Nonetheless, the Greenpeace campaign against Hindustan Lever
Limited (HLL) has seen enough media support for us to believe that
the truth cannot be denied for long, no matter how impressive your
bottomline, or how considerable your advertising budgets.
Following Greenpeace's raising of questions at HLL's AGM on 13th
June 2003, HLL issued a series of expected counterpoints, and
sought to discredit the
evidence of their crimes being presented at a forum as
respectable as the Indian People's Tribunal headed by a retired
Chief Justice of the Sikkim
High Court.
We now seek to clarify the points raised by Hindustan Lever's
statement on the Indian People's Tribunal Report (which was
released in Mumbai on June 11 2003) and the false propaganda
repeated by the Chairman of the company, Mr M S Banga in the Annual
General Body Meeting.
IPT Report: Mr Banga and the official HLL statement both quoted
the 3rd paragraph of page 5 in Part II of the IPT Report to suggest
that IPT is 'shying away' from its own Report. For the benefit of
those who have not seen the IPT report, we reproduce the paragraph
in question:
"It should be noted that the statements presented below are
entirely the version of the person or group that has submitted it
before the Indian People's Tribunal Panel. Therefore, the IPT has
no responsibility on whatever is said in the statements".
It would become clear to any sane reader that the phrase 'no
responsibility' that HLL is picking up, relates only to the
statements submitted/deposed
before the panel and not to the Panel's conclusions.
The Panel does not mince words when it reports its findings on
accountability, nor does it hesitate to put its combined weight and
consequence behind the final conclusions. We recommend that Mr
Banga read Part III of the IPT Report, which contains the
observations of the panel. The panel has given its observations on
factory workers' health, HLL's
report on environmental analysis and the company's health
surveillance and has also stated its conclusion. We quote from page
36 of part III, the
conclusions of the panel.
The conclusion clearly states that: "In this regard it would be
remiss of the panel to refrain from noting that the manner in which
information has been presented, the contradictions in the
statements and subsequent re-workings of the mercury balance,
indicate a concerted attempt to misrepresent with incorrect
declarations the true facts in this matter."
Health Surveillance: Tom Van Teunenbrock was appointed by the
company to do little more than verify the results of a health
survey conducted by it,
using blood and urine samples. Teunenbrock's results are
regarded as exceedingly non-transparent since the process deviated
from the most basic
professional ethics and principles, and we have every reason to
believe that it could be doctored.
It is an internationally established fact that the half-life of
Mercury in blood is only 10 seconds and hence blood test is not a
pointer in any Mercury surveillance. So is urine since damage
occurs to kidneys over a period of time. Hence Greenpeace has, at
many instances, repeated its stand
that the survey of unaccepted samples is unacceptable as well.
If the company sincerely sought to establish the truth and to care
for its workers, it should come out with facts and conduct a
medical epidemiological and diagnostic study of the workers who are
suffering from Mercury-related
illnesses, rather than banking on a Surveillance Report that
they commissioned, and which used unaccepted, irrational and
irregular sampling
methodologies.
Moreover, at the TNPCB meeting on 11 October, 2002 it had been
demonstrated by Greenpeace representative Mr Navroz Modi that the
annual health reports prepared by the company were worthless as
they had failed to record the ailments reported by workers,
including those visible to the naked eye such as bleeding gums,
swollen limbs, skin ailments, blood vomiting etc. The TNPCB
conclusion on the health survey is clear: "The committee suggests
that the finding of the company on health impact be reviewed by an
appropriate
authority".
Returning the Medical Records: At the TNPCB meeting on 11th
October 2002, "HLL has agreed to provide records pertaining to all
ex-workers whoever asks for them in writing, including to families
of those who expired after employment at the factory."(Source:
Minutes of the meeting). In spite of the above agreement given in
writing to the government, ex-workers (including families of the
deceased) have been denied their medical records. HLL's contention
that asking for medical records "smacks of disrespect for human
rights" is a ridiculous stand - as though they could be protecting
workers' human rights by denying them their own health
records!!
Closure of the Factory: "We closed down the factory on our own"
say HLL's top directors. Ask the local community, witness to years
of struggle by
environmentalists demanding closure of the factory. HLL
eventually shut down the plant temporarily on March 8, 2001 - a day
after Greenpeace and other
environmental groups exposed an illegal dumpsite in Kodaikanal,
containing 15 tonnes of mercury-laden waste, including broken
thermometers. HLL's
effort to re-open the factory in April/May, 2001 was thwarted by
the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, which issued a closure
notice and directed
suspension of water and power supply. When faced with closure
notices and an expose of their crime, the only face-saving device
open to the company, is
to claim that they shut the company down on their own.
Greenpeace and other environmentalist organizations are
well-used to HLL's tactics - their response to evidence of their
crimes begins with an outcry of "NOT TRUE!" then "But we did our
best" and now, incredibly, "Everyone makes mistakes…We acted
honourably and responsibly, and on our own
initiative!"
We invite journalists to see how HLL has continually altered its
stand on environmental impacts of their operations in the last two
years, and draw their own conclusions:
1.. "No pollution to the environment and no need to close down
the factory": When Greenpeace exposed the widespread pollution, HLL
was forced to close down the plant temporarily.
2.. "We shut down the factory on our own": The factory was shut
down permanently a few months after the Greenpeace expose, and only
when explicitly ordered to do so by the Tamil Nadu Pollution
Control Board(TNPCB).
3.. "There has been no dumping of Mercury and no selling of
waste to any scrap dealer": The company later admits that dumping
and sale of waste to
scrap dealer was "a Human Error." Now it has been established
that 98 tonnes of Mercury waste had been sold to glass recycling
merchants in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
4.. "The mercury balance is near perfect" and "only 125 tonnes
of Mercury have been used in the factory so far": Later it was
unraveled that the company had suppressed information on an
additional 10 tonnes. The TNPCB was forced to dig out the factory
floor and remove tonnes of Mercury/soil from under the factory
floor.
5.. "No need to send the Mercury waste back to the US" and "We
took decisive action and shipped the mercury waste back to the
United States of our volition": The company offered to 'settle' the
highly toxic waste in the plains of Uttar Pradesh!! They were
forced to relent after the TNPCB directly ordered the company to
send back the 290 tonnes of waste to US for recycling and disposal
there. However, it is still not clear whether it is going to retire
the recycled Mercury permanently or not. Greenpeace, along with its
allies in this battle against the Corporate
Criminal Hindustan Lever, is sure that the campaign for justice
to the ex-employees of HLL will take a similar course.
We are only a few more lies away from reluctant admissions that
a problem exists; and then the people of Kodaikanal will have just
a little longer to
wait before HLL succumbs to campaigning pressure and pays its
dues to the community; all the while, presumably, congratulating
itself on its exemplary
sense of corporate social responsibility!
For more information:Namrata Chowdhary, Media Officer -
9810850092
Email id: 