Showing posts sorted by relevance for query myanmar. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query myanmar. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, 29 July 2020

LafargeHolcim’s ‘internal controls have failed again after the Syrian IS scandal’


We posted how a UN report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar listed LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – as having ties to construction companies controlled by the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, who now face charges of genocide against the Rohingya people:
Company leadership links between Lafarge, now LafargeHolcim, with Sinminn Cement, a MEHL subsidiary company... The Mission finds that any foreign business activity involving the Tatmadaw and its conglomerates MEHL and MEC poses a high risk of contributing to, or being linked to, violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
Our post has recently been attracting high traffic levels, appearing on the first page of this Google search:

Clearly something was going on, and indeed it was.

Last weekend, SonntagsZeitung, a Swiss Sunday newspaper, published Wie LafargeHolcim in Burma am nächsten Skandal vorbeischrammte. Myanmar Now followed, with Swiss cement company backtracks on plans to sell to military cronies. This article pointed to the report by SonntagsZeitung’s journalist Konrad Staehelinhad:
The world’s largest cement producer is liquidating its Myanmar assets and reversing its previously stated intention to sell to its military-linked partners, after reporting in the Swiss press shed light on the possible impact on human rights of the sale.

More details can be found in the Myanmar Now article, but here are a few excerpts:
In June, LafargeHolcim said it was selling its shares [in a cement project] to companies owned by two of the project’s investors, Hla Myo and Ye Myint, according to reporting by journalist Konrad Staehelin in the German-language SonntagZeitung newspaper.
Both men are close allies and business partners of the military.
Staehelin, who has previously reported for Frontier Myanmar, wrote that the company likely knew about the potential problems with their partners but only pulled an “emergency brake” on the sale once the issue became public.
“Compared to the company’s intentions expressed in June for the sale, this is a 180-degree turn,” he wrote. “There is no other plausible explanation for this but that LafargeHolcim, confronted with SonntagZeitung’s reporting, switched course.”
“For LafargeHolcim, the liquidation of the Burma business means a write-down of a few million. More serious is the fact that internal controls have failed again after the Syrian IS scandal.”
Eva Mairinger, head of media relations at LafargeHolcim, said the company ceased operations in Myanmar in 2018, and claimed LafargeHolcim – which had previously been involved in funding terrorists in Syria – "takes all necessary measures to ensure we operate according to the highest standards of governance and human rights around the world":
We are now in the process of liquidating the dormant company and do not intend to sell anything.
Justice For Myanmar welcomed LafargeHolcim’s volte-face:
We see that by halting a planned sale to their business partners, who are members of the military cartel, LafargeHolcim is denying a future revenue stream to the Myanmar military, who are war criminals. Justice For Myanmar calls on LafargeHolcim to undertake the liquidation with full transparency and ensure it has no impact on human rights, in accordance with their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.

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Wednesday, 14 August 2019

UN links LafargeHolcim with atrocities against Rohingya in Myanmar

With executives currently facing "charges of financing terrorism and crimes against humanity" in Syria, LafargeHolcim has become linked to another human rights issue: the atrocities by Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, against the Rohingya people in 2017.



The military abuses against the Rohingya people "undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law". As this article tells:
The violence, which the UN described as ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, included the killing of thousands of people, the rape of women and children and the razing of villages. More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled across the border to Bangladesh.
It is thought that more than 24,000 Rohingya people have been killed. The UNHCR says:
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar. The latest exodus began on 25 August 2017, when violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, driving more than 742,000 to seek refuge in Bangladesh. Most arrived in the first three months of the crisis. An estimated 12,000 reached Bangladesh during the first half of 2018. The vast majority reaching Bangladesh are women and children, and more than 40 per cent are under age 12. Many others are elderly people requiring additional aid and protection. They have nothing and need everything.
In the article UN links firms to Rohingya abuse, The Australian newspaper reports:
A new UN report has outed dozens of international and Myanmar companies with business links to the Myanmarese military, as well as states still selling arms to the country, which risked enabling further "gross ­violations of human rights".
Panel chairman Marzuki Darusman said their research had uncovered an "indisputable link" between the Tatmadaw’s vast business activities and its "committing of atrocities".
"What has enabled the ­Tatmadaw to commit these crimes is in fact their business ­relations and activities"
The UN report, by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, lists LafargeHolcim as having commercial ties to construction companies controlled by the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw.
The Mission concluded that many of these violations amounted to crimes against humanity and included murder; imprisonment; enforced disappearance; torture; rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence; persecution and enslavement.
The Mission named senior generals of the Tatmadaw who should be investigated and prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The Mission was able to identify 15 foreign companies that have joint ventures with Tatmadaw conglomerates… For example, the Mission has documented a commercial partnership between Thilawa Cement and Building Materials Ltd. and Sinminn Cement, a MEHL subsidiary. Thilawa Cement and Building Materials Ltd., according to corporate filings, is listed as being owned by Lafarge, which since 2015 merged into LafargeHolcim, a French-Swiss company and the world’s largest cement manufacturer. According to corporate records, Thilawa Cement and Building Materials Ltd., and SinMinn Cement, the MEHL subsidiary, share board leadership.
The Mission finds that any foreign business activity involving the Tatmadaw and its conglomerates MEHL and MEC poses a high risk of contributing to, or being linked to, violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. At a minimum, these foreign companies are contributing to supporting the Tatmadaw’s financial capacity.

