Don't Get Fooled Again

The day after the BBC backed down in the face of legal threats from Trafigura over their claim that the company’s waste caused deaths…

From Amnesty International

In August 2006, toxic waste was brought to Abidjan on board the ship Probo Koala, which had been chartered by oil-trading company, Trafigura.

This waste was then dumped in various locations around the city, causing a human rights tragedy. More than 100,000 people sought medical attention for a range of health problems and there were 15 reported deaths.

On 23 September 2009, the High Court of England and Wales approved a $45 million settlement between nearly 30,000 victims of the toxic waste dumping and Trafigura.

From Index on Censorship

Index on Censorship and English PEN today have expressed dismay that the BBC has conceded the libel action brought by toxic waste shippers Trafigura in the High Court. We believe this is a case of such high public interest that it was incumbent upon a public sector broadcaster like the BBC to have held their ground in order to test in a Court of law the truth of the BBC’s report or determine whether a vindication of Trafigura was deserved.

The case was brought by Trafigura after the BBC claimed in its Newsnight programme of 13 May 2009 that Trafigura had caused deaths by being involved in the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur Prof Okechukwu Ibeanu concluded in a report on 3 September 2009 that:

“On the basis of the above considerations and taking into account the immediate impact on public health and the proximity of some of the dumping sites to areas where affected populations reside, the Special Rapporteur considers that there seems to be strong prima facie evidence that the reported deaths and adverse health consequences are related to the dumping of the waste from the Probo Koala.”

Read here

Trafigura has paid out $200 million to the government of the Ivory Coast, and in London settled for £30 million a joint action made by 31,000 Ivorians.

But the BBC has now apparently conceded that the toxic waste dumped by the Probo Koala did not cause deaths, serious or long-term injuries and retracted their Newsnight piece in full and removed all reports from their web site.

English PEN and Index on Censorship believe that costs were a major factor behind the BBC’s decision. According to a leading media lawyer, Mark Stephens of FSI, the cost of such a case would have been in excess of £3 million. In its statement the BBC said:

“The BBC withdraws the allegation that deaths, miscarriages or serious or long-term injuries were caused by the waste and apologises to Trafigura for having claimed otherwise.”

John Kampfner, CEO of Index on Censorship said:

“Sadly, the BBC has once again buckled in the face of authority or wealthy corporate interests. It has cut a secret deal. This is a black day for British journalism and once more strengthens our resolve to reform our unjust libel laws.”

Jonathan Heawood, Director of English PEN, said:

“Forced to choose between a responsible broadcaster and an oil company which shipped hundreds of tons of toxic waste to a developing country, English libel law has once again allowed the wrong side to claim victory. The law is an ass and needs urgent reform.”

The BBC appears to have decided to withdraw a hard-hitting news investigation rather than risk a libel action against the controversial oil traders, Trafigura.

Such an action would certainly be costly, yet by failing to stand up to Trafigura, the BBC is sending a message that even the UK’s largest broadcaster can be bullied into sacrificing freedom of speech.

So is it time to cut the BBC Directors’ pay in order to free up funds to defend its public interest reporting? YOU decide…

Help us ensure that more BBC investigations get quietly shelved!

The “One Show” had an excellent feature last night on the Libel Reform campaign, with a truly illuminating contribution (3 mins 55) from Carter-Ruck’s Nigel Tait.

Asked by Mitch Benn why his firm charged such astronomical fees, Tait cited several critical factors, including the high cost of central London office space, and the fact that “we have to write long and expensive letters”.

It struck me that these letters must be very, very, very long indeed – and the postage quite staggeringly costly – to necessitate charging £500 an hour to send them. Poor Nigel Tait must have to write hundreds of thousands of words each time, on dozens of pages of extremely heavy paper.

And then I had an idea. Back in October, the “Twittersphere” mobilised en masse to destroy Carter-Ruck’s Trafigura super-injunction – maybe now it’s time to lend them a hand (it is nearly Christmas, after all). If every person who Tweeted about #Trafigura were to send Carter-Ruck a little book of six First Class postage stamps, maybe this would help to offset some of the humungous expense of all these legal letters that they keep having to write.

