Veolia forced to bite the bullet

A company which profits from working for illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine dropped a controversial bid for multibillion-pound waste disposal contracts in north London over Christmas.

Veolia is a French multinational which provides water, energy and waste management services.

It is heavily involved in providing services to illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land.

Seven London boroughs are seeking tenders for provision of waste management though the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) - Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.

The collective contracts are worth £4.7 billion. Veolia was shortlisted - but has dropped its bid.

North London Waste Authority has announced that it had "received notification from Veolia Environmental Services that they will not be submitting final tenders for either NLWA's waste services or fuel use contracts."

Why?

For two years the No2Veolia Action Group (No2VAG) campaigned against Veolia being awarded the contracts.

Campaigners said the procurement process was shrouded in secrecy and that they faced "a wall of denial" when it came to Veolia's unethical practices, environmental and technical shortcomings and financial instability.

So it's not surprising that campaigners are hailing the company's retreat as a victory.

No2VAG secretary Rob Langlands says: "North London residents want an environmentally responsible and cost-effective solution to waste disposal. The Veolia technical proposals were not on track to provide this.

"I am especially delighted that the Veolia bids have now been consigned to the rubbish bin because of the ongoing Veolia involvement in the illegal Israeli settlements."

The group's chairwoman Yael Kahn believes No2VAG played a key role in getting Veolia to drop its bid.

"Our strategy to force councillors to seriously consider and publicly debate the issues at stake and the further actions planned No2VAG played a critical role in achieving our aim," she says.

No2VAG weren't the only ones advising councils to have nothing to do with the firm.

Pressure also came from Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the West Bank and Gaza.

He wrote to NLWA councillors "to urge you not to select Veolia for public contracts due to its active involvement in Israel's grave violations of international law.

"On October 25, I presented a report to the United Nations General Assembly on the legal responsibility of business enterprises, corporations and non-state actors involved in activities relating to Israel's settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

"The report concluded that corporations and non-state actors play an instrumental role in Israel's belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and the infringements on the human rights of Palestinians, and that public authorities and civil society must take actions to hold complicit corporations to account.

"Due to its deep and ongoing complicity with Israeli violations of international law I decided to select Veolia as one of the case studies to include in my report."

Veolia is involved in a light railway system in Jerusalem, an Israeli landfill dump on Palestinian land and bus services in the Occupied Territories.

"The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has documented how the existence and continued expansion of illegal settlements have a severe humanitarian impact on Palestinian civilians, including with respect to house demolitions, killings and injuries of Palestinian civilians and restrictions of movement that affect Palestinians but not Israeli settlers," Falk continued.

Stopping one company from winning contracts in London is not going to end the occupation of Palestine.

But as No2VAG says: "Multinational companies like Veolia are finding that around the world, complicity with Israeli war crimes is increasingly bad business.

"On December 20 the St Louis City Board shelved a Veolia contract pending an investigation into the company's association with human rights abuses, corruption and violations of law.

"This is the latest setback for the beleaguered multinational occupation profiteer which has been denied contracts in several European cities in the wake of campaigns by human rights activists."