by http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/

(Pictures available at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/309192.html

Up to 15 vanloads of police were on hand at BP's 2005 Annual General Meeting to assist the Greenwash Guerrillas in protecting the general public from potentially lethal levels of toxic greenwash contamination.

Police were acting on a tip-off from the Greenwash Guerrillas that greenwash levels at the meeting, held at London's Oil Festival Hall on Thursday April 14th, would constitute a serious health hazard, and made sure the public were kept well away from what is usually a well-used public building.

Shareholders, hypnotised by the surfeit of friendly green BP logos, by the thought of ever-greater dividends and by the prospect of a free lunch, brushed aside warnings (both personal and planetary) and marched into the meeting.

700 green 'BP in the dock: the charges' leaflets were distributed by Greenwash Guerrillas and friends to predominantly supportive passers-by; (see text below). Banners reading 'Oil Festival Hall' and 'Toxic Greenwash Hazard', one highlighting the public money pumped into the Baku Ceyhan pipeline and one highlighting BP's role in the assassination of a Colombian activist, were all on display. Pretty much anyone with half a plan to raise their concerns about BP outside the meeting was searched, with one Greenwash Guerrilla being searched twice for daring to leave and return to an invisible police-designated 'protest area'.

BP's pre-meeting blurb stated, illegally, that 'We do not permit entry to persons whose conduct, behaviour or general demeanour may interfere with the good order of the meeting.' At least two shareholders were refused entry on these grounds, the second, wearing a greenwash radiation suit for his ow protection, being accompanied by a BBC World Service business correspondent who witnessed the whole charade and featured a clip on that evening's business report; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/default.stm or write to LRT for an mp3 file.

By all accounts the meeting itself, held in the main auditorium of a heavily BP-branded OFH, ran depressingly smoothly, with profit-blinded shareholders happily waving through massive salary hikes for the bosses while wondering what free BP-branded trinket they would find in their BP-branded packed lunch bags...

London Rising Tide (LRT) has focussed some of its efforts for the time being on pressuring the Oil Festival Hall to refuse to have BP back in 2007 once its renovations are complete, by for example depositing spoof leaflets in the building announcing its renaming. LRT is also running 'Art Not Oil 2005' alongside BP's Portrait Award (http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/ & http://www.nationalpetroleumgallery.org.uk/). And the Baku Ceyhan Campaign (www.baku.org.uk) has pledged to keep a searchlight planted firmly for the next five years on BP's 1-million-barrels-of-oil-per-day pipeline, the sort of determined, long-term attention that the company would love to live without.

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Leaflet given out on the day:

(side A) CAUTION: TOXIC GREENWASH HAZARD!

YOU HAVE ENTERED A RESTRICTED AREA. YOU MAY NEED

TO BE QUARANTINED DUE TO GREENWASH INFECTION. DO

NOT PANIC.

INSTRUCTIONS;

1. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE FACTS

2. TAKE A HEALTHY DOES OF SCEPTICISM

3. ASK PLENTY OF HONEST QUESTIONS

4. TO MINIMISE TRANSMISSION OF THE VIRUS, DO NOT REPEAT WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD

5. DO NOT SHARE PLATFORMS WITH USERS OF GREENWASH.

THIS IS A PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING FROM THE GREENWASH GUERRILLAS

(side B)

WARNING! You are within choking distance of a

serious spillage of ultra-powerful

super-sophisticated extra-toxic corporate

greenwash; (greenwash = profit-seeking

environmental & social whitewash.)

BP in the dock: the charges

* 'BP & Shell have discussed with the government the prospect of claiming a stake in Iraq's oil reserves in the aftermath of war.' Financial Times, 11.3.03.

* BP has a commitment to expand its fossil fuel production by at least 3.5% per year, (though this figure is likely to top 5% during 2005-6).

* Fossil fuel-induced climate chaos hit Europe in August 2003, killing tens of thousands of mostly older people in record-breaking temperatures; 150,000 may have died worldwide.

* BP has bankrolled Colombian paramilitary death squads in exchange for the 'protection' of its oilfields, (http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/)

* 'Exposed: BP, its pipeline, and an environmental time-bomb' Independent (26.6.04) on BP's US-inspired and protected Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil & gas pipelines, which will be a human rights disaster & produce over 150m tonnes of CO2 each year for 40 years, causing untold damage to the world's climate; http://www.baku.org.uk/

* BP invests less than 1% of its annual budget in solar & other renewable energy sources, much less than it ploughs into advertising and PR.

* 15 workers were killed and over 100 injured in an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery on March 23rd 2005; 11 BP employees died at work during 2004.

* In 2005, as BP oil-workers see their personal safety, union rights and wages in tatters (http://www.oilc.org/), BP boss Lord "As always, the best is yet to come" Browne's own salary soared to ?5.6m?

Contact the Greenwash Guerrillas via 07708 794665

This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES      www.londonrisingtide.org.uk

See also www.artnotoil.org.uk                     www.remembersarowiwa.com

www.risingtide.org.uk                                        www.carbonweb.org

www.nationalpetroleumgallery.org.uk

PS. This information focuses on BP, but they're all it: there's no such thing as a good oil company. Here's to a post-corporate, fossil fuel-free future!

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