So please spare a thought for the libel lawyers this Christmas! Carter-Ruck’s address is 6, St Andrews Street, London EC4A 3EA, and you can buy stamps online here, or at most newsagents.

You can help beat Trafigura’s gag on the BBC by embedding this Youtube video on your website…

…and linking to this pdf!

Here’s why…

Late last week the BBC chose to delete from its website a damning Newsnight investigation into the Trafigura scandal, following legal threats from the company and its controversial lawyers, Carter-Ruck.

Previously, other media outlets including the Times and the Independent, had withdrawn stories about the case, amid concerns that the UK press is choosing to engage in self-censorship, rather than risk a confrontation with such a powerful company in the UK’s archaic and one-sided libel courts.

The BBC is a dominant player within the UK media, and its independence – supposedly guaranteed by the millions it receives from licence-payers each year – is vital both to its public service function and its global reputation.

Freedom of speech means very little without an effective and independent media – if it’s true that the BBC’s independence can so easily be compromised by legal threats, then this sets a very dangerous precedent for the future.

The mainstream UK media has so far assiduously avoided reporting on the BBC’s climbdown. Yet it’s an issue that raises serious questions about the state of press freedom in Britain, at a time of unprecedented attacks on the media.

To help subvert this latest attempt to muzzle the press, please embed this video on your blog, and link to this PDF of the original story.

Yesterday I wrote about a discussion in Parliament on the use of “super-injunctions” to gag the media. It turns out that no-one anywhere is keeping track of how many of these secret gags are being issued, or whether the judges involved are scrutinising the cases properly.

But another intriguing issue that came out of the same meeting relates to the  problem of “libel tourism”. Notoriously, under current UK law it’s now possible for anyone, anywhere in the world, who thinks they’ve been libelled on some website or another, to come to London and attempt to bankrupt the person responsible. Thus we have – for example – an Icelandic academic losing his home after being sued by a fellow-Icelander over things written on the University of Iceland website.

“Libel tourists” come here because it’s easy to win, even when you don’t have a case. The UK court system denies libel defendants a fair trial by effectively treating them as ‘guilty until proven innocent’, and because the legal costs of defending one’s self are up to 140 times higher than in other countries. This means that most ordinary people cannot afford adequate legal representation.

Those who really benefit from this system are, of course, law firms such as Carter Ruck, who help foreign libel tourists bring their exorbitant claims. What I wasn’t aware of until this week is that the UK taxpayer may also be helping to foot the bill. While the parties to the case pay lawyers’ fees, it was claimed during Tuesday’s meeting that the costs of actually running the court, paying the judges wages etc. comes out of the  public purse. If this is true, then not only are the likes of Carter Ruck making a fortune from these questionable foreign law suits – but we are indirectly subsidising the whole process through our taxes….

*Update* See also: Doc Richard – Trafigura suppresses scientific lecture – allegedly

*Update 2* Rebellion spreads – Caroline Lucas MEP mentions the unmentionable.

There’s renewed coverage today of the ongoing legal battles following the notorious Ivory Coast toxic waste incident, in which the oil trader Trafigura has been implicated.

The Guardian (UK), Times (UK) and New York Times (US) all report that the £30 million compensation payment by Trafigura to victims of the disaster is in danger of being misappropriated after an Ivorian court ordered that the funds be frozen.

But note also the contrast in how the UK and US media have reported the background to the story. Here’s how the New York Times covers it:

The waste was shipped by Trafigura, an international commodities trading giant. About 108,000 people sought treatment for nausea, headaches, vomiting and abdominal pains, and at least 15 died. All had apparently been poisoned by the toxic brew of gasoline and caustic soda, refining byproducts dumped by Trafigura’s contractor.

