Nestlé are evil again

[tinyjo]

One of the boxes I ticked when I signed up to Oxfam was the "Send me emails about e-campaigning" one - I may not be very good at going out on marches, but I am good at letter writing. Hell, I've even complained to the BBC about some of the stuff on the Today programme! So I got to write to the Danish Prime Minister about European farming subsidies, but up til now, I've not really felt fired up enough about their whole coffee campaign, a tiny bit of capitalist in me saying "Yes, but, it is just supply and demand", although it's never quite that simple. But this morning's email has got me fired up all right. Nestlé are demanding $6m dollars from Ethiopia, a country facing their worst famine for decades.

The $6m Question: Does Nestlé know it's Christmas?
Nestlé, the world's largest coffee company, are demanding millions of dollars from a country where 11 million people are facing famine. Take action to stop this scandal now! Visit http://www.maketradefair.com/go/scrooge to send an email to Nestlés CEO telling him exactly what you think of this behaviour.

Ethiopia is currently experiencing a terrible drought. This crisis has been compounded by the collapse in the global coffee price, which many of you have been helping us campaign on. The Ethiopian government fears this drought could cause the worst famine the country has ever faced.

Nestlé has demanded that Ethiopia pay over $6million in compensation for a company that was nationalised 27 years ago, a company that Nestlé didn't even own at the time.

The $6m represents 0.01% of Nestlé's turnover last year. But for Ethiopia, $6m would buy food for over a million people for a whole month.

This isn't supply and demand, it's just robbery. Nestlé don't need $6m of Ethiopia's money. Their right to it is highly dubious. Hell, if they had any feelings at all, rather than just being staffed by lawyer and accountant drones they would be donating $6m to Ethiopia to help people there who are starving to death rather than trying to accelerate the process.

Comments

[oxfordslacker.livejournal.com]

Shit. I'm never going to be able to eat another Raisin and Biscuit Yorkie again, am I? I'd been kind of hoping that eventually Nestle would drop off the Companies Who Are Really Evil Even By The Astonishingly Low Standards Of Most Multi-Nationals list, and I would, perhaps, be able to snack on one of those chunks of yummy chunky chocolate goodness without tasting the blood of third world babies. Seems not. Bastards.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Nope - they suck through and through. Which means, I think, that I really shouldn't have had any Quality Street last night. Oh well, I can abstain tonight instead.

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

I think cyberactivism like you're involved in is an important development for campaigning. It's a good way of raising issues with the public, and getting the information out to them in a format that they're going to read. A number of recent environmental/human rights-type campaigns have had they're own websites on which you can enter your details and pledge not to buy xyz, sign up for email updates, or just read news on how the campaign's going.

Using email is much cheaper and easier than mounting letter writing campaigns - if you're checking email and find one asking you to email your MP or a company about an issue and giving you the address then it's dead easy to shoot off a quick email. And an inbox irritatingly full of awkward emails gets the message through to the people involved just as well, if not better in some cases, than sackfuls of mail. But it often doesn't provide the photo opportunities that hand-delivering reams of petitions does, though not all campaigns need press interest to be effective.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I like it because it gives me the satisfaction of asking the difficult questions I really wish the reporters would ask (although, in this case, John Humpries was pretty good on the Today programme this morning) and I just never get round to letters anymore (even ones I really ought to write!). This one certainly seems to be stirring things up a little :)

[andypop.livejournal.com]

Good one. I also saw recently that they're sponsoring a young people's fiction prize next year, so I pointed out how little support this will get from the bookselling trade until they sort their shit out...