Thu, 12 Sep 2002 Hi everyone: Next monday September 16th we will be demonstrating at the opening of the new headquarters of ING (Bank/group). The new building, just outside Amsterdam (see: http://www.ing.com, with a live webcam on the building) will be inaugurated at 2 pm by prince Willem Alexander, in the company of all the CEO's of ING (and many other corporate and political leaders). We will be welcoming the guests from 1 pm onwards (with banners, leaflets etc.) and will try to join the inauguration at 2 pm. The reason to do this, is the role ING plays in the privatisation of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia. ING provides the services and construction for the US multinational Bechtel to pretend their part in the privatised Cochabamba water-enterprise is based in the Netherlands. Since the inhabitants of Cochabamba resisted the privatisation and threw the company out, Bechtel is demanding USD 25 million indemnification from Bolivia (note that their direct investment amounted only USD 7 million at the most). The letterbox- construction-services of ING is crucial in claiming the indemnification. Last week we had a meeting with the directors of ING-Trust (the department for letterbox-constructions of ING) and a representant of the Coordinadora from Cochabamba (the umbrella of organisations protesting the privatisation). (Pictures of the event to be found at: http://www.noticias.nl/tunari/index1.html) ING-trust made very clear that they did not want to do anything to solve the problem. So we told them in that case we will continue our actions to demand justice. We also warned there is an international campaign of solidarity with Cochabamba and that ING will be part of it. Our demand is quite simple: ING should cut its ties with International Water Holding (IWH), the holding containing the possession of Bechtel and Montedison in Aguas del Tunari, the privatised Cochabamba water-enterprise) To make our point clear next Monday, the more people to be present, the better . So we hope you will join us, in that case you can find us at the cross- section of the Amstelveense Weg and the street to the entrance to the building (at the exit of A10- highway). From there different groups will choose other strategic locations to get our message through (the entire building is one big window!). For more information: A more extensive call up in Dutch can be found on our website: http://www.globalinfo.nl/article/articleview/83/1/2/ and on the Dutch Indymedia-site (www.indymedia.nl) And we made a special website about the whole Cochabamba- affair and the Dutch connection (most of it is in English): http://www.xs4all.nl/~arenaria/water
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