Here’s the Guardian:

Hundreds of tonnes of sulphur-contaminated toxic oil waste were cheaply dumped on landfills and in ditches around Abidjan in 2006. The cargo ship had been chartered by Trafigura. In the weeks after, the fumes caused thousands of sick people to besiege local hospitals.

…and here’s the Times:

A cargo ship chartered by Trafigura dumped hundreds of tonnes of sulphur-contaminated toxic oil waste around Abidjan in 2006. In the following weeks the fumes caused thousands of people to need hospital treatment.

The deaths of “up to 17″ Ivorians has been widely reported elsewhere. In previous articles, both the Times and the Guardian have referred to a UN report citing “official estimates” of 15 dead. So it seems odd that this seemingly crucial detail should now be omitted.

The New York Times is of course free to say what it likes because freedom of speech is protected under the US constitution, and New York State has a law which specifically prohibits the enforcement of UK libel judgements in NY, due to human rights concerns.

Fortunately in the UK we do still have (despite some recent confusion) an absolute right to report the proceedings of Parliament, so I can draw your attention to this recent statement from Evan Harris MP:

My understanding is that “Newsnight” is being threatened by the lawyers for Trafigura, Carter-Ruck, if it repeats an allegation… that deaths were caused by the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, even though in 2007 Hansard reported the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations laid by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs before Parliament, and a memorandum of explanation to those regulations stated:

“The recent example of the release of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast leading to the deaths of a number of people and the hospitalisation of thousands underlines the risks involved in the movement and management of waste.”

How can it be that that can be in Hansard, yet there are still threats of legal action against “Newsnight” if it reports the very same wording that is used in there? That cannot be right.

What Dr. Harris could also have mentioned is that, astoundingly, alongside these renewed threats, Trafigura’s libel action over this damning May 2009 news report, appears still to be ongoing.

I’ve long been a fan of Al Jazeera’s willingness to cover stories and angles that other news media won’t touch, and was pleased to have the chance to contribute to the programme above. I was even more pleased when I saw how it had turned out – definitely one of the best overviews of the story that I’ve yet seen.

UPDATE …on a free speech tangent, the techie guerilla campaign against the litigiousness of UK chiropractors continues with a sneaky pop at the General Chiropractic Council.

I thought it was about time I published this. Readers should know that I dispute several of the assertions made by Breco in the message below, and am very doubtful about many others. You should also be aware that since the email was sent to me, this happened, and this happened.

But aside from the content of the letter, the point is that the intimidation worked, at least for a while. I have not written anything of substance about Bredenkamp since I got this email, or done any further investigation. The reason for this is simply and solely that Bredenkamp is a multi-millionaire and I’m not. Due to the astronomical costs built into the UK libel system, and the massive advantage this gives to super-rich litigants, should someone like Bredenkamp decide to sue me, I would not be able to afford adequate legal representation. This would essentially guarantee that I would not receive a fair trial.

From:  “******@breco.info”  Friday, 29 June, 2007 9:11:53

To: richardcameronwilson@yahoo.co.uk

Dear Mr Wilson

I refer to your article Titanic Express as published on www.ukwatch.net (“The Article”). The circumstances of your sister’s death are truly appalling and tragic. By all accounts, she was a remarkably courageous and altruistic person and your desire to honour her memory by writing her story is laudable.

However, it is very disappointing to see that in the Article you make a number of incorrect and damaging statements about Mr John Bredenkamp.

1. You write in the Article: “Successive UN reports have implicated dozens of western companies in illegal profiteering from the DRC war, which is intimately connected to the Burundi conflict. Those named include the UK-based Zimbabwean arms dealer John Bredenkamp and Andrew Smith, the British owner of the “air cargo firm” Avient”.

• The UN Reports you mention refer to the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources of the DRC. Mr Bredenkamp was indeed wrongly named in one interim report and subsequently proved to the UN that the unsubstantiated allegations made about him were misconceived and false. In their Final Report of 25 November 2003 –nearly four years ago – he was totally exonerated by the UN of any wrong doing or unlawful activity.

