6 May 2010 | News | Linking Alternatives 4 | Food Sovereignty
Hard to Swallow
Nestle tried for spying activists
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This case took place a few years ago, but it is nevertheless current since organizations Attac Switzerland and Multiwatch will denounce the agri-food giant Nestle for spying European social activists. They will submit this case before the Permanent Peoples´ Tribunal to be held in Madrid, Spain, in May 14-15.
The court never arrived to a conclusion regarding this scandal, referred to as the “Nestlegate” by some people, and which became public in 2008 after a French TV channel investigated the case, gathering testimonies from police officers who admit the existence of infiltrations.
It was reported that shortly before a G8 summit held in 2003, Nestle executives hired workers from security company Securitas to infiltrate in Attac , which back then was writing a book criticizing Nestle, one of the most questioned multinational companies in the world due to union rights violations.
According to the report to be submitted to the PPT, the agent under the false name of Sara Meylan spied on Attac (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens) from August 2003 to June 2004, and it is estimated that the corporation spent around 65 million Euros in work given to Securitas, a company which has always worked closely to the Swiss Police.
The members of the group remember the infiltrated agent as a nice 20-year-old who arrived to ATTAC to work as a collaborator, but that shortly after drafted complete reports on the ideological profiles of the rest of the activists. “She never wanted to appear in pictures”, said one of her colleagues in the TV report which proved the links between Nestle and Securitas.
The organizations remember that the infiltration occurred amid a strong fight against privatization of resources, over-exploitation of water and violation of labor rights by Nestle.
Back then, the multinational company was questioned for their activity in Parque das Aguas in São Lourenço in Minas Gerais state, which was closed in 2006. One of the members of the resistance, Franklin Frederic, is mentioned several times in the reports of the agent infiltrated by Securitas.
Another paradigmatic case of the abuses of Nestle is the struggle of Sinaltrainal, Colombian union that denounces labor rights violations in Colombia by the European food giant.
The Swiss multinational company has operations in five continents, and has 76 factories in Latin America alone. Nestle is at the top of the most irresponsible companies in social and environmental terms, according to different reports by the international civil society.
