WASHINGTON, Mar 13 (OneWorld.net) - Some of the world's biggest banks are doing business with corrupt regimes, facilitating state looting and human rights abuses and keeping the world's poorest poor, according to a new report.
* "The same lax regulation that created the credit crunch has let some of the world's biggest banks facilitate the looting of natural resource wealth from poor countries," said Gavin Hayman of the British human rights group Global Witness, which published the report, "Undue Diligence," Wednesday.
* "Undue Diligence" names Citibank, Barclays, and HSBC among the major banks that have done business with corrupt regimes. "By accepting these customers, banks are assisting those who are using state assets to enrich themselves or brutalize their own people. This corruption denies the world's poorest people the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and leaves them dependent on aid," the rights group noted, offering a series of suggestions for governments, regulators, and banks to begin tackling the problem.
* The U.S. bank Riggs folded in 2004 after it was discovered that it had dealings with the rulers of Equatorial Guinea that breached U.S. money laundering laws. Since 1979, Equatorial Guinea has been ruled by President Teodoro Obiang, a dictator who has "systematically plundered, robbed, and assassinated to inconceivable extremes, amassing a fortune that makes him one of the world's richest men in one of Africa's poorest countries," notes author Fernando Gamboa in the African newsletter Pambazuka News, describing the massive corruption he discoverd when researching a novel set in the country. According to Global Witness' report, however, the son of the dictator was still doing business with Barclays in Paris as of 2007.
~ more... ~
No comments:
Post a Comment