• Mr Bredenkamp is not based in the UK neither is he ‘an arms dealer’. If you visit his web site, you will see that his involvment in the defence sector is as a passive shareholder in Aviation Consultancy Services (“ACS”) , a company which has agencies in Southern Africa for a number of reputable international aircraft manufacturers.

2. You go on to write in the Article: “To date the UK has proved reluctant to follow up the UN’s allegations, but Bredenkamp’s offices were raided by the Serious Fraud Office last year as part of the BAE corruption inquiry. One more reason to hope that CAAT succeeds in getting the inquiry reopened is that it may help shed some much-needed light on Bredenkamp’s business dealings.”

The fact is that there are no outstanding UN allegations in respect of
Mr Bredenkamp or his companies for the UK to follow up. He himself suggested to the Panel that his DRC joint venture should be monitored by the OECD, a process that was duly put in place. Furthermore, at the time of their Final Report, you should know that the UN urged him to remain invested in the DRC.

In respect of the SFO’s inquiries into media allegations about BAE Systems, let me make two points:

o there is no connection whatsoever with the UN Report in this enquiry.

o Mr Bredenkamp voluntarily flew to the UK late last year to offer his assistance to the SFO after they had visited his UK office and London house.

As regards his business dealings, please do visit the Breco web site www.breco.info to get an idea of what he really does rather that what the media or CAAT would have you believe.

I note that in your book Titanic Express (“The Book”), on page 142 you write in the Book: “And John Bredenkamp, a British-based Zimbabwean businessman with, according to the UN, ‘a history of clandestine military procurement,’ was accused of breaching European Sanctions by supplying British Aerospace equipment to the Zimbabwean forces fighting in the Congo.”

As previously stated, Mr Bredenkamp is not British-based.

The source of the accusation you refer to was an article in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper which was totally erroneous. ACS comprehensively complied with EU sanctions on behalf of their principals and this was fully demonstrated to the UN Panel, who accepted that there had been no breaches whatsoever.

If, in the future, you decide to write about Mr Bredenkamp or any of his companies, I would greatly appreciate it if you would be courteous enough to contact the group’s online press office – press_office@breco.info – with a view to checking that your facts are correct.

Bearing in mind the background to your book, Mr Bredenkamp has decided not to take any legal action against you, but please understand that he is deeply wounded by all of your erroneous statements.

Sincerely

***** ******
Press Office
Breco Group

It looks there may be some interesting things going on over at Craig Murray’s website shortly… Update to follow!

I owe Jean-Claude Kavumbagu a huge personal debt for the help he gave me while I was writing “Titanic Express”, and for his efforts to keep up the pressure on the case within the Burundian media.

Jean-Claude, an ardent critic of corruption and human rights abuse in his country, was arrested in September 2008, and charged with “defamation”, simply for questioning President Nkurunziza’s expenditure at the Beijing Olympics.

Amnesty International has taken up the case, listing Jean-Claude as “a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression.”

I’ve just set up an online petition to raise the profile of the case, and press for Jean-Claude’s release:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/FreeJeanClaudeKavumbagu

It’s now one month since my friend Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, who helped me enormously with “Titanic Express” (he is mentioned in the acknowledgements), was arrested and detained on bogus grounds in Burundi.

Jean-Claude, a journalist and ardent critic of corruption and human rights abuse in his country, had the audacity to question the tens of thousands of dollars spent by President Pierre Nkurunziza during his visit to the Beijing Olympics. Jean-Claude’s news agency says it was $90,000. Nkurunziza’s CNDD-FDD government claims it was about half that figure, and has jailed Jean-Claude for “defamation” simply for saying otherwise. The average income in Burundi is $700 a year.

Amnesty International has taken up the case, listing Jean-Claude as “a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression.”

Jean-Claude’s arbitrary arrest sits in sharp contrast with the PR campaign by religious groups seeking to portray President Pierre Nkurunziza – a born-again Christian and vocal supporter of greater church involvement in politics – as the model of the humble and ‘forgiving’ African leader.

Click here to find out what you can do to help.