BP RUSSIA CAMPAIGN - BP LONDON DEMO 13 OCTOBER 2005

The battle against TNK-BP and their lack of concern and action to preserve the environment came to the streets of London today (13 Oct).

Around 20 activists gathered outside the city of London BP offices and were addressed by Simon Zhavoronkov who led chants of “BP out of Russia, Clean up Siberia” and “Freedman* out of Russia” and “BP Blair, Hands off Russian Oil!”.

Freedman (see below and pictures) also turned out on the demo - in cartoon style, and was happily parading up and down in front of the BP offices until police told him he as a danger to himself and the public - well done, Mikhail!

At an earlier press conference Boris Kagarlitsky and George Galloway joined Simon and Guy from GR in a condemnation of the drilling activities of TNK-BP. It was pointed out that the amount spent on safety and environmental concerns by the corporation in Russia amounts to just 4.67% of the amount paid out to shareholders in dividends at the end of 2004. This from a company that puts out press releases entitled: Ecology, Our Priority.

Funny way of expressing a priority that. Take a closer look at TNK-BP’s accounts: http://www.tnk-bp.com/investors/financial/ given the amount of noise and gloss that BP make on their environmentally friendly image, it’s worth knowing that it doesn’t wash with us.

The campaign will continue, and BP would be better off just cleaning up the mess. Campaigns like this can be a real pain in the arse, you know.

*Mikhail Freedman, one of the Alfa group oligarchs in Russia (think Abramovich minus a football club) is one of the major shareholders in TNK-BP. He is obscenely wealthy and is so at the expense of millions of people in Russia. He is also worth a reputed $5.2bn - making him the sixth wealthiest man in Russia. Effectively he’s the fourth wealthiest - Khordorkovsky, who tops the rich list is in jail for tax evasion and Roman Abramovich is now more closely associated with Chelsea than Siberia.