Body Shop ethics under fire after Colombian peasant evictions

[Downwinder]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/body-shop-colombia-evictions

[Peace Patriot]

1. "Body Shop" should never have been buying palm oil from Colombia in the first place!

This is a government with one of the worst human rights records in the world!

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Body Shop ethics under fire after Colombian peasant evictions
Critics hit out at the eco-friendly cosmetics firm after a supplier cleared Colombian ranch land to grow palm oil– and riot police were brought in to enforce the removal of farmers

by Rajeev Syal
The Observer, Sunday 13 September 2009

The Body Shop, the cosmetics giant that claims to source ingredients from companies that protect local farmers' rights, buys palm oil from an organisation that pushed for the eviction of peasant families to develop a new plantation.

Daabon Organics, a Colombian firm that provides the British chain with 90% of all its palm oil, was part of a consortium that asked the courts to remove farmers from a sprawling ranch 320km north of the capital Bogotá with a plan to grow African palm. Police in riot gear evicted the farmers in July.

Now solicitors for 123 peasant farmers and their families are appealing against the decision with the backing of a British charity. They say that some locals had lived and worked on the land for more than 10 years and had already applied for the right to own it under Colombian law before the consortium bought it.

The disclosure will embarrass the Body Shop, which has claimed that it respects the rights of local farmers in developing countries and uses Daabon's oil to make the equivalent of 7.5 million bars of soap every year. It will also highlight the many battles between farmers and palm oil companies across the globe as the product becomes increasingly lucrative.

"The Body Shop should reconsider its decision to buy palm oil from Daabon in the light of this conflict," said Catherine Bouley of Christian Aid, which is backing the farmers' legal action. "The Colombian government would like to triple the area under palm cultivation, which will only exacerbate the problem of displacement."

(MORE)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/13/body-shop-colombia-evictions

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Just to note: Internal displacement is a HUGE problem in Colombia. I think the figure is a million people--driven from their small campesino farms by rightwing death squads in the pay of multinationals, by the Colombian military and its death squads in favor of big drug lords, and by the US "war on drugs" pesticide spraying. And there are hundreds of thousands more who have fled across the border into the more enlightened countries of Venezuela and Ecuador. Thousands of union workers have been murdered in Colombia by rightwing death squads closely tied to the Colombian military and government and to multinationals like Chiquita. Doesn't "Body Shop" do its homework? Or has it just been lying to its customers all along? Why haven't they gotten their palm oil from a country like Brazil, which produces it, and which has a leftist union leader as president and a government that protects labor rights? Colombia's palm oil is no doubt cheaper because the land is stolen and life is cheap in Colombia. Very cheap. Mass graves are being turned up all the time, containing the murdered remains of peasant farmers, labor union organizers, community organizers, human rights workers, and others who get in the way of profit for the rich. And you don't have to look that hard for this information. Try Amnesty International! Ever heard of them, you folks at "Body Shop"?