More than 88,000 people voted and Vale got more than 25,000 votes. The Brazilian company won the “popular” award while the “global” award (voted by an internal experts panel) was given to British giant bank Barclays. The other competitors were Japanese electricity company Tepco, accused of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, South Korean electronics corporation Samsung, Swiss agrifood corporation Syngenta and US mining corporation Freeport McMoran.

Beating Tepco “proves the real impacts that Vale had been hiding until now thanks to greenwashing and marketing techniques”, activist Dario Bossi of Red Justiça nos Trilhos told Real World Radio. “We hereby express our solidarity with all the victims of transnational corporations. Today we are glad that we, the victims of this mining corporation, have come up to the surface and we are raising our voices”.

Red Justiça nos Trilhos, who works in the states of Maranhao and Para, submitted Vale’s nomination to the Public Eye Awards on behalf of the International Coordination of People Affected by Vale and with the support of international NGOs.

The Public Eye Awards have been organized since 2000 by the organizations Berne Declaration and Friends of the Earth (which was replaced by Greenpeace in 2009). “It reminds the corporate world that the social and environmental crimes have consequences for the people affected and for their territories, but also for their own reputation”, reads the awards’ official website: http://www.publiceye.ch

Vale is present in 38 countries and it is the world’s largest iron and pellet producer, a key raw material for the iron and steel industry. It is also the world’s second nickel manufacturer. Red Justiça nos Trilhos, which used to be a state-owned company until 1997, has 111 pending prosecutions and 151 administrative trials related with the violation of environmental and labor laws and with human rights violations in different places.

Vale and its giant mine in the north of Brazil is being accused of the destruction of ecosystems, slave work and impacts on the indigenous peoples, conflict with workers and large debts to the federal government. The company faces similar accusations in other parts of Brazil, such as Minas Gerais state (over new mining projects in natural areas), Rio de Janeiro (it got fined and the General Attorney’s office started a legal action against it), Espirito Santo (conflict with indigenous peoples). Bossi also spoke about the impacts of the mining corporation in Mozambique, Canada and Peru.

“The impacts are different but the worst of it all is Vale’s presence in the consortium that is trying to build Belo Monte dam. That’s the biggest problem”, said Bossi.

Norte Energia is the consortium in charge of the construction of Belo Monte dam on river Xingu, in Para state. The dam, scheduled to begin operating in 2015 in the heart of the Amazon, would be the world’s third largest dam, after Chinese Three Gorges dam and Itaipu binational dam in the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Belo Monte would have an installed capacity of 11,000 mega watts. It is estimated that its construction will flood nearly 500 square kilometers of land currently occupied by indigenous communities. From 20,000 to 50,000 people would be displaced.

Bossi told Real World Radio that conferences were organized in Porto Alegre and in Davos at the same time to inform about the award received by Vale. Several events are being organized to continue exposing this corporation.

The International Coordination of People Affected by Vale now expect the company will change its attitude and will respond to the needs of the people affected by its operations. “We demand a change of attitude in the talks with the communities, that’s the least that could happen after this declaration, that the company will try to talk with the communities”, said Bossi. “So far its attitude has been of extreme arrogance, they have refused to either negotiate or acknowledge the impacts suffered by the peoples”.

Photo: biodiversidadla.org