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Agbar
Pl.
Glòries
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This
corporation’s business is basically to privatize public
water. In the words of the company’s CEO: “the
business of water is strategic for us and we will compete
for all the tenders to privatize water, in Spain and in
other countries.” Agbar is responsible for the indiscriminate
water privatization in Colombia that condemns part of the
population to die from diseases related to the consumption
of polluted water. During the 90’s, Agbar was behind
the big rise in water prices that provoked a wide campaign
of refusing to pay water bills, supported by the neighbours’
associations of Barcelona. Currently, the new Agbar tower
located in Plaça de les Glories is linked to the
conflict affecting the area: following a participation process,
an agreement was reached in 1997. It guaranteed the conservation
of parks and foresaw the building of housing. The City Council
unilaterally broke this agreement in favour of a clearly
speculative building plan favouring some companies, one
of which is Agbar.
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BBVA
Pl.
Catalunya, 5 |
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Banco
Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria is Spain’s largest private
shareholder in the weapons and military industry. It invests
money from pension funds and clients deposits in Gamesa, Rymsa,
ITP, Indra or Turbo 2000. In addition, BBVA has had some remarkable
ideas like publishing a “tax evasion guide” and
organizing trips to tax havens for the elite, while it develops
a widespread Corporate Responsibility campaign. It’s
the largest investor in such “unsustainable” corporations
as Repsol, Endesa and Iberdrola.
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La
Caixa
Av.
Diagonal 621 |
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La
Caixa is a real shadow player. La Caixa has got Spain’s
largest share in occupied Iraq: together with 12 other banks
led by JP Morgan Chase, it is a member of the bank syndicate
that will create and control the Iraq Commerce Bank. This
bank will finance imports and exports to and from Iraq,
including oil exports. La Caixa is co-responsible for ecologic
crimes and speculative real-estate practices done by many
of the companies of which it holds shares: it owns 12.5%
of Repsol YPF, 31% of Gas Natural, 5% of Endesa, 23% of
Agbar, 23% of Acesa, 3,6% of Deutsche Bank, 15% of Banc
Sabadell, etc. It is also responsible for the construction
of a golf course in the natural park areas of Torrebonica
and Can Bonvilà in the Vallés, on a plot donated
to La Caixa’s social foundation by the Catalonia Fund
against Tuberculosis. The golf course required a rather
dubious rezoning and the illegal cutting of trees, and will
have a water consumption equivalent to that of a city of
40,000 inhabitants.
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Coca-Cola
Rbl.
Guipúzcua, 163-175 |
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The
huge multinational with a turnover of 20,000 million euros
is not only a very profitable business but also has great
impact in terms of labour, social and environmental issues.
Its production and distribution procedures cause massive
pollution, use genetically manipulated organisms, violate
environmental protection laws, including the building of
bottling plants in areas of environmental importance (such
as Can Fenosa in Catalonia), the pollution of water sources
with waste from bottling plants, irrational water use policies
throughout the world and criminal attacks on water sources
belonging to indigenous communities.
Coca–Cola is part of the Business Council for Sustainable
Development, created in Rio in 1992, which advocates voluntary
self-regulation by corporations to avoid statutory regulations
(a strategy adopted by the Bush administration). In addition,
its subsidiary in the USA is part of the US Council for
International Business (USCIB), which has publicly supported
Bush’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Last, but
not least, Coca-Cola, while it uses coca leaves to make
its products, supports the USA’s criminal policies
against the communities which traditionally have based their
culture and livelihood on coca leaves, especially in Bolivia,
Peru and Colombia. Coca-Cola also sponsored Bush’s
last election campaign.
Other sordid affairs: child exploitation (Pakistan, 1998),
assassination of defenders of workers rights (Colombia,
2003), racial discrimination (USA, 2000), institutional
corruption in order to get privileges (USA 1998-2001).
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Colacao
Lepant,
410 |
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A
brand name belonging to Nutrexpa, which is on the black list
of companies suspected of using transgenic products for the
use of transgenic soy lecithin. Colacao participates in the
world’s unfair cocoa market. If imposing single crop
farming for export throughout the world was not enough, corporations
like Nutrexpa are also responsible for the drop in cocoa prices,
sometimes below the cost of production.
