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Big Game, Small Fry, Zimbabwean elephants and suing IMC Antwerp.

ipsiphi .:. | 03.05.2008 22:01 | Animal Liberation | Anti-racism | Indymedia

At first the writ served on behalf of Flemish businessman Geert Vroman & his company SPRL/BVBA Vroman seems to be yet another example of hyperbole and pique. A local businessman accuses a non-heirarchial volunteer collective engaged in progressive media and open publishing of invasion of privacy and demands damage compensation at 10,000 euro (7,820stg) for every hour an article has been on the newswire by serving a writ on a member of the team, Emmanuel Paulus. The article in question is merely a translation from English material available elsewhere on the internet supporting a petition against big game hunting which Vroman was revealed to organise thanks to a Flemish TV and Radio corporation program broadcast on March 9th, 2008. You don't need to be familiar with the European sector peers of the English "Carter Rucks" firm to spot the spoor of a big bully. But tracking the background might lead you to suspect an additional agenda of "West Vlandaaren" extreme nationalism in silencing an indymedia collective whose coverage of Vorman's Big game parties in Zimbabwe (complete with bagged elephants apparently) fell short of details published in the commercial Flemish press.

not exactly John from the telly series "Lost" but wants to mean biz all the same
not exactly John from the telly series "Lost" but wants to mean biz all the same

they killed Bambi. (Bambi is a registered trademark of Walt Disney Corp)
they killed Bambi. (Bambi is a registered trademark of Walt Disney Corp)


Or more pithily put, that's where I'd suggest you exercise your data-hunting skills first should your predatory instincts be whetted after reading this article.

Mr Vorman is quite a capitalist dude on the Flemish speaking scene in Belgium. In addition to sweating away at the daily toil and drudge his companies who have issued the writ demand for him, he was asked to act as chairperson of the "General Management Committee" of the Flemish private bank "Bank De Maertelaere" upon its takeover by the French Société Générale Group at a cost of 78.3 million euros (or 57.71 million sterling at today's value) in 2001. That would naturally have included the magic powers we attribute to "stock share options". You might recognise the French Société Générale as being the company whose broker Jerome Kerviel inspired t-shirts earlier this year amidst reports that he might prove a useful scapegoat for insider trading skullduggery to the sum of many billions of euros. (or many billions in sterling at today's value). Armed with that factoid, & appreciative of how aforementioned skullduggery did devalue stock and share options somewhat (a net drop of 46.2% in the last year) you might think Mr Vorman is now just looking for a quick buck.

But no. He was looking for a slow elephant.

& many Flemish people saw him looking for that elephant on this TV program
 http://www.vtm.be/telefacts/index.php?id=945

no matter how you feel about putting a cap in an Elephants skull & ripping bambi like gazelle's horns from their scalps to adorn your living room walls, I'm pretty sure you're sending warm psychic vibes and messages of solidarity to Antwerp IMC & their contributor Emmanuel Paulus in their little struggle to keep their fledgling indymedia online, reporting well, getting up the establishment's noses rather than moderating themselves into a parody & wondering how they would pay the accrued 7 million Euros if this case is found against them.

& all for invading privacy, not the flattering telly type publicity where he smiles with bambi & struts ahead of his jeep, but rather for bringing our sort of peoples' attention to him. (our sort of people being us the dirty lower orders, well my good self at least - first step in the class war is to know which class you are). I suppose we mostly agree that being ordered to pay 7 million euros in damages or 7,000 quid an hour is as ridiculous as 1 million euros or a thousand quid an hour. if you don't have it or earn that sort of hourly wage. Consult your financial adviser if you're unsure.

So - as I suggested in the introduction we ought help our friends in Antwerp by profitly focussing each forthcoming hour of alledged invasion of privacy valued at 10,000euros on examining any West Vlaanderen far right & ultra nationalist connections to all the happy individuals who went on Mr Vroman's Big Game hunt in Zimbabwe.

It won't be too difficult. Tall people with pale skin speaking a language which seems a dialect of Afrikaans carrying powerful guns are easy to spot in Zimbabwe and very memorable even if they are ostensibly engaged in helping the Zimbabwean state (a popular one indeed) to control their elephant population. (They've been breeding like rabbits but are very edible). As this quotation from Zim news of January 2008 might clarify -

"........A worldwide ban in ivory trade has been in force since 1990, to help protect Africa's ravaged herds from poaching. The ban did not extend to killing elephants for meat, however, and this has allowed the Zimbabwean authorities to gradually increase the shooting of elephants without attracting international censure. Zimbabwe was, until recently, home to one of the world's largest elephant populations of close to 100,000 animals. Numbers have plummeted ever since the chaotic land reform program, which began in the late 1990s, and resulted in thousands of commercial farmers, as well as game ranchers, being evicted from their land. "If we keep on like this, within the next five years we won't have any animals left," said Johnny Rodrigues, the chairman for Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, an NGO based in the capital of Harare. "I've heard the plan is to process up to 6000 elephants for biltong. They are not going to stop at 500 animals." Mr Rodrigues said that in Zimbabwe elephants were being killed in large numbers to provide bush meat, ivory, and even to supply food for a government-owned crocodile ranch. Mr Rodrigues said that shooting elephants under the guise of harvesting bush meat or biltong or, frequently, of declaring an animal rogue, had become common and has served as a cover for the gathering of ivory........."  http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=18086


The English language coverage from Antwerp IMC.
 http://antwerpen.indymedia.org/news/2008/05/15263.php

ipsiphi .:.

