When the G-7 Trade Ministers (i.e. the largest industrial countries) check in this morning (29 Nov.) they may get more than their briefing packets. Participants from the Global People's Tribunal on Corporate Crimes Against Humanity and others will attempt to serve citizen arrest warrants on the trade ministers as accomplices after the fact in the commission of Crimes Against Humanity as determined by the Tribunal.

The tribunal returned indictments against the GAP, Cargill, Shell, Chevron, Union Carbide, and Unocal after hearing testimony by prosecutors and witnesses on Saturday and Sunday at the King County Labor Temple in Seattle.

An overflow crowd watched as charge after charge was laid at the feet of these corporate giants.

Witnesses such as Chie Abad, spokeswoman for Saipan garment workers, presented testimony and evidence against the GAP and its use of sweatshop labor.

Parvati Vaeerma, of the Karnataka State Farmers Organization in India, testified on the impacts Cargill's agribusiness has had in India, including an increase in suicides among Indian farmers. [Note: Cargill has a large grain elevator on the Seattle waterfront just northwest of the Space Needle.]

Professor Robert Benson, Loyola Law School, and Stephen Dun, a Burma native, presented charges against Unocal for its conduct in Burma, including forced labor on Unocal's pipeline project.

Erica Etleson from Project Underground (Berkeley) outlined the practices of Shell and Chevron and the impacts of their oil industry on the people and environment of Nigeria.

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, MD, Consultant, International Medical Commission on Bhopal re-viewed Union Carbide's Bhopal 1984 chemical disaster in India in which the government paid out at least 12,000 death benefits.

The Global People's Tribunal was co-coordinated by Ward Morehouse, Co-Director, Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, and Eric Palmer, Coordinator of the National Lawyers Guild Committee on Corporations, the Constitution and Human Rights.

David Ortman

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