In Ivory Coast, the world’s main cocoa producer, thousands
of slave children work in the plantations. The cocoa lobby
is also behind the pressure to substitute cheaper vegetable
fats for cocoa in the EU.
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Consorci
de la Zona Franca
Av.
Parc Logístic, 210 |
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See
the speculation diagram
to find detailed information.
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El
Corte Inglés
Pl. Catalunya |
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El
Corte Inglés is clearly one of the pioneers in turning
our urban landscape into a huge storefront. The production
and distribution of each El Corte Ingles product generates
an endless list of environmental damages. It is the owner
of Informática El Corte Inglés S.A. (a developer
of military information systems) and a member of the Circle
of Technologies for Defense and Security. The company
is accused of using child labour in Morocco (2002): children
between 14 and 16 years of age working in endless shifts
in harsh work conditions, where unionising is prohibited
and the any protest is rewarded by immediate firing.
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Diagonal
Mar |
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Diagonal
Mar is built on land allocated by the General Metropolitan
Plan of 1976 for a big park and neighbourhood services. The
City Council decided to satisfy the demands of Mr. Hines,
a private developer: to change the land use regulations and
to allow the housing towers to be built in the middle of the
park limiting its public use. A 90 square meter apartment
can be rented for 332,000 pesetas ($2,000) a month.
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Endesa
Avda. Paral.lel,
51 / Almogàvers, 117
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Endesa’s
power stations throw out 73 million tons of CO2 every year.
It is the fourth most polluting European company, responsible
for the climatic change. It’s a criminal company responsible
for the destruction of life in the ecosystems of high Bio–Bio
and the Pehuenche–Mapuche people (Chile 2003). It’s
directly responsible, together with the Generalitat, for
the construction of the high–tension line of Gavarres,
which passes just a few meters from villages and farms.
It has speculated with Can Fuster, where it has forced the
construction of another luxury hotel, while the neighbours
association was claiming the space for public use.
In addition, Endesa is a company specialized in “green
marketing”, which sells a false green image: the insane
farce claiming that a constant grow in electrical consumption
can be compatible with protecting the environment. It also
makes a profit charging a 2.45% “green” surcharge
on the electric bill for electricity obtained mainly from
hydroelectric plants (which do not comply with the criteria
of environmental quality), the cost of which has already
been recovered.
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Focus
Àvila, 149 |
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As
a private theatre and show producer, Focus will be in charge
of one of the spaces at the Forum during all 141 days. No
wonder. Although it makes huge profits from its commercially
minded show business, it also gets significant sponsoring
from public institutions. Focus is also the main supplier
of cultural equipment and services to public institutions
in Barcelona. By offering low prices, it has been able to
become a monopoly in Barcelona’s cultural services,
and it helps public institutions to avoid any direct responsibility
to workers. How can they manage to offer such low prices?
Mainly by using junk jobs: hiring technicians as assistants,
and so on and so forth. It’s monopoly status makes
it the leader of the private show business lobby that prevents
culture service prices to fall and, thus, widespread access
to those services. No wonder Focus has its offices in Poble
Nou and is making a huge profit from the 22@ plan.
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Iberia
Pg.
Gràcia, 30
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Scientists
estimate that currently air traffic produces three times
as much gases provoking the greenhouse effect as ground
traffic does. Public aid to the aeronautic industry in the
whole world (for example, in Europe through the FEDER fund,
by not taxing aviation fuel, by reducing or eliminating
VAT on plane tickets...), in blunt contradiction with the
free market rhetoric, has played a key role in the expansion
of this industry. Iberia also participates in programs of
the Spanish navy and air force. It’s responsible for
the economic looting of Argentina with the fraudulent buying
of Aerolíneas Argentinas. The Spanish government
uses this airline to deport undocumented immigrants every
day.
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IEMed
(Institud Europeu de la Mediterrània)
Girona,
20
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Institut
d’Estudis de la Mediterrània is a cultural
centre run by all three government levels and responsible
for the organisation of some debates at the Forum. It is
supposed to be open to social participation through its
board of trustees, which must approve its budget and activity
plan. Guess who’s in that board? Two university professors
and 14 corporate executives (from Agbar, La Caixa, BBVA,
Endesa, Iberia, Telefónica, Consorci de la Zona Franca,
etc.).
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Indra
Avda.
Diagonal, 218
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Indra
is Spain’s third largest military corporation (selling
€ 381 million in military equipment in 2002), just
behind EADSCASA (€ 642 m.) and IZAR (€ 451 m.).
It’s the Spanish leading manufacturer of military
electronics, communications and computing equipment. It’s
the largest non US supplier to the US Navy. It’s taking
part in all significant weapons development programs of
the Spanish military: Eurofighter (simulators, automatic
maintenance systems, avionics, on board systems); F–100
(communications and combat systems); Leopard (communications
and fire control); and Pizarro. It also develops automatic
maintenance systems (F–1, F–18 and Harrier II
Plus), flight simulators (F–16, C–101, A–7,
F–18, Harrier II Plus and Lamps), electro-optical
systems and equipment (fire direction systems for AMX 30,
DORNA, FELIS and SIRO), on board systems, missiles, radar,
air defence, command and control and electronic warfare
equipment.
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Nestlé
Jaume
I, 8 |
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The
Swiss owned multinational Société des Produits
Nestlé S.A is the strongest food corporation in the
world. With its commercial arrogance it exploits millions
of peasants in five continents. In the environmental and
agro-nutritional area it has been accused of not complying
with some environmental agreements (2000), using illegal
transgenic products (France 2000), the relabelling 200 tons
of outdated milk in order to sell it (Colombia 2002), using
transgenic soy in products declared as transgenic free (Italy
2000), selling a ersatz infant milk that causes thousands
of infant deaths a year. This multinational has provoked
the steep fall of coffee and cocoa prices that has meant
the ruin of many people. In addition, Nestle is involved
in public health scandals related to the use of antibiotics
in milk or in cases such as the meningitis produced by Enterobacter
Sakazakii, a very resistant bacteria which grows in powdered
milk (Belgium 2002).
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Randstat
Balmes,
226 |
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This
important multinational offers professional services for
companies and institutions. UMANO is the company in this
group that specializes in selecting personnel. These companies
are the greatest exponents of precarious labour, exploitation
and discrimination. 217,800 people daily “enjoy” the junk contracts of Randstad worldwide.
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SGAE
Passeig
Colon, 6 |
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The
SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores de España) has
become, 100 years after its foundation, Spain’s largest
cultural institution, under the leadership of Eduardo “Teddy”
Bautista. It acts as music production corporations’
guard dog. Under the flags of Copyright, Intelectual Property
Law and Money, it pretends to protect the interests of authors
and creative artists, while it only defends the interests
of corporations that make profits from such creativity.
Since January 2004 anybody who buys a blank CD must pay
a certain amount of money to the SGAE, even if you just
use it to store your grandma’s photos or your love
letters. More and more people are fed up of these practices
and are actively protesting against them.
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Telefónica
Avda.
Roma, 73 |
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The
world’s largest reserves of coltan are in Eastern
Congo, a country devastated during the past five years by
a series of wars and invasions that have killed more then
3.5 million people. The demand for coltan has grown a lot
recently because tantalum, which is found in coltan, is
essential for cellular phones (and other microelectronic
products). The main reason for the war is the fight for
control over the export of gold, diamonds and coltan between
local leaders and other players from Uganda and Rwanda.
Telefonica and other multinational corporations involved
in this business count on the cooperation of First World
governments which simply let their companies participate
in this illegal traffic and network of corruption, while
they block the UN’s proposals to impose an embargo
of the coltan traffic networks. Telefonica, through Telefonica
sistemas, participates in electronic warfare programs, military
messaging, etc. It is a member of the Spanish association
of weapon and defense material manufacturers. It also makes
fraudulent contracts with the Argentinian government, thus
becoming one of the main causes of the dramatic economic
crisis in that country.
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Toyota
Avda.
Meridiana, 329 |
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Currently
Toyota is facing a $ 60 million lawsuit for anti environmental
practices. In order to get favourable legislation, this
brand has repeatedly used corruption. Its aggressive green
marketing policies try to hide the insustainability of the
current mobility model based on the private cars, through
some image–whitening activities: debate forums, supporting
environmental foundations, etc.
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La
Verneda Internment Centre
Rambla
Guipúzcoa, 74 |
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Internment
centres are used to keep immigrant detainees for an unlimited
period of time. Arrests are carried out by police forces
commanded by the same institutions that organize Forum 2004.
These unlimited arrests violate the Constitution, since
the internees have committed no crime at all. Institutions
that advocate understanding and tolerance as means of solving
social exclusion and inequality are responsible for laws
that allow for immigrant exploitation and unjustified arrests.
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Sant
Andreu Barracks
Pg.Torres i Bages, 116-124 |
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People
who lived at the Sant Andreu Barracks have been direct victims
of the repression with which Forum 2004 has been prepared.
In order to implement the neoliberal model of a happy town,
signs of social injustice are being hidden and those who
suffer from it are being repressed. The eviction of people
living in the former barracks has allowed the Ministry of
Defence (owner of the buildings) to make a huge profit out
of a place that as a squat was unprofitable. The Ministry
of Defence has sold it to the Consorcio de la Zona Franca,
who is speculating with a site that neighbours wanted to
be used for social services.
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Lower
Besòs area |
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Forum
2004 has been built on the banks of the Besòs river.
They have substituted artificial landscape for natural biodiversity,
at a huge energetic cost. The water in the Besòs
river is as polluted as it has always been, thanks to inadequate
sewerage systems in a river that carries mostly treated
water from the Ter river —ten times its own natural
waterflow.
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ZAL
(Logistic activity area) |
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Barcelona’s
big bet into the future is to become a huge centre of manufactured
goods traffic. A million and a half containers pass through
Barcelona every year —and the figure grows by 10 per
cent a year. These goods are mainly manufactured in Asia
and Latin America, under new conditions of labour exploitation:
those of the infamous “maquilas”, large isolated
industrial areas in which people toil very close to slavery.
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Sea
and beaches |
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The
building of a new marina in the Forum area is just another
example of its lack of environmental concern of the whole
project. Marinas and yachting harbours are responsible for
the loss of sand at the beaches. After the marina building
boom of the nineties, a moratorium was established: the
new harbours in Sant Adrià and the Fòrum break
it. The attempt to recover beaches by building breakwaters
is also absurd —it just moves the problem on to the
next beach, with a significant visual impact.
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Collserola |
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It’s
supposed to be Barcelona’s “green lung”,
but this natural area has become more and more fragmented
due to the building of roads and residential areas. The
tunnel at Horta is the last instance of the “asphalt
craze” that has split the mountain area, in an outdated
commitment to private transport. The Central tunnel and
the Corniche road are coming down the pipeline. The area
is not only being split —it’s being besieged
as well. A few examples: 1.232 trees have been cut down
at Can Calopa (to produce “Barcelona wine”),
the Can Busquets housing estate, the Berta and Can Burrull
quarries in Sant Cugat, the Centro Direccional and golf
course at Cerdanyola, the buildings along Sant Just Desvern
valley, the Samson quarry in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, the
projects for private homes for the elderly and high standing
housing estates in Vall Par and Vall de Sant Genís,
that would require the eviction of the Can Masdeu social
centre and community vegetable gardens.
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La
Mina |
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This
neighbourhood was built during the 60s so that the shanty
town at Somorrostro (where the famous Carmen Amaya was born
by the Barceloneta beaches) could be demolished. Barrio
de La Mina, actually built in the Sant Adrià de Besòs
municipality close to Barcelona, has become Barcelona’s
“Southern Bronx”, a dramatic example of underclass
parking architecture. Fòrum 2004 has been built beside
this neighbourhood, but ignoring it and trying to make it
invisible.
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