|
Some activists behind the protests against the World Trade Organisation last year in Seattle and demonstrations this year against World Bank and International Monetary Fund, are now taking aim at one of the world's largest banks, Citigroup. In campaigns which began this week across the USA, environmentalists, student groups and community organisations are trying to force the New York-based financial giant to stop investing in certain energy, forestry and infrastructure projects around the world, which activists allege are environmentally and socially destructive, e.g. from China's Three Gorges Dam to a ontroversial oil pipeline being constructed in the rainforests of Chad and Cameroon, activists say Citigroup is investing in projects that are ecologically harmful. ''There are certain activities that are unacceptable to fund anymore in a world where the life support systems of the planet are being eroded daily,'' says Ilyse Hogue, a campaigner with Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a California-based advocacy group that is leading the campaign. One of the world's largest corporations, Citigroup was formed in 1998 from the merger with Citicorp and Travelers Group with 668 billion dollars in assets. Its subsidiaries range from banking (Citibank), brokerage services (Salomon Smith Barney), mutual funds (Primerica), property and casualty insurance (Travelers Property Casualty), investment companies (Sterling LLC, Commercial Credit), and retirement investments (Travelers Life & Annuity). While activists acknowledge that it will take a lot of organising to influence such a huge company, RAN has started by compiling a profile of the company's activities which the group finds questionable. One of these is the 3.7 billion dollar oil pipeline project in Africa which will develop oil fields at Doba in southern Chad and construct a 1,100 kilometre pipeline to offshore oil-loading facilities on Cameroon's Atlantic coast Environmentalists and human rights activists say the project will harm local populations, fuel corruption, and threaten pristine rainforests. Citigroup is serving as a financial advisor to the consortium of private companies involved in the project. Another project listed by RAN is the controversial Three Gorges Dam currently being constructed in China. Scheduled for completion in 2009, the dam would create a gigantic reservoir on the middle of the Yangtze - China's longest river - evicting more than one million people. Running the dam will involve flooding a 660-km-long reservoir. Water will rise through most of the Three Gorges area, a fabled lattice-work of waterways, permanently flooding up to 32,000 hectares of farmland, 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,352 villages, 657 factories, and hundreds of archaeological relics. Salomon Smith Barney, a subsidiary of Citigroup, has helped underwrite millions of dollars' worth of bonds for the China Development Bank, one of the financiers of the hydroelectric project. RAN also claims Citigroup is invested in Indonesian palm oil companies, which have been blamed for setting fires in the rainforests throughout the Southeast Asian archipelago. Leah Johnson, a spokeswoman for Citigroup, denies that it invests in environmentally destructive projects. Depending on the project criticised, Johnson either dismisses that Citigroup is significantly invested or that the project harms the environment. ''While we agree with many of the causes the Rainforest Action Network supports, we object to the group's strategy of spreading false information just to get its point across,'' she told IPS. Johnson says that it prefers working directly with environmental groups, as it does through dialogue with the World Resources Institute, the National Wildlife Federation, and other larger advocacy and research organisations. ''Citigroup conducts its business in a morally, socially and environmentally responsible manner,'' says Johnson. While not all environmental groups are protesting in the streets against the bank, many agree that Citigroup could be doing more to ensure its investments do not harm the environment. Julie Tanner, manager of finance and the environment at the National Wildlife Federation, which is not involved in the protests, says her organisation works with Citicorp to discuss ways the bank could develop an environmental management system. Tanner says she provides Citigroup with examples of other banks which have adopted environmental policies and practices to show the company that it is possible to adopt such a philosophy without endangering the bottom-line. ''We agree Citigroup needs to make the environment more of an issue in its lending and investing,'' she says. RAN's pressure campaign is gaining speed especially amongst student activists, like Katherine Legomsky at Yale University in Connecticut. ''When I agreed to pay back my student loan from Citigroup, I did not agree to fund oil pipelines through African rainforest and mining in the Amazon basin,'' says Legomsky. During this week of protests, John Halle, a music professor at Yale, announced he would withdraw his investments in the Citigroup until the company changed its policy. Citigroup ''has distinguished itself by a series of ill-considered ventures endangering the well-being not just of isolated individuals and groups, but that of entire cultures and ecosystems,'' said a statement released by Halle. In New York this week, students cut up a giant Citibank credit card to represent the thousands of students across the nation who have pledged not to bank with the company. Urban activist community organisations, including the Inner City Press/Community on the Move based in the Bronx in New York City, have also joined in the protests against the company, arguing that the bank offers loans with higher than normal interest rates in low-income and minority communities. RAN is hoping that its campaign against Citigroup will be successful like its recent boycott of Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retailer. After a two-year campaign urging Home Depot to stop selling wood products made from endangered tree species, the Atlanta-based retail leader announced that it would end sales of wood from endangered forest areas by the end of 2002. When Home Depot announced its new policy, other retailers followed suit and announced they would also not buy lumber or products made out of endangered wood. Environmentalists are hoping that pressure on Citigroup will eventually result in a similar ripple-effect throughout the banking world.
|
