Romania testing ground for ruthless corporations

In a sign of what to expect if US corporate interests are allowed free reign in Europe, as outlined by the planned transatlantic trade deal, an alliance of oil giant Chevron and the Romanian state has evicted villagers opposed to exploration for shale gas.

The country’s rural inhabitants who earn their livelihoods from small-scale farming know that industrialisation of the countryside is completely inimical to their way of life. For months, direct action has been their only option for resisting. But last week, an occupation of the site at Pungesti was forcibly ended in a dawn raid.

However, no sooner had the site been secured than the villagers were back, hauling down the steel fences and engaging in a confrontation with government/private security forces. This inspiring show of people’s strength has not yet not been enough to deter Chevron. The local village has effectively been turned into an armed camp to prevent further protest and the corporation has started activities on the site.

The way Romania’s democratic process is unravelling reflects the plans of energy and mineral extraction companies for the country. The government intends to make industrial interests sovereign above all existing rights to livelihood and property in the name of the “strategic national interest”.

This is in fact exactly what the ConDems in the UK have tried to achieve in order to open the door to fracking in Britain. The only difference is that to placate local communities, the priority given to natural resources over environmental protection was worked into the guidelines given to local councils who officially still grant planning applications.

In Romania, with a public that is less well-informed and with much higher rates of  poverty than western European nations, it becomes even easier for the spurious “national interest” line to legitimise any unwanted development and the state violence needed to enforce it.

In recognition of these changes that give corporate rights priority, the status of the country’s politicians has changed dramatically, as an activist in Romania explains.

Parliamentarians are no longer considered public officials and hence are immune to all charges or accusations of conflict of interest, misconduct or abuse of function. Officially then, politicians do not serve the people and have immunity in the same way that corporations are protected from action brought against them by people or states. At the same time, insulting public figures has become a criminal offence!  

This onslaught against democracy in Romania lays the groundwork for the dreaded “Mine Law”, written for the benefit of a single corporation that wants to destroy the Rosia Montana mountain region in order to carry out cyanide gold mining.

Aware of the influence of the American state in all this, the activist concludes: “Someone in the EU worked closely with someone in America in order for this to happen. Romania is the testing ground, the European Argentina. Romania is the precedent.”

These nightmare laws are there to protect the state as the enforcer of corporate affairs in the 21st century. The role played by state officials, legal systems and above all the police serves a dual function. They allow the extraction and use of fossil fuel and natural resources, which is driving climate change, while keeping human rights subservient to the need to consume these goods.

Politicians hide behind this farce to claim this is all necessary, while terrorising us by any means possible. In Romania and throughout much of the world, the corporations are beginning to sense that they can use naked violence to get their way.   

To counter this social crisis, which has converged with an ecological catastrophe, we need to draw strength from the progress human beings have made in the past in the struggle for democracy. We can establish states that provide the foundations of social justice and care and opportunities for all to flourish. Some positive proposals which can help us reach this goal are outlined in our new book, Fracking Capitalism. Get a copy if you haven’t already done so!

Matt Worsdale

Corporations make oil a dirty business

Russia and Norway have signed a deal carving up the Arctic Ocean bed, opening the way for a new oil boom. All of this will is certain to lead to more spills, pollution and the further destruction of marine and coastal environments.

The United States Geological Survey last year estimated there could be 90 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic metres of gas across the Arctic and the oil corporations are itching to get their hands on it.

Companies like Exxon, Chevron and Shell, are queuing up for permission from Greenland – part of Denmark – to begin drilling in some of the most precious eco-systems on the planet. Gas is already being tapped there.

New North Sea fields, west of the Shetland Islands, are also set to be drilled. One of the firms involved is BP and MPs listened open-mouthed as outgoing CEO Tony Hayward told them not to worry – his firm is safe. The Energy and Climate Change Select Committee were questioning him not only about the Gulf Oil spill, but also about the fact that BP’s Magnus North Sea oil platform has failed three oil spill preparedness inspections since 2006.

Even small fields that in the past would not be worth drilling are now yielding profits. Some unique environments are under threat as a result. The Australian company ADX is drilling in the strait between Sicily and Tunisia. They got the go-ahead even though the area is a priority conservation area, with tuna, swordfish, sharks and turtles breeding, and coral gardens with thousands of species.

