Dossier - Ethecon

ethecon Foundation Ethics & Economics
Fundación Ética & Economía Stiftung Ethik & Ökonomie
International ethecon Black Planet Award 2012
for Ivan Glasenberg, Simon Murray and Tony Hayward
as well as the major shareholders of the
commodity trading company GLENCORE (Switzerland)
do with the fact that I – quite different from Monsieur Chirac – see the underlying problem in the system
of the economy and not in the persons.
Ivan Glasenberg was born in Johannesburg in 1958 and grew up there where – still in the apartheid
days – he was discovered and supported by Marc Rich who employed him in the coal trade. His job was
to find foreign buyers for South African coal which was not an easy job in the face of the UN embargo.
Glasenberg worked to the full satisfaction of Marc Rich and the racist regime.
In Wikipedia, the following statement about Glasenberg can be found which is literally incorrect,
though its content is correct: “Since 1984 he has been working for the GLENCORE company of which he
is the CEO since 2002.” The company is called GLENCORE only since 1994, but there is a continuity to
the old MARC RICH. 40
There are few name changes or “rebrandings” in corporate history with such an impact on the
media and with such a success as the one from MARC RICH to GLENCORE. In conjunction with big
Swiss banks the MARK RICH Company belonged to the most important breakers of the boycott against
the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Their contribution was crucial to prolonging the existence of the
illegitimate state. Glasenberg’s current actions and statements are easier to understand when the
circumstances of his “socialisation” as a trader in South Africa are taken into account.
Apart from the big Swiss banks, MARC RICH was one of the most important boycott breakers in
favour of the apartheid regime. That is how they prolonged the life of that state of injustice. There is a
better understanding of Glasenberg’s current actions and statements with a knowledge about the
conditions of his “socialisation” as a trader.
Let us now turn to Simon Murray the enigmatic Chairman of the Board of Directors! The 72 year old
Briton faught in the foreign legion for the French colonial regime against the Algerian liberation
movement in the early sixties. Ideologically, Murray has not changed much ever since. In his first
interview as GLENCORE President he ranted and raved in the “Sunday Telegraph” against Africans “who
sneak in and seek asylum and then we no longer get rid of them.” These are the words of a former
colonial warrior who faught against Africans on African soil and who enriches himself until the present
day from African commodities taken from the African earth by underpaid Africans. What Murray had to
say about women is that they lack the ambition to perform in a company as well as men. And indeed
there is not a single woman among the GLENCORE top management.
I can be very brief as far as Tony Hayward is concerned because he already won the Black Planet
Award two years ago and because yesterday the ignoble role he played during and after the oil spillage
in the Gulf of Mexico was brought back to our minds. In those days Spiegel online wrote the following
40 For further information on Marc Rich, his company and the rebranding see p. 11 et seqq. of this dossier.
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