I served as a member of the Jury of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal held in Vienna on the occasion of the European Union-Latin America Summit [11-12 May 2006]. Aware that I am quite unable to write with other people, I made the following contribution to the drafting group as an introduction. My intention was that, at the end of this "General Indictment", a section entitled "Specific Indictments" should follow. It would contain a paragraph concerning each of the various sectors on which we heard testimony--hydrocarbons, forestry and wood pulp, tourism, water, the agri-food chain, labour relations, the environment and so on--and would include the names of specific European corporations in specific locations. Only brief parts of the introduction I supplied were retained in the final document, apparently because it was considered "too much like an NGO speech". The final text issued by the Tribunal surely has its own merits but I found it did not go nearly far enough in acknowledging the daily struggles of the immensely strong and dignified Latin American men and women who, during the twelve hours of hearings, described the conditions in which European Transnational Corporations force them to live and the struggles they are waging against tremendous odds. I do not claim that the following text does real justice to these amazing people or to their struggles either, but I hope it may still serve as a kind of complement to the official text of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal.. The members of the jury of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, meeting to consider the impact of the presence of European Transnational Corporations [TNCs] in Latin America, thank the organisers of this important event, commend the thoroughness and high quality of the research and documentation presented in the course of the hearings and salute the commitment of the witnesses to achieving justice for their communities and their countries. For two days we have heard testimony and case studies concerning several dozen TNCs and banks headquartered in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and one non-EU country, Norway. General Indictment We have been convinced that European TNCs in Latin America are committing injustices, on a daily basis and of many kinds, in both the legal and the moral sense. As the witnesses and the copious documentation make clear, these corporations obey only the laws of profit, accumulation and shareholder value. We have been presented with overwhelming evidence of their manifold abuses of human, social, cultural and workers' rights; their irresponsible and sometimes irreversible actions towards the environment and their complete disregard for the welfare of local communities. In the light of this evidence, the first question that comes to mind is, quite simply, "How can they be stopped? How can they be forced to change their behaviour?" Voluntary codes of conduct such as those proposed by the OECD or various business organisations are of little or no use. These companies whose activities have been described to us in detail reveal the fraudulent nature of corporate public relations campaigns around the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility. We fear that until peoples' movements can, through their own efforts, impose a different legal framework and unless governments are willing and able to enforce it, this systematic corporate abuse of rights will continue. The jury can, however, help to publicise their harmful and predatory practices and thereby, we hope, contribute to the struggles of people throughout Latin America to reclaim their food, their water, their public services, their financial systems and the livelihoods and natural resources of their communities. The witnesses and the case studies have highlighted, in particular, the complicity of European governments which aid and abet their own TNCs. Furthermore, international public institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, which are supposed to serve the interests of all their member countries, are in reality paving the way for the exploitative activities of TNCs. Their constant intervention in the economies and the social systems of Latin American countries impose privatisation and deregulation, while encouraging the outright theft of financial and ecological resources which should be used for the good of all citizens. The consequences are grave. Inequalities between the Northern and Southern hemispheres and within individual countries are on the rise. One industry after another is taken over by foreign corporations with no regard for peoples' needs. Food sovereignty is rendered impossible as companies take over more and more land and resources for export production. Environmental damage is commonplace, serious and sometimes permanent. Unemployment increases as corporations undertake massive lay-offs in order to cut costs and create so-called "shareholder value". Indigenous peoples are robbed, decimated and their cultures as well as their livelihoods destroyed. Women bear a particularly onerous burden and pay a particularly heavy price. When people justifiably protest, they are treated as criminals, arrested and imprisoned. We have learned of several cases of arson and murder perpetrated by corporate-hired thugs. Sometimes courageous Latin American media expose the abuses of TNCs. Others are too fearful or too complicit to do so and allow the companies to continue, with impunity and without broader publicity to cause untold damage. Local government is frequently corrupt, often manipulated and in any case powerless to counteract the corporations which are far more influential at the national level than are local officials. Instead of acting in the tradition of the Enlightenment, instead of learning the lessons from centuries of colonialism, official Europe has sided entirely with the TNCs. In the negotiations held under the auspices of the WTO, notably those on the General Agreement on Trade in Services [GATS], the EU has taken the lead in demanding further liberalisation and opening of service sectors such as energy, water, financial and legal services, distribution and so on. It is also the lead governmental entity demanding freedom of investment, calling for the right to 100 percent ownership. It is pushing hard for substantial tariff reduction protecting Latin American industries which are, on the whole, weaker than the mature industries of Europe; so that European TNCs can more easily penetrate Latin American markets. If successful, these efforts will result in even greater unemployment and ecological destruction. The structural adjustment policies of the Bretton Woods Institutions [the World Bank and the IMF] have for decades caused untold harm to people and nature. Their implicit or explicit cooperation with the TNCs cannot be denied. For all these reasons, we demand that European governments take responsibility for their corporations and cease their support for their predatory activities in Latin America. Enforceable law protecting people and the environment should be their goal. This, we are well aware, will not occur spontaneously. European social movements must join with their Latin American counterparts, putting pressure on their own governments. We hope that together, in a spirit of comradeship, Latin Americans and Europeans can bring about a profound change in the relationship between the two continents. This is necessary. It is urgent. We, the jury, hope to have contributed in some small measure to this goal.