Given that only five lawmakers turned up for this briefing will send a loud message to the people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia stating 'America Does Not Care'.

Despite being heralded as the first time in history that U.S. lawmakers would hear directly from the survivors of a U.S. drone strike, only five elected officials chose to attend the congressional briefing that took place Tuesday.

Pakistani schoolteacher Rafiq ur Rehman and his two children—9 year-old daughter Nabila and 13 year-old son Zubair—came to Washington, DC to give their account of a U.S. drone attack that killed Rafiq's mother, Momina Bibi, and injured the two children in the remote tribal region of North Waziristan last October.

According to journalist Anjali Kamat, who was present and tweeting live during the hearing, the only lawmakers to attend the briefing organized by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), were Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.).

Before the handful of reporters and scant lawmakers, however, Rafiq and his children gave dramatic testimony which reportedly caused the translator to break down into tears.

In her testimony, Nabila shared that she was picking okra with her grandmother when the U.S. missile struck and both children described how they used to play outside but are now too afraid.

"I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer grey skies. Drones don't fly when sky is grey," said Zubair, whose leg was injured by shrapnel during the strike.

“My grandmother was nobody’s enemy," he added.

"Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day," Rafiq wrote in an open letter to President Barack Obama last week. "The media reported that the attack was on a car, but there is no road alongside my mother's house. Several reported the attack was on a house. But the missiles hit a nearby field, not a house. All reported that five militants were killed. Only one person was killed – a 65-year-old grandmother of nine."

"But the United States and its citizens probably do not know this," Rafiq continued. "No one ever asked us who was killed or injured that day. Not the United States or my own government. Nobody has come to investigate nor has anyone been held accountable."

He concluded, "Quite simply, nobody seems to care."

You can watch a recording of the briefing below and here:

The purpose of the briefing, Grayson told the Guardian, is "simply to get people to start to think through the implications of killing hundreds of people ordered by the president, or worse, unelected and unidentifiable bureaucrats within the Department of Defense without any declaration of war."

The family was joined by their legal representative Jennifer Gibson of the UK human rights organization Reprieve. Their Islamabad-based lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, was also supposed to be present but was denied a visa by the US authorities—"a recurring problem," according to Reprieve, "since he began representing civilian victims of drone strikes in 2011."

"The onus is now on President Obama and his Administration to bring this war out of the shadows and to give answers," said Gibson.

Also present was U.S. filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who first met Rafiq when he traveled to Pakistan to interview the drone strike victims for his documentaryUnmanned: America's Drone Wars. Before the briefing, Greenwald told the Guardian that he hoped the briefing "will begin the process of demanding investigation. Innocent people are being killed." More

 

We're one 'Oops' away from Armageddon

Out of America: The greatest threat to the US from atomic weapons is accidental detonation. And, worryingly, it has nearly happened.

Let's start with a simple, astounding fact. In the 68 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, apart from scheduled nuclear tests, not a single nuclear warhead has exploded. The remarkable thing is not that nuclear weapons have never featured in a hot war. Basic human sanity – awareness of the devastation that would be caused by today's far more powerful devices – has ensured that. What is truly astonishing is that since 1945, no nuclear weapon has gone off by accident.

Today the topic, here in the United States or among the original nuclear powers, seems almost irrelevant. We take atomic weapons for granted. Not so perhaps in the Middle East, or in the Indian subcontinent, or North Korea. But we British, Americans, Russians, French, and Chinese have virtually forgotten about them, certain they will never be used in anger.

Not that they no longer exist. The US, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation here in Washington, currently has around 4,650 strategic missiles, 1,950 of which are deployed, the rest on stand-by. No figures are published, but upkeep, support and modernisation of the nuclear force reputedly costs at least $50bn (£31bn) a year.

Drive across the plains of North Dakota, Wyoming or Montana, and you might notice the odd small gravelled area by the road, with some gadgets protruding from the earth, protected by barbed wire and ferocious "Keep Off" signs. You might think it is an electricity sub-station. In fact you are passing one of 450 concrete silos on the northern plains that contain a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a single warhead, each capable of obliterating Hiroshima 27 times over.

That however is as physically close as ordinary punters will ever come to America's nuclear deterrent. The rest is aboard bombers within the sealed perimeters of vast air force bases, or hidden beneath the ocean on 14 Trident submarines – out of sight, and entirely out of mind.

But it was not always thus. If you want an idea of what might have been, read Eric Schlosser's enthralling Command and Control, that weaves together the post-1945 history of the US deterrent with a frame-by-frame recreation of the country's most celebrated brush with accidental Armageddon.

