Thursday 13th November 2003 saw BP Chairman Peter Sutherland and BP CEO John Browne out and about on a full-on charm offensive. Could this have been to counteract the bad publicity the company had been getting over the approval of public funding for the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline? In response, London Rising Tide and its new alter ego the Foundation for the Advancement of Big Oil (or FABO) decided to hijack the slick BP green(wash) machine.
LRT-ers protest outside RCS as BP chair is disrupted within
In the evening, radical oily right think-tank FABO was present at the Royal Albert Hall, where BP boss John Browne was due to address the centenary annual black tie dinner of the Institute of Directors. But first, a report from the lunchtime Sutherland gig:
There was a surprise in store for the Royal Commonwealth Society private members (club) last week when protesters arrived to express their disgust that Peter Sutherland – chairman of BP, ex-WTO boss and all-round neoliberal cheerleader - was to be there that day giving a lecture called 'Access to World Markets: Tackling Poverty, Creating Equity'. Those being things he’d know lots about since his days setting up the WTO.
Recognised as subversives, two people were turned away (having bought tickets in advance), but one cleverly outwitted the club’s receptionist/security and made it into the ‘light lunch’ and lecture. Sutherland was duly castigated during his lecture for his company’s many unethical social and environmental activities, to which he reacted with a smirk and a shuffle but was unable to scramble out of the hole that he was rapidly digging for himself.
Eventually, the agitator was escorted from the room although security seemed a little baffled because they had to physically remove someone who refused to neither shut-up nor leave! Maybe they don't get much of that from their private members!
Outside there were six policemen (needed to combat the four protesters quietly holding a banner and offering leaflets to passers by), although their team eventually dwindled to three and then none; only, of course, after an hour or so of gentle but persistent intimidation with video cameras trained on each protestor for long periods of time. Were they hoping one might suddenly do something illegal that they could catch on film?!
It was discovered afterwards that there were indeed friendlies in the room after chats with a few people who attended the lecture (those willing to talk to us). Sutherland apparently denounced the heckler as one of those that you always get at these things to which one attendee replied, “actually that one person represents a lot of voices”. At the end of the lecture there was an invitation to ask questions at which the issues raised by the ousted dissident were again brought up by attending NGO and other representatives and Sutherland had to do a lot more squirming.
He later scurried away from the scene of the crime via the back entrance, although witnesses say he did encounter large quantities of dog dirt as he made his escape from several 'autograph-hunting fans'.
There was a surprise in store for the Royal Commonwealth Society private members (club) last week when protesters arrived to express their disgust that Peter Sutherland – chairman of BP, ex-WTO boss and all-round neoliberal cheerleader - was to be there that day giving a lecture called 'Access to World Markets: Tackling Poverty, Creating Equity'. Those being things he’d know lots about since his days setting up the WTO.
Recognised as subversives, two people were turned away (having bought tickets in advance), but one cleverly outwitted the club’s receptionist/security and made it into the ‘light lunch’ and lecture. Sutherland was duly castigated during his lecture for his company’s many unethical social and environmental activities, to which he reacted with a smirk and a shuffle but was unable to scramble out of the hole that he was rapidly digging for himself.
Eventually, the agitator was escorted from the room although security seemed a little baffled because they had to physically remove someone who refused to neither shut-up nor leave! Maybe they don't get much of that from their private members!
Outside there were six policemen (needed to combat the four protesters quietly holding a banner and offering leaflets to passers by), although their team eventually dwindled to three and then none; only, of course, after an hour or so of gentle but persistent intimidation with video cameras trained on each protestor for long periods of time. Were they hoping one might suddenly do something illegal that they could catch on film?!
It was discovered afterwards that there were indeed friendlies in the room after chats with a few people who attended the lecture (those willing to talk to us). Sutherland apparently denounced the heckler as one of those that you always get at these things to which one attendee replied, “actually that one person represents a lot of voices”. At the end of the lecture there was an invitation to ask questions at which the issues raised by the ousted dissident were again brought up by attending NGO and other representatives and Sutherland had to do a lot more squirming.
He later scurried away from the scene of the crime via the back entrance, although witnesses say he did encounter large quantities of dog dirt as he made his escape from several 'autograph-hunting fans'.
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