Biwater chills internet debate (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

>      FYI.  This article details an attack on two Internet providers with 
>      respect to information dissemination on the corporate activities and 
>      record of Biwater, a British transnational water corporation.  The 
>      potential of the Internet as a powerful organizing tool and a vehicle 
>      for global info exchange regarding corporate activities is obviously 
>      making some corporate execs pretty nervous.
>      
>      Cheers,
>      Helga
> 
> 
>      
> Regards,Lori Roter -- Water Policy Advisor 
> Public Health Protection
> Phone: 952-1463
> Fax:  952-1486
>      
> Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 12:54:30 -0700 (PDT) 
> From: MichaelP <papadop@peak.org>
> Subject: Internet's Future - Biwater Seeks to Suppress Public Debate
>      
>      
> /* Written 12:06 PM  Jul 17, 1998 by corpwatch@igc.org in igc:corp.watch */ 
>      
> Biwater Seeks to Suppress Public Debate and 
> Grassroots Organizing Over the Internet
>      
> Editorial
>      
>    Labor activists are charging that Biwater, a privately-owned, British 
>    transnational water corporation, is attempting to suppress public 
>    debate about utility privatization in South Africa. GreenNet, the 
>    Internet service provider for LabourNet, a UK labor news website,
>    and SangoNet, the provider for the South African newspaper, the 
>    Weekly Mail and Guardian, have both been threatened with legal 
>    action by the global corporation in recent weeks. In response, 
>    activists around the world are launching a campaign to ensure that 
>    information on the giant company remains on the web as Biwater 
>    bids on its first contract a with a municipal government in South 
>    Africa.
>      
>    In April, Biwater lawyers demanded that LabourNet remove a 
>    document that the company charges is defamatory. The offending 
>    document is a press release issued by the South African Municipal 
>    Workers Union (SAMWU), which is spearheading the fight against
>    utility privatization. The union refers to reports in the Weekly Mail 
>    and Guardian, that Biwater participated in British arms for aid 
>    scheme in the 1980's. Biwater bolstered its demand by threatening a 
>    libel suit against GreenNet, LabourNet's service provider. Soon 
>    after, Biwater lawyers also demanded that SangoNet, the South
>    African service provider that hosts the Mail and Guardian's 
>    website, remove the article.
>      
>    Under British libel law the burden is on the defendant to prove that its 
>    statements are not defamatory. The defendant is also responsible for
>    the plaintiff's legal fees, in addition to damages, should the defendant 
>    lose the case. This legal structure traditionally favors those with deep 
>    pockets, and poses a substantial threat to news media and grassroots 
>    organizations. By threatening GreenNet with a libel suit, Biwater also 
>    threatens to impose the peculiarities of British libel law as a means of 
>    chilling speech over the Internet. Both GreenNet and SangoNet have 
>    pulled the documents challenged by Biwater.
>      
>    However, Internet activists are confronting Biwater's attack with an 
>    online campaign to spread information about the corporation and 
>    SAMWU's struggle against utility privatization as widely as possible. 
>    The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), to which 
>    GreenNet and SangoNet belong, has mirrored LabourNet's Biwater 
>    website at various affiliate sites around the world. Public Services
>    International, the global federation of trade unions representing public 
>    service workers, has made an extensive report on Biwater available
>    on its website, and similarly encourages its reposting to other 
>    websites.
>      
>    Biwater has a history of confronting the media for critical reporting on 
>    its practices. Last November, the company threatened to cancel its 
>    proposed investment in a South African pipe factory if South African 
>    television, SABC, did not apologize for statements critical of water 
>    privatization and Biwater's track record as a water company. The 
>    corporation made the economic threats, even though it turned down
>    SABC's request for an interview to be included in the program, 
>    according to Public Services International Research Unit.
>      
>    Biwater has also used Britain's harsh libel laws to win retractions 
>    from two British newspapers, The Independent and The Private
>    Eye for apparently inaccurate reports on Biwater's overseas 
>    projects, its relationship with arms deals and its donations to the 
>    Conservative Party. In an effort to avoid legal reprecussions, both 
>    newspapers retracted their stories, issued apologies and paid stiff
>    fines. However, other reports of Biwater's participation in the British 
>    government's aid for arms schemes have apparently gone
>    unchallenged. For instance, the British House of Commons' Foreign 
>    Affairs Committee documented Biwater's role in the aid for arms 
>    scandal in Malaysia. And the British papers, The Observer and The 
>    Sunday Times, ran reports which documented Biwater's role in the 
>    scheme. Neither have been sued.
>      
>    Water privatization is a crucial issue for public debate. Human lives 
>    depend on the equitable distribution of water resources; the public 
>    should be given a voice in deciding whether an overseas-based 
>    transnational corporation whose primary interest is profit 
>    maximization, should control those critical resources. Furthermore, 
>    people should have the right to fully examine the record of any 
>    company seeking to control their water supply. In South Africa, these 
>    issues are particularly important, because current water allocation 
>    reflects the history of apartheid: white South Africans have greater 
>    access to water than black South Africans. It is in this context that 
>    SAMWU is using its website to disseminate information.
>      
>    As a global communications system, the Internet is an important vehicle 
>    for the public to gain access to information about the records of 
>    transnational corporations. The Internet is also a tool for organizing. 
>    For example, activists' use of the Internet helped halt implementation, 
>    at least for the moment, of the Multilateral
>    Agreement on Investment (MAI)--a treaty that would subordinate
>    the power of both national governments and grassroots groups to the 
>    rules of "free trade." Meanwhile, LabourNet, which successfully 
>    rallied international support for striking Liverpool dockworkers, has 
>    become an important resource for focusing international attention and 
>    action on labor struggles around the world.
>      
>    Corporate Watch is committed to supporting the free flow of 
>    information over the Internet. In a climate of increasing free flow of 
>    capital, with correspondingly decreasing public mechanisms for 
>    corporate accountability, the Internet represents the potential of a 
>    public forum that transcends national borders. It is crucial that this 
>    space, where citizens across the globe can debate the role of 
>    corporations and take action, be protected. This is especially true at 
>    a time when a few transnational corporations control traditional mass 
>    media.
>      
>    The Biwater case is of particular concern, because a large 
>    corporation is seeking to chill speech and undermine opposition by 
>    virtue of its economic might. As the trade union federation Public
>    Services International puts it: "If statements by the press, television 
>    and the trade unions are gagged through threats of legal or economic 
>    sanctions, Biwater has a better chance of gaining a lucrative 
>    contract." Indeed, if Biwater succeeds, it will bolster the ability of 
>    corporations around the globe to constrain Internet communication
>    and informed grassroots participation in decision making.
>      
>      
> 
> 
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