It happened back on 18 September 1980 at a missile silo in rural Arkansas. The silo contained a Titan II fitted with a W-53 warhead, the most potent in the US arsenal, with a 9-megaton yield, 600 times more than Hiroshima.

A worker doing routine maintenance dropped a spanner that fell into the silo and ruptured the missile's fuel tank. Fumes swiftly built up in the confined space. Nine hours later the Titan II blew up, utterly destroying the silo and sending its 740-ton launch closure door spinning into the night sky and depositing the warhead 50 yards away. The safety devices held and it didn't go off, but one person was killed and 29 injured. Local residents had been evacuated – but much difference that would have made, had the worst occurred.

In his researches, however, Schlosser unearthed a yet more terrifying nuclear near miss, 19 years earlier. In January 1961, a B-52 carrying two hydrogen bombs broke up in midair over North Carolina. The bombs came to earth amid the wreckage, and on one of them three out of four automatic arming mechanisms had gone ahead. Only a last safety switch held, preventing a calamity that would have wiped out or rendered uninhabitable much of the East Coast. In comparison, the Cuban missile crisis was a virtual non-event.

And this was just one of at least 700 significant "incidents" between 1950 and 1968 in the US. You wonder how many others went unreported. Imagine, too, the brushes with disaster there must have been in the Soviet Union during the period. But as far as we know, none ever produced an accidental, full-scale nuclear detonation.

Since then, thanks to diminishing stockpiles and improved safety procedures, such "incidents" have been far fewer. But never rule out the human factor. Somehow, for example, in contravention of rules set in place after North Carolina, six cruise missiles fitted with live nuclear warheads were carried on a flight in 2007 from North Dakota to Louisiana without authorisation. Apparently, loaders confused dummy warheads with the real thing.

And even in these past couple of weeks, human frailties have made one wonder. In one bizarre episode, the three-star admiral who was the second ranking officer at US Strategic Command, whose brief includes the country's nuclear strike forces, was removed from duty after being caught using counterfeit poker chips at a casino at Council Bluffs, Iowa just across the river from Strategic Command's HQ at Offutt Air Force base in Omaha Nebraska.

A few days earlier, Major General Michael Carey was sacked from his command of the 20th Air Force, responsible for those Minuteman III missile silos in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, and their launch centres. Both instances involved "unfortunate personal behaviour", a senior Pentagon official told the Associated Press news agency, stressing however that the country's nuclear deterrent force was "safe, secure and effective".

But new revelations last week make one wonder. Earlier this year, two of the three nuclear wings under the 20th Air Force performed badly in a safety and security inspection, and 17 military personnel were made to undergo retraining. Moreover, on two occasions doors to launch control centres were left unlocked, in breach of regulations, AP reported – on one occasion when an on-site food order was being delivered. Of course the guy from Domino's Pizza can't just wander in off the street and press the button, but even so ….

Such is the surreal banality of America's nuclear weapons today. No wonder morale is said to be poor at the ICBM sites, in the rearmost line of battle, of a war that will never be fought. Back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, the greatest nuclear threat to America was accidental detonation of an American weapon. That remains the case now. Let's hope the dumb luck holds. More

 

 

Model OSCE of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship

Switzerland will assume the Chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2014.

In accordance with the year’s overall theme, “Creating a Security Community for the Benefit of Everyone,” it will pursue three overarching objectives:

• Fostering security and stability in Europe;
• Improving people’s lives;
• And strengthening the OSCE and increasing its capacity to act.

As part of its third objective, Switzerland wants to strengthen the voice of young people and enhance their involvement within OSCE structures. It will therefore organise a year-long Model OSCE series in which one delegate from each of the 57 OSCE-participating States will be invited to participate.

More specifically, that means that the delegates will simulate the activities and responsibilities of two specific OSCE decision-making bodies. And in doing so, the delegates will . . .

• Get familiar with OSCE structures and –themes;
• Have the opportunity to acquire and develop various skills (in international diplomacy, negotiations, public speaking, communications, problem solving and critical thinking);
• Improve their team-working and leadership abilities;
• And have the opportunity to meet other young people from the 57 OSCE-participating States.

Who should register in the Model OSCE? We strongly encourage young people aged 18-30 to submit their applications. Participants must be citizens of one of the 57 OSCE participating States, fluent in written and oral English, interested in international politics, and ready to devote their time and ideas to this project throughout the year of the Swiss OSCE Presidency. More

 

Please visit the Swiss National Youth Council (SNYC) website to submit your application.

