Greenpeace Speaks Up In Support Of The Vet Taib’s Assets Campaign!
By Sarawak Report
The Australian branch of the highly influential international environment organisation Greenpeace has stepped in to support the campaign to investigate Taib’s assets abroad.
The Chief Executive Officer of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Dr Linda Selvey, has personally written to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, backing requests by the Bruno Manser Foundation, PKR and Sarawak Report for an investigation into the Taib family’s string of investments in that country.
These include investments by Hamed Sepawi’s Ta Ann in a major logging concern in Tasmania, as well as numerous companies and properties owned by the Taibs, Taib’s brother in law, Robert Geneid, and related companies and assets.
Greenpeace support for an enquiry into Taib Mahmud’s affairs
Growing anti-timber corruption campaign puts world governments on the spot over Taib
Dr Selvey states in her letter:
“As research by the Bruno Manser Fund has shown and as many other journalists and independent bodies and individuals have demonstrated, Taib has abused his office consistently throughout his 30 reign as potentate of Sarawak in Malaysia. This has come at a high cost to the people and environment of Sarawak, a region of immense cultural and environmental significance on the island of Borneo”
She continues:
“There is significant evidence to indicate that the Taib family might have laundered and reinvested large amounts of money, procured through corruption in Australia”
Pointing out Australia’s obligations to identify and address international corruption under the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the Greenpeace Chief Executive goes on to urge Gillard to direct the Attorney General’s Department to initiate a comprehensive investigation into the conduct and affairs of Taib, his family and associates on the basis of the material provided by the Bruno Manser.
Dr Selvey ends her letter by calling on the Australian Government to “stand up for the rights of the people of Sarawak to protect their culture, their land and their environment”.
[click for Radio ABC Australia’s broadcast today on the problem of money laundering in Australia by corrupt foreign politcians]
Wilderness Society also joins protest again Taib logging in Tasmania
Tasmanian tree fern – unique, slow-growing and endangered. This is being destroyed by the clear felling in Tasmania to provide wood for Ta Ann
Equally hard to ignore will the the backing by another of Australia’s major environment organisations, the Wilderness Society, for the stand being taken against Ta Ann’s logging of virgin jungle in Tasmania.
Ta Ann has been at the centre of destruction and controversy in Sarawak. A devastating report this week by the local Huon Valley Evironment Centre has now catalogued the company’s destruction of areas that the Australian Government has been trying to protect in Tasmania.