Additions

another picture.

03.05.2008 22:37

Here he is with a dead elephant. It may have become food for the croc farm.
Here he is with a dead elephant. It may have become food for the croc farm.

If photos of dead elephants or big game hunters offend you don't look at it. No animals or indymedia collectives were harmed in the writing of this article. There will be follow up information.

-


Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Geert Vroman & his company SPRL/BVBA

03.05.2008 23:33

Any addresses ?

Brilliant article btw.

Nacho Novo


Duplication

04.05.2008 00:13

Thank you for the link to the article on Antwerp indymedia, but if you had been paying attention you would have noticed that the article has already been posted here on ukimc
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/398095.html

and we understood it, despite the autotranslation.

Bambi


additional information on Vroman & the political agenda in Antwerp

04.05.2008 17:33

First I must apologise to Bambi for thinking to expand on the news article from Antewrper IMC which was moderated off of various other IMC sites for "crossposting" and most sincerely apologise for any hurt my inclusion of the photo of Geert the hunter and the Gazelle like critter or dead elephant might have caused. But with time, you'll get over it. Good elephants go to heaven.

Geert Vroman's principle business interest in engaged in subcontracting, metal, and metal cutting work.

Rue de la Royenne 62
7700 Mouscron / Moeskroen
Belgium
Phone : ‎+32 56 34 78 68
Fax : ‎+32 56 34 47 92
Number of employees (total in the company) From 11 to 20
Turnover 2 to 5 million EUR
Date established 1984
Legal Form Sprl
VAT number: BE 426731209

If you go this link you can pretend you've a spy satellite enjoy the "Google Earth" picture of his factory.  http://www.fbg.be/seek.php?action=feedback&idnr=83584

That metal cutting description covers a range of activities from welding to to preparing sitex doors. So best way of clarifying what they do, would be to visit their website & see what they say. They work in copper, aliminium and do laser cutting work. http://www.vromantolerie.be/vroman_fr.html Normally that comes under "precision engineering" so we might just begin to suspect a "Smershish" distraction there and suspect their photos of harmless looking forklifts, ventilation shafts and overalled henchmen.  http://www.vromantolerie.be/vroman_fr.html But I being a bit beyond that kind of thing would now suggest looking at Mr Vroman's other social activities (his family are into traditional folkloristic stuff), whilst awaiting someone who can go further than machine translation of Flemish commercial news articles, to further explain the "political agenda" of closing IMC Antwerp. For in truth whilst IMC Antwerp proudly proclaim anyone be they he or she can open publish on their site in their version of this story, they haven't had much to say on the background of the contributor at the eye of this storm. Remember how I quipped about the dirty lower orders in the article?

Well Mr Paulus the brave Antwerp IMC article writer is the second cousin of Camille Paulus, (born April 24, 1943 in Aartselaar, Belgium) a Belgian lawyer and liberal politician, who holding a doctorate in Law is well qualified as Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and being a liberal politician is mayor of Aartselaar, President of the Liberaal Vlaams Verbond (1982-1993), and.........(this is the height of his achievement) the Governor of Antwerp.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Paulus
 http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?articleid=CS1R5FEQ

I don't know whether you think second cousins are very close in the kinship thing. Consult your personal geneologist. I rather rate them on the same degree as a Bambi has to a Gazelle. But I do think I'm getting somewhere with the West Vlaanderen political angle. Before this story loses interest, I think Zimbabwe merits more attention.

There will be more follow up information.

ipsiphi .:.


Identifying the true victim : back to Zimbabwean Elephants & their sympathisers.

04.05.2008 19:36

Almost close to the end of this tale, we ought see that the true victim in this story is not the "bambi" contributor to Antwerp IMC, nor the big game hunter, but Inge Boey an animal rights activist and small business enterprise holder in the animal shelter sector.

It was her petition that E. Paulus translated after it was reported in the Flemish daily "Gazet van Antwerpen". It is she who is being sued for 25,000eur (= 19,550 stg) by Vroman for defamation which might endanger his family. She did not publicise the ridiculous claim which will accrue to 7,000,000 by the verdict date this May 6th on the forum of "Het Niewsbald" as E. Paulus did the day before that same newspaper published the story. She had not been quoted by that newspaper on the "law and order" front complaining about "mindless vandalism" against local facilities for traditional folkloristic acitivities as G. Vroman had two months before.

All she did was air passionately her objections to the slaughter of elephants in Zimbabwe and to illustrate her online petition by including a still taken from the original Flemish TV report of ivory tusks removed from a dead elephant. It was she who called on people of like opinion to phone G. Vroman "and make his life hell".

the petition she started is still online :-
 http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=nl_fr&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepetitionsite.com%2Fpetition%2F384901508

.:. here endeth the lesson :: pass the plate .:.
= we shall see how much damages if any are awarded against whom on the 6th of May.

.:. ipsiphi