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CounterPunch
December
24, 2002
And You Thought
Scrooge Was a Fiction
The Tale of Nestlé and a Nation in Famine
by KEVIN BEGLEY
Here's one straight out of the twilight zone of
Dicken's worst nightmares.
Nestle Corporation, which last year earned
5.5 billion dollars in profits is demanding 6 million dollars
from Ethiopia, a country facing famine. That over 14 million
people are in danger of dying of starvation in a country so poor
(an average income of less than $2 per day) that it can't afford
to buy enough food on the overabundant world market doesn't seem
to bother the world's largest food corporation. Hey, business
is business!
"But wait!" you cry in disbelief,
"There must be more to the story than this!". Ok, here's
the low-down. In 1975 a military dictatorship took over Ethiopia
and nationalized the Ethiopian Livestock Development Company,
or ELIDCO for short. ELIDCO was partially owned by Schweisfurth
Group, a german company which Nestle acquired in 1986. In all
likelihood, Nestle purchased Schweisfurth at a price that reflected
the loss of ELIDCO 11 years earlier. In 1998 the current democratically
elected government of Ethiopia, in heavy debt to international
creditors, sold ELIDCO for 8.73 million dollars. Last year the
World Bank placed it's giant footprint into the fold - Nestle
wanted "their" money back. That the total annual sales
of Nestle dwarfs the GDP of famine struck Ethiopia (by a factor
of 8) was obviously not a consideration to either the World Bank
or Nestle.
Of course, the Ethiopian government is
not made up of saints here. The war with Eritrea caused massive
death and is one of the underlying factors leading to this famine,
even if the main factor is a 3 year drought. In all likelihood,
the country is also rife with corruption. Irregardless, the 14
million individuals in danger of starving aren't responsible
for that - they are just the rag puppets cast aside in that deadly
game called Greed and Power. Not that this is surprising. Greed
and Power lie behind "epidemics" of premature death
(like war and starvation and disease) which regularly strike
the poor and downtrodden on this planet. And, Nestle has got
that addiction to Greed in a big and very bad way.
But what about common sense or common
decency? That you don't force money from the hands of people
who are starving, especially when you are rich beyond avarice,
is obvious to anyone older than 2 who has ever heard of Scrooge.
I mean, beyond the obvious morality, just the bad PR this is
gonna generate will end up costing Nestle more than 6 million.
Think of the good PR Nestle could have generated if they had
done the opposite - made a big declaration that they were gonna
write off their debt to a country caught in the arms of famine.
Hey, Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year! But "No!",
"No!", And once again, "No!" It appears that
Nestle has very strong guiding principles about this sort of
thing - "Squeeze every last penny out of them!" And
be sure you get it before death reduces the swell of their children's
bellies so that it matches the rest of that skin on skeleton
look.
This isn't the first time Nestle has
walked the pathway of moral putridity. For years Nestle has been
the target of boycotts due to their decades long practice of
underhandedly peddling baby formula as a breast-milk substitute
to mothers in the third world. Breast milk is free, healthy and
protects against infection, but not very profitable for a maker
of baby formula. Practices like sending sales reps into hospitals
dressed as nurses to promote products to mothers were common
place. The pitch was that Nestle's formula was better than breast
milk - in fact, any mother that "really" cared about
her baby would use Nestle breast-milk substitute. Mothers were
often given a free supply of baby formula that lasted just long
enough to dry out their own breast milk. These mothers, lacking
sanitized water, and with their breast milk now dried up, mixed
the formula with the only water they had. The results were predictable.
According to the World Health Organisation a child bottle fed
using unsafe water is up to 25 times more likely to die as a
result of diarrhea than a breast fed child. 1.5 million children
die in this manner each year. With pressure from the boycott,
Nestle agreed to abide by the World Health Organisation's (WHO)
International Code of Breastmilk Substitutes, but Nestle has
continually violated the Codes. IBFAN detailed code violations
by infant food manufactures in a report called "Breaking
the Rules 2001" - released to coincide with the 20th anniversary
of the International Code. While Nestle was not the only manufacturer
to violate the Codes, Nestle's violations were the only ones
to be presented in special tables "because of the sheer
volume of its violations".
In 1984 Ethiopia was struck by a famine
in which a million people died. Even today more than a tenth
of its children die before their first birthday, and almost half
of all children are underweight. It has the lowest per capita
income in the world, with the average person surviving on $100
a year. Still, the Ethiopian government has offered to pay Nestle
1.5 million dollars in order to settle the claim. Nestle rejected
this offer and demanded 6 million dollars "as a matter of
principle". Their press release defended this demand, "In
the interest of continued flows of foreign direct investment
which is critical for developing countries, it is highly desirable
that conflicts are resolved according to international law and
in a spirit of fairness."
According to Oxfam, 6 million dollars
could do the following in drought ravaged Ethiopia: - buy food
for a month for over 1 million people in Ethiopia. - build 6,500
wells which would provide clean water to more than 4 million
people - provide 650,000 people with medicine to fight diarrhea
And what would the cost be to Nestle?
- 6 million dollars is 0.01% of Nestle's annual turnover.
Criticism of Nestle's business activity
prompted Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, their chief executive, too acknowledge
the need for responsibility beyond profit when he said, "We
are going to be asked: what have you done to fight hunger in
developing countries?". That was three years ago. The guy
is still heading the company, and as you can see, not much has
changed when it comes to grasping basic concepts like Ethics
and Morals at Nestle corporation. It's still that same old insatiable
greed - need indeed! Clearly an absolute prerequisite for the
job of CEO at Nestle is that your heart be made out of burnt
asphalt.
So unless you are a chum supporter of
infant mortality or famine then you might want to boycott Nestle
and the long long list of companies it owns.
And while your at it, give a real generous
gift for christmas - donate to one of the many charities trying
to help the 38 million people facing famine in Africa.
Peace, Kevin
Note: The International Code of Marketing
of Breast-milk substitutes was adopted by the World Health Assembly
in 1981. It aims to protect all mothers and babies from aggressive
company practices and to ensure that they receive accurate information.
It bans all promotion of baby milks and other breastmilk substitutes.
Kevin Begley lives in Lund, Sweden
He can be reached at: kevin.begley@spray.se
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