 

Will I Be Next?

US may be guilty of war crimes over drone use – Amnesty Intl

US officials responsible for carrying out drone strikes may have to stand trial for war crimes, according to a report by Amnesty International, which lists civilian casualties in the attacks in Pakistan.

The report is based on the investigation of the nine out of 45 drone strikes reported between January 2012 and August 2013 in North Waziristan, the area where the US drone campaign is most intensive. The research is centered on one particular case – that of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi, who was killed by a US drone last October while she was picking vegetables with her grandchildren.

The report is entitled ‘Will I be next?’ citing the woman’s eight-year-old granddaughter Nabeela, who was near when the attack occurred, but miraculously survived.

"First it whistled then I heard a "dhummm". The first hit us and the second my cousin,” Nabeela recalls.

The report also recounts an incident from July 2012, when 18 laborers, including a 14-year-old, were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi. The men gathered after work in a tent to have a rest when the first missile hit. The second struck those who tried to help the injured.

“Amnesty International is seriously concerned that these and other strikes have resulted in unlawful killings that may constitute extrajudicial executions or war crimes,” the report reads.

Amnesty’s main point is the need for transparency and accountability, something the US has so far been reluctant to offer.

“The US must explain why these people have been killed - people who are clearly civilians. It must provide justice to these people, compensation and it must investigate those responsible for those killings,” Mustafa Qadri, the Amnesty researcher who wrote the report, says.

The report comes at a time when the US is facing growing international pressure over its drone program.

Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, is currently in Washington, where he is expected to talk drones with Barack Obama. And on Friday the UN General Assembly will be debating the use of remotely-piloted aircraft.

In a separate report, a UN investigation revealed some 33 drone strikes around the world - not just in Pakistan - that violated international humanitarian law and resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties. That report is also calling for more transparency and accountability from the United States. More

What the world lacks is Statesman, real leaders, leaders who, because of their record of standing up for doing the right thing, are respected. Who respects leaders today? They carryout extra-judicial killings, murder, invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, perhaps Syria next, cause millions of deaths, so who could respect them?

We must all fight to uphold the Rule of Law. The United States has set a precedent for international extra-jucicial killings. Which will be the next country, because they feel threatened by the United States, sends drones to attack them?

Extra-judicial killings are illegal and must be stopped. The planet has enough problems facing it from climate change, energy security and food and water security without illegal killings which may be a conflict trigger.

Leaders need the vision to see the bigger, long-term issues and realize that unless we all work together for the survival of the planet we shall in all likelihood perish. Editor

Malala Yousafzai meets with the Obamas in the Oval Office

Malala Yousafzai may not have won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, but she enjoyed a private Oval Office audience with President Obama and the first family.

Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani student who was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen for speaking out in support of the right of girls to go to school, met Friday with Obama and his wife, Michelle. A photograph issued by the White House shows the Obamas' 15-year-old daughter, Malia, also present during the visit.

The Obamas welcomed Yousafzai to the Oval Office "to thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls education in Pakistan," according to a statement issued by the White House.

The statement added, "The United States joins with the Pakistani people and so many around the world to celebrate Malala's courage and her determination to promote the right of all girls to attend school and realize their dreams."

The Pakistani teen was in Washington on Friday for an address at the World Bank, part of her U.S. visit to promote her new memoir, "I Am Malala." More

 

US drone campaign is worlds largest terrorist action - Chomsky

 

All superpowers feel exceptional, inflate security myth for ‘frightened population’ — RT Op-Edge

The United States is not the first superpower to act as if it’s exceptional and will likely not be the last, although US leaders could be squandering a fruitful opportunity for improved international relations, Noam Chomsky said in an interview with RT.

RT: I’d like to begin with Iran. The new president, Rouhani, has appeared to be much softer than his predecessor. On his recent trip to the US it was hailed as progress and the first time two presidents spoke in over 30 years. Do you see US policy towards Iran changing?

Noam Chomsky: The real issue is what will happen in the United States. The way the issue is presented in the United States, and most of the West, the problem is Iran’s intransigence and its rejection of the demands of the international community. There is plenty to criticize in Iran but the real issue is quite different. It’s the refusal of the West, primarily of the United States, to enter into serious diplomacy with Iran. And as far as Iran violating the will of the international community, that depends on a very special definition of international community which is standard in the West where the term means the United States and anybody who goes along with it. So if the international community includes the world then the story is quite different. For example the non-aligned countries, which is most of the world’s population, have vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium – still do.

