No! Not with our Money! - "¡¡¡Con nuestro dinero NO!!!
Large national and multinational salmon companies in Chile, the cause of a major sanitary, environmental and social calamity in Puerto Montt, Chiloe and Aysen, are to have their pockets lined by 250 million dollars worth of Chilean taxpayers money.
Santiago, Chile, 31 October 2006, Ecoceanos News. A national and international appeal has been launched on behalf of Chile’s “unwitting taxpayers” and citizens by Ecoceanos. This calls on the Chilean State to reject proposals for further subsidies of 250 million US$ to be provided to the salmon industry to ride out the “sanitary crisis”, for which it has only itself to blame. A call is also made for a review of all the subsidies has received by the industry so far; for a moratoria to be placed on any further concessions being granted for salmon aquaculture, especially in the Magellanes Region; for a public enquiry to opened on the crisis situation facing the salmon sector, and for information to be provided publicly on the origins and causes of the crisis, including the naming of those responsible.
Ecoceanos is soliciting organizations and individuals to sign up to this statement by sending messages of support via
Must “Muggins” the tax payer keep forking out? The statement questions. Must we, Chile’s unwitting taxpayers, pay for a further State injection of 250 million dollars to solve the temporary cash flow problems of the salmon industry (including Norwegian, Spanish and Japanese multinationals)? The amount demanded – according to its Government advocates – is for supporting this mega-export oriented industry from the effects of the so-called “sanitary crisis”, for which the industry itself is to blame, having introduced the ISA (Infectious Salmon Anaemia) virus in Chiloe, Aysen and Magellanes.
But what the government and business leaders have not publicized is that these public funds are additional to the 600 million dollars already committed by President Michelle Bachelet in her 21 May speech, plus the $ 20,000 million Chilean Pesos (CLP) – some 30 million US$ - provided in 2008 though direct and indirect aid from various programmes and state agencies
According to Ecoceanos, the current social and economic crisis is being used by the salmon companies to pursue a double strategy: to pressure the Government through the 4,000 workers laid off by them in recent months, demanding the provision of subsidies and emergency programmes. Whist at the same time demanding for liquidity to be freed up so that soft loans, and lines of guaranteed funding, may be made available for large companies. This goes hand in hand with obtaining State backing for making bank credit available for national and multi-national companies, where in the Southern Regions the Norwegians and the Spanish stand out as having powerful political influence.
“As citizens and taxpayers, we demand that the government, the Chilean State and parliamentarians, stop this abusive, non transparent and inequitable provision of an additional 250 million dollars to line the pockets of large national and transnational salmon companies. This must be accompanied by a public review of the direct and indirect multimillions of subsidies received by this irresponsible and destructive industry, which at present is outside of any government control or public scrutiny”, continues the statement.
We call on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as on US and European Union consumers, on the State and on Norwegian citizens to inform themselves about the bad practices and the environmental, sanitary, and labour “double standards” that transnational salmon companies are implementing in Chile.
Finally, the statement demands that, “as a matter of urgency, a moratorium or a temporary halt be applied to the handing over of new concessions for intensive salmon aquaculture, especially in the Magellanes Region. This represents the only effective precautionary measure to guarantee the protection of the environment, of public health, the country’s healthy aquatic patrimony, and the rights of the men and women workers, artisanal fishers, coastal communities, indigenous people, and local tourist operators.”
Source: Ecoceanos News. www.ecoceanos.cl
Submitted by Brian O’Riordan
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