Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

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

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech