Subject:
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Holding Hands with Satan
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Jun 2003 00:12:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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228 times
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Global Exchange * CorpWatch * Public Citizen
June 5, 2003
New Report Exposes Contractor Bechtel as Threat to Iraqi Environment, Human
Rights and Basic Services
U.S. Taxpayers Blindly Funding Post-War Corporate Profiteering and Cronyism,
Public Interest Groups Say
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Bechtel Group Inc., one of the lead contractors in the
reconstruction of Iraq, has a 100-year history of capitalizing on
environmentally unsustainable technologies and reaping immense profits at the
expense of societies and the environment, said a report released today by Public
Citizen, Global Exchange and CorpWatch. Its release was timed to coincide with a
day of direct actions around the country to protest Bechtel’s presence in Iraq,
the report concludes that the Bush administration must be stopped from doling
out contracts to undeserving firms with which it has close ties, including
Bechtel and Halliburton.
The report, Bechtel: Profiting from Destruction, provides case studies from
Bechtel’s history of operations in the water, nuclear, energy and public works
sectors. It documents a track record by Bechtel of environmental destruction,
disregard for human rights and financial mismanagement of projects that has
affected communities all over the world and does not bode well for the people of
Iraq.
“If environmental and consumer protection violations had been taken into
account, Bechtel would not have been awarded such an important contract in
Iraq,” said Sara Grusky, senior organizer with Public Citizen. “The American
people are funding this contract through their tax dollars but are being denied
the right to see what their money is supporting.”
A historical look at Bechtel’s wrongdoings includes:
• In Papua New Guinea, Bechtel partnered in constructing the world’s largest
gold mine in 1970. The mine daily dumps hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic
waste from the mining operations directly into local rivers. In 2000, a waste
dump accident resulted in four deaths.
• Environmental and human rights groups have charged that Bechtel, in a
partnership with Shell called InterGen, circumvented U.S. environmental laws by
building a power plant on the Mexican border for the sole purpose of exporting
energy to the United States. The La Rosita InterGen plant located in Mexicali,
Baja Calif., and partly owned by Bechtel, was the subject of a May 6, 2003,
court ruling that found that the U.S. Department of Energy and Bureau of Land
Management had acted illegally in granting permits to InterGen to build this
power plant.
• In Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 1999, Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of Bechtel,
provoked protests that shut down the city when it privatized the city’s water
system, then implemented massive price hikes that left many people unable to
afford water. The United Nations has formally declared water to be a human right
- Bechtel violated this international resolution when it deprived people of
their right to water. The outcry forced the Bolivian government to cancel
Bechtel’s contract; Bechtel is now suing the country in a World Bank court for
$25 million in lost profits.
• At nuclear power plants in Palisades, Mich.; Humboldt Bay, Calif.; Three Mile
Island, Penn.; San Onofre, Calif., and Davis-Besse, Ohio, Bechtel was involved
in some of the U.S. commercial nuclear industry’s more notable mishaps.
• In Nevada, Bechtel was awarded the management contract for a proposed nuclear
waste repository at Yucca Mountain, a site considered sacred by the Western
Shoshone people and part of a decades-long land dispute between the United
States government and the Native Americans. On these same lands, Bechtel
manages a Nevada test site and counterterrorism facility where nuclear,
biological and chemical weapons construction and testing are carried out. The
operation of the facility and its environmental and health effects have prompted
ongoing protests from Native Americans, environmental and disarmament advocates.
• In Boston, Bechtel’s mismanagement and cost overruns have been unprecedented.
Bechtel designed and manages the Boston Central Artery tunnel project, also
known as “the Big Dig.” This federally funded project is the most costly civil
engineering undertaking in U.S. history; estimated at $2.5 billion in 1985, it
reached $14.6 billion in 2003.
• In San Francisco in 2002, the Board of Supervisors phased out a contract with
Bechtel for the management of the upgrade of the city’s water systems before its
completion date. Bechtel was charged with doing unnecessary and overpriced work
and charging the city for tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of personal
expenses.
The report also documents Bechtel’s history in Iraq, where the company was
pushing for an oil pipeline deal in the 1980s at the same time that Saddam
Hussein was committing his worst atrocities against the Iraqi people. Bechtel
was named by Hussein’s government as one of the U.S. companies that provided it
with materials that could be used to make weaponry.
“Bechtel has demonstrated brazen moral corruption by first contributing to the
development of Iraq’s weapons, then pushing for a war against Iraq, and finally
profiting from the tragedy and destruction wrought by that war,” said Andrea
Buffa, peace campaign coordinator at Global Exchange. “It is a textbook example
of what war profiteering looks like. This report answers the question - ‘What’s
wrong with Bechtel?’ ”
See full report: http://www.citizen.org/documents/profilebechtel.pdf
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Holding Hands with Satan (Press Release)
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| The preceeding post was made in the good faith belief that it was a press release and therefore intended for dissemination. The original link I had for this article is here: (URL) and you will note that it is preceeded by the words: FOR IMMEDIATE (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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