The nearby region, in the Arab world, Arab’s don’t like Iran it’s quite unpopular there are hostilities that go back very far. But they do not regard Iran as a threat, a very small percentage regard Iran as a threat. The threats they perceive are the United States and Israel, so they are not part of the world as far as “international community” is concerned but it’s a western obsession. Are there ways to deal with it, whatever one takes a threat to be? Sure, there are ways.

So for example in 2010 there was a very positive advance that could have mitigated whatever the threat is supposed to be. Turkey and Brazil reached a deal with Iran in which Iran would ship out its low-enriched uranium in exchange for storage in Turkey, and in return the west would provide isotopes for Iran’s medical reactors. As soon as that was announced Brazil and Turkey were bitterly condemned by Washington and by the media, which more or less reflexively follow what Washington says. The Brazilian government was pretty upset by this, so much so that the Brazilian Foreign Minister released a letter from President Obama to the president of Brazil in which Obama had proposed this assuming that Iran would turn it down. When Iran accepted, of course he had to denounce it and Obama went right to the Security Council to try to get harsher sanctions. Well that’s one case. More

World’s Leading Nuclear Power Plant Exporting Companies Hold Fourth Meeting to Review Industry Principles of Conduct

THE GLOBAL THINK TANK World’s Leading Nuclear Power Plant Exporting Companies Hold Fourth Meeting to Review Industry Principles of Conduct TORONTO—The participating industry civilian nuclear power plant vendors and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have concluded a fourth meeting to review the implementation of the Nuclear Power Plant Exporters’ Principles of Conduct (POC). The POC constitute an industry code of conduct articulating and consolidating recommended best practices in the export of nuclear power plants. The meeting was convened in Toronto, Canada, on September 25 and 26, 2013, by the POC secretariat with the gracious local support of Candu Energy and Bruce Power. It was chaired by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Meeting participants updated each other on their implementation activities and shared best practices. Companies noted the high quality of the presentations and the benefits of building on each other’s most innovative internal implementation experiences. They welcomed the steady progress made by all vendors, including those that have either recently joined the process or gone through a corporate transition. Participants confirmed the value of the POC and discussed a number of ideas for advancing their objectives and strengthening the mechanisms through which those objectives can be achieved. They exchanged views on existing efforts to implement the POC and discussed guidelines and procedures for enhancing their effective implementation. In recognition of vendors’ commitment to upholding the highest standards of nuclear safety, Principle 1 was modified to include a reference to the World Association for Nuclear Operators (WANO) principles “Healthy Traits of a Nuclear Safety Culture.” This document was shared with vendors by WANO as part of its long-standing dialogue with the POC. Companies discussed key developments in nuclear regulation and best practices with internationally recognized experts in the fields of nuclear industry and nuclear energy regulation. Guests included: Michael Binder, president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission André-Claude Lacoste, expert on the POC process, former chairman of the French Nuclear Safety Authority, and chairman of the sixth review meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety Richard Meserve, expert on the POC process, chairman of the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, and former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission These experts lauded the POC’s role in reinforcing high standards in the development of nuclear power. They offered concrete suggestions for advancing the POC process and broadening its scope in support of public safety. These suggestions were extensively discussed by participants and will be considered again at the next review meeting. Participants were also joined by Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Bruce Power and president of WANO, to reflect on some of the challenges currently facing the nuclear industry and ways in which these can be addressed. Frank Saunders, an expert on the POC process and vice president of Bruce Power, also joined. Roger Howsley, executive director of the World Institute for Nuclear Security, briefed companies on the institute’s key projects. The companies confirmed the ongoing outreach to emerging nuclear industry players, including small modular reactor vendors. They noted their appreciation for the IAEA’s central role in developing good practices for nuclear power and reiterated the invitation to the IAEA to attend future POC review meetings. Participants also welcomed a representative from the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC), a major developer of nuclear power plants in China. SNPTC attended the meeting as an observer while it contemplates adopting the POC. Companies updated antitrust guidelines to ensure that all aspects of the POC review process continue to comply with competition laws. Participants discussed one case study on the successful development of nuclear power programs. Vendors in attendance included: AREVA ATMEA Babcock & Wilcox Candu Energy Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Rusatom Overseas Toshiba Press Contacts: Danielle Kurpershoek | +39 02 9287 5124 |secretariat@nuclearprinciples.org Clara Hogan | +1 202 939 2233 | chogan@ceip.org More information about the Nuclear Power Plant Exporters’ Principles of Conduct is available at www.nuclearprinciples.org. ABOUT CONTACT UPDATE PROFILE UNSUBSCRIBE. Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees. © 2013 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved.

