Friends of the Earth Uruguay told IPS. "Latin America and the Caribbean are two regions of the world that have suffered most from their devastating consequences."

The tribunal follows a tradition that began in 1967 with the Bertrand Russell tribunal sessions on war crimes in Vietnam. A Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) was established in 1979 to address violations of the rights of peoples.

Parallel to the summit, the Transnational Institute (TNI) -- an international network of activists -- will hold a conference on 'Linking alternatives in a new era of Europe-Latin America relations'.

This conference will press heads of states and government on five key issues -- the effects of neo-liberal globalisation, development cooperation, militarisation and human rights, political dialogue, and alternative regional integration strategies.

More than 1,000 campaigners are expected to gather for the parallel summit, which will also call on the EU to start engaging more with civil society in Latin America.

"Latin Americans have rejected neo-liberalism on the streets and, in several cases, in the ballot boxes too," Gonzalo Berron of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), a coalition of social movements and citizens' networks of the Americas told IPS. "Our meeting in Vienna will send a clear message that we do not want neo-liberalism by the back door in the shape of 'strategic partnerships' and inter-regional free trade agreements."

Civil society groups are particularly concerned about a business summit being held with strong support from the Austrian EU presidency and the European Commission, the EU executive. The Commission expects the event to boost free trade talks with Latin American and Caribbean countries.

The EU-LAC business summit will be held Friday (May 12). The event will bring together around 300 business leaders.

European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, trade commissioner Peter Mandelson and external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner are due to attend the summit Thursday (May 11).

"The problem is not only that large corporations enjoy undue privileged access to government leaders and negotiators during events like the business summit. The deeper problem is that EU governments continue to shape their international trade policies around the interests of large corporations and pursue strong collaboration with these firms to promote their shared objectives," Olivier Hoedeman, research coordinator for the Dutch campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) told IPS.

"In Vienna this approach is likely to cause a serious clash as so many Latin American governments are starting to turn their back on the neo-liberal approaches which the EU continues to promote," he added.