The UN report calls for a boycott of Myanmar companies with military links. According to one report, LafargeHolcim "ceased operations in the country in 2018."

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Monday, 8 March 2021

LafargeHolcim “is a systematic polluter” says Greenpeace Switzerland

Since 2013, we have posted how the company that would ultimately profit from any quarrying at Straitgate Farm would be the same company accused of pollution and human rights violations, devastating livelihoods of local communities; just click on pollution or human rights labels or posts like:
Last year, research by Greenpeace Switzerland found that LafargeHolcim – the parent company of Aggregate Industries – "is responsible or is expected to take responsibility for at least 122 cases of environmental pollution and human rights violations in 34 different countries."
 

Greenpeace’s report is in German, but here’s a Google Translation of one page: 
Number of cases (122) countries (34) Scandals / subject areas
2 Egypt Regulatory Violations
1 Algeria Violation of labor and trade union rights
2 Argentina air pollution
1 Bangladesh Regulatory Violations
1 Benin air pollution
2 Brazil Air pollution, hazardous waste incineration, exceeding emission limits, health hazards, tax evasion, price fixing
43 China air pollution, water pollution, hazardous waste incineration,Noise nuisance, others 1 Costa Rica air pollution
1 Germany Exceeding the emission limit values
3 Ecuador air and water pollution
4 Guinea air pollution, health hazard
14 India air and water pollution, environmental degradation, noise pollution, Hazardous waste incineration, health impairments, regulatory violations, cartel agreements, tax evasion
2 Indonesia environmental degradation, tax evasion
1 Jordan water pollution, health hazard
2 Cameroon air and water pollution, health hazard
2 Kenya air pollution
1 Colombia Incineration of hazardous waste, cartel agreements
3 Lebanon Illegal limestone mining, air and water pollution, Exceeding the emission limit values, bribery
1 Morocco air pollution, health hazard
3 Mexico environmental degradation, hazardous waste incineration, air and water pollution, Health hazard, human rights violation
1 Myanmar human rights violation
7 Nigeria environmental degradation, air, soil and water pollution, exceedance the emission limit values, noise pollution, health hazard
1 Peru air pollution
4 Philippines Illegal hazardous waste incineration, water pollution, violation of labor and trade union rights, regulatory violations, health hazards
2 Romania Illegal hazardous waste incineration, emission limit values exceeded, price fixing
1 Zambia pollution
2 Zimbabwe air pollution
1 Slovenia Exceeding the emission limit values, health hazard
3 Spain Illegal mining, exceeding emission limits, air, soil and Water pollution, cartel agreements
2 South Africa cartel agreements, violation of labor and trade union rights
4 Syria Support for Terrorist Groups, Unfair Business Practices
1 Tanzania environmental degradation, air and soil pollution
2 Uganda air pollution, child labor
1 USA cartel agreements
Matthias Wüthrich, Head of the Corporate Responsibility Campaign for Greenpeace Swiss, said:
The sheer number of proven and probable cases is a scandal in itself. That alone shows that LafargeHolcim is a systematic polluter.  
 
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Wednesday, 8 September 2021

Holcim faces fresh criminal charges for financing terrorism

Aggregate Industries’ parent company Holcim is in the news again for all the wrong reasons.