Diary by Patrick Cockburn

The media that failed woefully in their coverage of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are the media that we are supposed now to believe are giving us the unvarnished truth in Syria.

Patrick Cockburn points out some of the reasons why we shouldn't trust journalists' war coverage.
He also makes some good points about how war's greater exposure in the modern media often changes the nature of the fighting for the worse. Jonathan Cook - Journalist

The four wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 12 years have all involved overt or covert foreign intervention in deeply divided countries. In each case the involvement of the West exacerbated existing differences and pushed hostile parties towards civil war. In each country, all or part of the opposition have been hard-core jihadi fighters. Whatever the real issues at stake, the interventions have been presented as primarily humanitarian, in support of popular forces against dictators and police states. Despite apparent military successes, in none of these cases have the local opposition and their backers succeeded in consolidating power and establishing stable states.

More than most armed struggles, the conflicts have been propaganda wars in which newspaper, television and radio journalists played a central role. In all wars there is a difference between reported news and what really happened, but during these four campaigns the outside world has been left with misconceptions even about the identity of the victors and the defeated. In 2001 reports of the Afghan war gave the impression that the Taliban had been beaten decisively even though there had been very little fighting. In 2003 there was a belief in the West that Saddam Hussein’s forces had been crushed when in fact the Iraqi army, including the units of the elite Special Republican Guard, had simply disbanded and gone home. In Libya in 2011 the rebel militiamen, so often shown on television firing truck-mounted heavy machine-guns in the general direction of the enemy, had only a limited role in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, which was mostly brought about by Nato air strikes. In Syria in 2011 and 2012 foreign leaders and journalists repeatedly and vainly predicted the imminent defeat of Bashar al-Assad.

These misperceptions explain why there have been so many surprises and unexpected reversals of fortune. The Taliban rose again in 2006 because it hadn’t been beaten as comprehensively as the rest of the world imagined. At the end of 2001 I was able to drive – nervously but safely – from Kabul to Kandahar, but when I tried to make the same journey in 2011 I could go no further south on the main road than the last police station on the outskirts of Kabul. In Tripoli two years ago hotels were filled to capacity with journalists covering Gaddafi’s fall and the triumph of the rebel militias. But state authority still hasn’t been restored. This summer Libya almost stopped exporting oil because the main ports on the Mediterranean had been seized by mutinying militiamen, and the prime minister, Ali Zeidan, threatened to bomb ‘from the air and the sea’ the oil tankers the militiamen were using to sell oil on the black market.

Libya’s descent into anarchy was scarcely covered by the international media since they had long since moved on to Syria, and more recently Egypt. Iraq, home a few years ago to so many foreign news bureaux, has also dropped off the media map although up to a thousand Iraqis are killed each month, mostly as a result of the bombing of civilian targets. When it rained for a few days in Baghdad in January the sewer system, supposedly restored at a cost of $7 billion, couldn’t cope: some streets were knee-deep in dirty water and sewage. In Syria, many opposition fighters who had fought to defend their communities turned into licensed bandits and racketeers when they took power in rebel-held enclaves.

It wasn’t that reporters were factually incorrect in their descriptions of what they had seen. But the very term ‘war reporter’, though not often used by journalists themselves, helps explain what went wrong. Leaving aside its macho overtones, it gives the misleading impression that war can be adequately described by focusing on military combat. But irregular or guerrilla wars are always intensely political, and none more so than the strange stop-go conflicts that followed from 9/11. This doesn’t mean that what happened on the battlefield was insignificant, but that it requires interpretation. In 2003 television showed columns of Iraqi tanks smashed and on fire after US air strikes on the main highway north of Baghdad. If it hadn’t been for the desert background, viewers could have been watching pictures of the defeated German army in Normandy in 1944. But I climbed into some of the tanks and could see that they had been abandoned long before they were hit. This mattered because it showed that the Iraqi army wasn’t prepared to fight and die for Saddam. It was a pointer too to the likely future of the allied occupation. Iraqi soldiers, who didn’t see themselves as having been defeated, expected to keep their jobs in post-Saddam Iraq, and were enraged when the Americans dissolved their army. Well-trained officers flooded into the resistance, with devastating consequences for the occupying forces: a year later the Americans controlled only islands of territory in Iraq.

