Business and UN Forge Aid Link
Behind closed doors in a luxury hotel in
Geneva, a gathering of top people from major business corporations
and from humanitarian organizations met to establish "The
Business Humanitarian Forum" - an association under Swiss
law with an opening budget of a quarter of a million US dollars,
is raising questions regarding links between transnational corporations
and the UN.
Participants included the president of United Technologies
Corporation - the worlds largest military contractor; the vice
president of Nestlé - the company in the forefront of
the effort to undermine the International Code of Marketing of
Breastmilk Substitutes and the manager for international and
governmental affairs of Rio Tinto - whose questionable activities
were recently documented by the International Federation of Chemical,
Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions. ("Rio Tinto Tainted
Titan.")
The forum was headed by a private aid organization (International
Rescue Committee), an oil company (Unocal Corp.) and the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees.
Secrecy was the order of the day, with media strictly excluded
and the participants, notably the chairpersons, reluctant to
comment. Even the chief spokesperson for the UN Secretary General
at the UN Geneva Office was unaware of the forum, although the
Secretary General sent an opening greeting.
The commercial sector's participation in the United Nations
and its affiliated organizations is controversial and was highlighted
at the press conference by the International Committee of the
Red Cross's director of field operations, Jean-Daniel Tauxe,
who deplored the "privatization" of conflicts i.e.
not only the use of mercenaries, but the launching and prosecution
of wars by multinational corporations to serve their own interests.
The failing struggle of the Director General of the WHO to get
governments of member states to increase the budget to compensate
for inflation, opens the door to multinational corporations who
wish to invest in many poor countries where there have been conflicts
and disasters, showing interest in projects that affect their
areas of investments or where opportunities exist for profit.
Is it really possible that in the future humanitarian aid
will also answer to shareholders with the complicity and active
participation of the humanitarian aid community?