It’s over the company’s involvement in Syria – a subject we have posted about before. 

France’s top court has rejected the cement giant’s bid to dismiss charges of "complicity in crimes against humanity" for financing terrorism in Syria, overturning a previous ruling. 

The company has been accused of paying millions of euros to Daesh/ISIS to keep its Lafarge operation in Syria running. It is also accused of supplying cement to the terrorist group which "is known to have constructed fortified shelters and tunnel networks against the Coalition powers led by the US." 

In its ruling, the Court of Cassation said: 
In this case, the knowing payment of several million dollars to an organization whose purpose is exclusively criminal is sufficient to characterize the complicity, regardless of whether the concerned party is acting in pursuit of a commercial activity. 
 

Earlier this year, the company changed its name from LafargeHolcim to Holcim in an effort no doubt to distance itself from controversy over Syria – as well as over Myanmar, human rights and pollution.

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Monday, 12 April 2021

LafargeHolcim to get name change

LafargeHolcim – the parent company of Aggregate Industries – is to get a name change:  
Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim is proposing to simplify its name to Holcim Ltd, the world’s largest cement maker said on Friday, reverting to the name of the dominant partner in the 2015 merger that formed the company. 
The reason given: for "efficiency and impact, while building on the group’s legacy."

Others might think it's to escape from controversy over Syria, Myanmar, human rights and pollution.
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Thursday, 4 February 2021

Report for UK Treasury warns destruction of nature puts world at ‘extreme risk’

A landmark review, commissioned by the UK Treasury and conducted by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, the Cambridge University economist, has warned the world is being put at "extreme risk" by the failure of economics to take account of the rapid depletion of the natural world, and that almost all governments were exacerbating the biodiversity crisis by paying people more to exploit nature than to protect it:
Prof Dasgupta warns: 
Nature is our home. Good economics demands we manage it better.
Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them. It also means accounting fully for the impact of our interactions with nature. Covid-19 has shown us what can happen when we don’t do this.
Lord Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics, says: 
The Dasgupta review shows we are running down our natural capital fast, and we will pay the price. 
In 2019, a UN report warned that one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, that "biodiversity… is declining faster than at any time in human history." Prof Bob Watson, who led that assessment, said:  
The most important thing is that the Dasgupta review was commissioned by the UK Treasury ministry, not the environment department. Hopefully this will mean that finance ministries around the world will acknowledge that the loss of nature is an economic issue, not simply an environmental issue.


What does destruction of nature look like – from a cement industry perspective? Here’s a taster:
 
A cement company blew up the entire hill and all remaining molluscs with it. All that is left of its former habitat is a big hole in the ground filled with water.  
 
Scientists and experts say limestone karst and limestone caves are the most specialized habitats in the Philippines because they often harbor unique species of flora and fauna that are highly restricted in distribution.

 

In November, in a preliminary summary of a survey of the site, a team of seven scientists reported that years of quarrying had “caused the extinction of a number of species”. The cement company, Holcim Vietnam, has said it is helping to supply badly needed raw materials for Vietnam’s booming construction industry, and is working with scientists to offset its environmental impacts.

 
“They said, ‘you can work here from morning until three o’clock, but then you have to leave because we’re going to blow it up’”

 

Oun used to climb high into the mountain’s side, collecting wood and selling it in the village. He would encounter wild boar, monkeys, chickens and snakes. There were rumours of tigers too. Now, even the village cows won’t get close, scared off by explosions that have been known to shake people off their motorbikes.

 
The karsts are full of nooks and crannies that have nurtured highly specialized plants and animals found nowhere else. They are also important to humans, studded with small altars and temples that are thought to be homes to neak ta, landscape spirits in the local animist pantheon. Soon, they will be gone. 

 

We've posted about this issue before, here and here. 

Dr Tony Whitten, a senior advisor with Fauna and Flora International, had documented the problem, warning "this is a global issue": 
 ... Whitten says the cement industry has become fixated with trumpeting the restoration of sites they destroy, rather than taking a rational, proactive landscape approach which would include sustainable management and protection. 
“No cement business has ever admitted the scale of the problem. They tout their biodiversity pages in their websites and sustainability reports with pictures of ducks and frogs and children enjoying the wetlands created from the hills they remove. They give and receive prizes for their restoration work – but do not acknowledge what is being lost.”
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