The island of Panteleria, soon to be declared a marine reserve, is just 13 miles from the rig and would be engulfed with oil in case of a big spill. But the Italian government is keen to expand oil production in their part of the Mediterranean.

In reality, spills are not occasional accidents, but part and parcel of the oil production process. Safety and environmental concerns are never allowed to interfere with the bottom line.

While 10 million litres of oil as day was pouring in the Gulf of Mexico from Deepwater Horizon, monitors discovered there were also continuous leaks from old abandoned wells nearby.

In Venezuela, oil is spreading across Lake Maracaibo, polluting wetlands and mangroves. Fishermen say their nets are coated, and that wildlife is dying.

In the Niger Delta, there are an average 1,598 breaks or leaks in the pipelines each year. Oil has saturated the world’s third-largest wetland, destroying farmland and fishing. But Shell has abandoned Ogoniland to its fate – they are off to the Arctic to get their hands on more easy money.

The side effects of cleaning up spills can be equally as dangerous, with little investment in research and no clear idea of the long-term effects of spraying millions of gallons of dispersants into the sea.

The last major advance in safety was after the fire on the Piper Alpha platform in 1988. But it emerged recently that lies were told about what happened to toxic chemicals stored on the rig for use in the production process. At the time it was claimed these had gone up in smoke – but now it is clear that they went into the water and have destroyed a wide area of marine life.

Humanity needs oil – it is crucial for our survival – but the reckless extraction of oil for burning must be halted. It must husbanded for essential uses. And you could say it is almost a sacred duty to extract it with extreme care and to the highest standards, when it is found in such precious places. There will be times when it should just be left where it is. The first step to achieving this approach is to remove the whole process from the control of corporations who place profit above all other considerations, as the calamity in the Gulf shows.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

Paying for oil with their lives

People are enjoying a national holiday in Kenya today to mark Barack Obama's family connections with the country and across Africa millions look hopefully towards the USA and its new African-American President-elect. Also today, in San Francisco’s District Court, the oil company Chevron is fighting a case brought by a group of Niger Delta villagers. The company is accused of using soldiers to attack a peaceful demonstration, killing two people and wounding many others.

In May 1998, Larry Bowoto – one of the plaintiffs – led 100 villagers who occupied Chevron’s Parabe oil platform, nine miles off shore. Other plaintiffs are the wives and children of Arolika Irowarinum, who was killed, and of Bola Oyinbo, who the villagers say was detained by the soldiers, hung by his wrists and tortured to death.

Chevron claims the villagers took 150 workers hostage, and demanded money and employment. The villagers say they were protesting against the devastation caused by leaks, gas flaring and pollution and that they were demanding compensation, not a ransom. They were unarmed, and say they were preparing to leave at the moment the troops arrived by helicopter and opened fire. These were Nigerian soldiers, stationed in the Delta and housed and fed by Chevron. They arrived in helicopters leased by the company.

Based on the iron law of private property, the oil companies view with contempt any demand from the 20 million people who live in the Niger Delta to share in the wealth generated by oil production. Tribal leaders try to use the courts to prise compensation for their ruined land and livelihoods out of the oil giants, with little success. There are around 14,000 outstanding compensation cases. The compensation sought amounts to about $100 million. The Chevron Corporation’s net income for the first nine months of 2008 was $19 billion.

Not surprisingly, a number of militant movements have sprung up in the Delta, including the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta whose leader Henry Okah is currently facing trial in Lagos. They take hostages and blow up pipelines; they are characterised by the US and Nigerian governments as terrorists when they are actually fighting for what belongs to the people.

The oil companies pay the Nigerian government to station thousands of troops in the Delta to protect their operations from the militants. They have little success in doing that, but are entirely indiscriminate in attacking the civilian population who are living under brutal occupation.

The US Government is clear that Africa will be its major source of oil in the near future. One of the decisions that Barack Obama will have to make is about the future activities of AFRICOM, a special military command centre set up by George Bush which began to function in October this year. Whilst for the moment its headquarters are in Stuttgart there are strong rumours that is planning a base of operations in Nigeria.

Another of its special areas of interest is Equatorial Guinea. One might wonder why the focus on Africa’s smallest country which consists of a tiny coastal strip and a group of offshore islands. But in the sea off those islands there are major oil deposits, ripe for exploitation. Will Obama be halting the quasi-imperialist activities of AFRICOM? Don't put money on it.

Penny Cole
Environment editor