War reporting is easier than other types of journalism in one respect because the melodrama of events drives the story and attracts an audience. It may be risky at times, but the correspondent talking to camera, with exploding shells and blazing military vehicles behind him, knows his report will feature high up in any newscast. ‘If it bleeds it leads,’ is an old American media adage. The drama of battle inevitably dominates the news, but oversimplifies it by disclosing only part of what is happening. These oversimplifications were more than usually gross and deceptive in Afghanistan and Iraq, when they dovetailed with political propaganda that demonised the Taliban and later Saddam as evil incarnate, casting the conflict – particularly easy in the US in the hysterical atmosphere after 9/11 – as a black and white struggle between good and evil. The crippling inadequacies of the opposition were ignored.

By 2011 the complexity of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan was evident to journalists in Baghdad and Kabul if not necessarily to editors in London and New York. But by then the reporting of the wars in Libya and Syria was demonstrating a different though equally potent form of naivety. A version of the spirit of 1968 prevailed: antagonisms that predated the Arab Spring were suddenly said to be obsolete; a brave new world was being created at hectic speed. Commentators optimistically suggested that, in the age of satellite television and the internet, traditional forms of repression – censorship, imprisonment, torture, execution – could no longer secure a police state in power; they might even be counter-productive. State control of information and communication had been subverted by blogs, satellite phones and even the mobile phone; YouTube provided the means to expose in the most graphic and immediate way the crimes and violence of security forces. More

Oxfam takes aim at big food and beverage companies over sugar-linked land grabs

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Ever wonder where the sugar in a can of Coke or Pepsi or a mug of Ovaltine came from?

It may have come from land previously owned by indigenous and rural communities who are now landless and destitute after sugar companies forcibly evicted them, according to a new report from Oxfam.

Based on cases of land conflicts in Brazil and Cambodia, “Nothing sweet about it: How sugar fuels land grabs” faults some of the world’s biggest food and beverage companies - in particular Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Associated British Foods (ABF) - for failing to ensure their sugar suppliers are not involved in land grabs.

“While our increasing appetite for sugar has health advocates ringing alarm bells… it has largely gone unnoticed that the sugar trade is also helping to fuel the problem of land grabs and disputes,” the report said.

It pointed to instances in which companies supplying sugar to these multinationals used political clout and threats to force local communities off their land, destroy their homes and pay inadequate compensation.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are two of the largest purchasers of sugar and ABF is the world’s second-largest sugar producer, Oxfam said. All use sugar in a wide range of processed foods, from soft drinks and yogurt to frozen meals and sauces.

“These companies continue to preside over supply chains within which the risks have increased of land grabs and land conflicts. Yet they are doing little if anything to prevent land grabs in their own supply chains,” the report said.

SUPPLY CHAINS UNDER SCRUTINY

The charity is asking the three companies to disclose their sources of sugar, palm oil, and soy commodities, to commit to zero tolerance for land grabbing and to publicly advocate that governments and traders invest in agriculture responsibly.

The report is the latest salvo in Oxfam’s Behind The Brands campaign, which aims to bring the 10 biggest food and drink brands - ABF, Coca-Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, Mondelez, Nestle, PepsiCo and Unilever - to account for what happens in their supply chains.

As a result of food companies relying on long chains of production, the biggest sugar buyers and producers “have failed to keep tabs on their industry’s insatiable demand for land, and the lengths to which the third party companies they work with will go to acquire it,” the report said.

In Cambodia’s Sre Ambel district in Koh Khong province, Thai company Khon Kaen Sugar (KSL) seized land from some 450 families in 2006. Demolition workers with bulldozers and excavators, accompanied by armed police, arrived without warning, activists say.

Six months after the company opened a sugar-processing factory in the district, Cambodia’s first shipment of sugar in four decades, 10,000 tonnes valued at roughly $3.31 million, was delivered to U.K. sugar giant Tate & Lyle, according to activists.

Oxfam says Coca-Cola and PepsiCo bottlers buy sugar from Tate & Lyle, who has said it has no plans to buy more from KSL. Activist say Tate & Lyle has already received 48,000 tons of sugar from Cambodia, estimated at €24 million.

LAND INTENSIVE

While soy and palm oil are also linked to land grabs, sugar is the most land-intensive, according to Oxfam.

Sugar is grown on 31million hectares of land globally - an area the size of Italy - and much of it is in the developing world, the report said.

The global sugar trade is worth around $47 billion, and the food and drinks industry accounts for more than half of the 176 million tonnes of sugar produced last year, it said. More