Activists sitting on the floor during today's Formosa Plastics Annual Shareholders Meeting in Taipei. About an hour ago international activist Diane Wilson supported by a legion of a local activists stormed the Formosa Plastics Annual Shareholders Meeting in an attempt to present the Black Planet Award to the group. Details remain sketchy at this point but here's what is known.
Earlier today Green Party Taiwan and Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association sent out a press release (see below) saying that Green Shareholders would join the Formosa Plastics Annual Shareholders Meeting being held in the Sunworld Dynasty Hotel in Taipei today. Green Shareholders would be calling on the Wang Family to consider FPG’s environmental devastation while wrangling over the FPG’s founder Y.C. Wang’s Fortune. The press release outlined some of the FPG's horrendous environmental record and went on to say that international activist Diane Wilson would present FPG with the 2009 ethecon Black Planet Award.
At 1330 activists gave press conference. Then, shortly after the start of the annual shareholders meeting activists including Diane Wilson burst into the meeting. It is understood that they sat on the floor and were eventually carried out of the meeting. The protest was witnessed by many journalists and was filmed by several news crews. What remains to be seen is if Formosa Plastics will wield their powers of persuasion as they did in the Black Planet Award bus ad campaign to silence the news. We'll be watching the news channels with interest.
Press Release:
25 June 2010 for immediate release
Green Shareholders to Join Formosa Plastics Annual Shareholders Meeting: Call on the Wang Family to Consider FPG’s Environmental Devastation While Wrangling Over the Dead Man’s Fortune
Time: 25 June 2010 1330 press conference, 1400 shareholders meeting
Place: Sunworld Dynasty Hotel, 2F No 100 Tunhua S Rd Taipei (northeast corner of Tunhua and Nanjing intersection formerly Asiaworld)
As international society attaches more and more importance to corporate social responsibility the appearance of “green shareholders” has become a common phenomena. During Formosa Plastics’ 2000 Annual shareholders meeting, FPG’s founder Y.C. Wang engaged in a heated debate with these green shareholders but within one week of the meeting the infamous mercury-tainted toxic waste [that Formosa had attempted to illegally ship to Kampuchea] was taken from the Kaohsiung Harbour to FPG’s factory; while at the 2006 shareholders meeting the main topic was the failure of FPG’s steel plant project to make any headway with the environmental impact assessment.
This year the green shareholders will point out the groundwater contamination levels around FPG’s PVC factory in Kaohsiung’s astounding feat of achieving more than three hundred thousand times the legal standard, the soaring cancer rates around FPG’s Sixth Naphtha Cracker offshore facility in Yunlin County, central Taiwan, and how FPG is going to deal with competition from the Kuokuang Petrochemical Park planned for neighboring Changhua County, as well as environmental and safety concerns over its plant in Point Comfort Texas.
More than ten victims of FPG’s polluting plants at home and abroad have obtained shares or proxies in order to have standing to attend the shareholders meeting. Among these stakeholders the two who have drawn the most attention are LIN Jin-lang, an aquaculture farmer trying to make a living next to the Sixth Naphtha Cracker in Yunlin County, and fourth generation shrimper and environmental activist Diane Wilson who has witnessed the ravaging of her home and devastation of the fishing industry by the neighboring FPG plant in Point Comfort.
Media reports on 24 June stated that “Formosa Plastics is geared up in full battle array in what is the highest level in its 56 year history”. The green shareholders believe that they and proxies of green shareholders should all be able to join the meeting and have taken a vow to fight to the death to get Diane Wilson into the meeting so that the Wang family and the management can confront the social and environmental devastation they and their companies have wrought on Taiwan and around the world and to also make the shareholders aware of the dangers of investing in FPG..
Diane, surrounded by a group of local Taiwan activist “unreasonable women” will present the 2009 “Black Planet Award” that the German Foundation ”ethecon - Foundation Ethics & Economics” in Berlin Germany gave to FPG last year. The award was for the particularly dismal and irresponsible performance in the areas of environmental and social responsibility by the recipients, the family of Y.C. Wang, the Chairman of Formosa Plastics Mr. Lee Chih-tsun, and all executive management of the Formosa Plastics Group.
After 20 years, Formosa Plastics retains its position as “leader of the Earth’s social and environmental poisoners and polluters”.
We welcome all media and other interested parties!
Participants: Calhoun County Resource Watch and Injured Workers United, Yunlin County Shallow Waters Agua-culture Association, Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association Taiwan, Green Party Taiwan, Green Formosa Front, Mercy on the Earth Taiwan, Taiwan Environmental Action Network, Taiwan Academy of Ecology Taipei Branch, Changhua Environmental Protection Union
Press contacts: Green Party Taiwan PAN Hansheng 0935295815,panhan3@gmail.com
Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association Janis WANG 02-2382-5789 jwang@wildatheart.org.tw
Update: Environmental Groups Confront Formosa Plastics Corporation at Annual Shareholders Meeting
Also see:
Black Planet Award for FPG.
Ethecon Black Planet Award:- Dossier on FPG
Click to view the open letter to the Formosa Plastics Group.
Green Groups Storm Formosa Plastics Corporation at Annual Shareholders Meeting - Taiwan's Newspapers Mum
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