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Economic campaigns - Shell
Failing the Challenge - an alternative annual report on Shell, published by Friends of the Earth. Includes a contribution from Free Tibet Campaign.
Shell challenged at AGM
May 2003
Shell faced a barrage of questions from representatives of communities affected by its unethical global operations at the company's Annual General Meeting on 23 April 2003.
Among them was Manolis Priniotakis, a representative of the Uighur UK Association which has been working with Free Tibet Campaign to oppose Shell's involvement in the controversial West-East pipeline.
Free Tibet Campaign and the Uighur UK Association contributed to an alternative annual report on Shell, Failing the Challenge, produced by Friends of the Earth and published to coincide with Shell's AGM.
Along with representatives from South Africa, the US, Nigeria and the Philippines, Alison Reynolds and Manolis Priniotakis challenged Shell over its record on corporate social responsibility. In response to questions about the West-East gas pipeline, Shell Chairman Sir Philip Watts was unable to give specific examples of how Shell would guarantee that the indigenous Uighur population of East Turkestan would benefit from the project.
Free Tibet Campaign and the Uighur UK Association oppose Shell's support for China's politically motivated Western Economic Development Plan, of which the West-East pipeline and the Tibet (Sebei-Lanzhou) pipeline are a part. Both organisations have been critical of a Social Impact Assessment conducted by the United Nations Development Programme on the West-East pipeline, which campaigners assert has dramatically increased local peoples' expectations of the project, who are looking for access to the gas and for development assistance with schools and healthcare.
PetroChina executives claim that the Tibet pipeline and West-East pipeline, both of which they operate, will be connected in the future. PetroChina is a 90% state-owned company responsible for exploiting Tibet's natural resources.
View and download Failing the Challenge.