Economic Colonialism: The World’s Dirtiest River

Citarum: Indonesian River Keeps Textile Industry’s Dirty Secrets

RT (2019)

Film Reiview

This documentary concerns the world’s dirtiest river, the Citarum River in Indonesia. Citarum Island, one of the poorest regions in the world, is home to 5,000  factories producing clothing for fast fashion labels such as H&M, Calvin Klein, Uniqlo, Tommy Hilfiger and Marks and Spencer (see The made in Indonesia opportunity). All illegally discharge toxic waste into the river.

In addition to irrigating 4,000 rice fields, the Citarum provides drinking water to 25 million residents. Rice farmers complain of severe skin rashes and ulcers, as well as the virtual collapse of their rice harvest.

After a three year investigation, local activists discovered that Citarum lead levels were three times and polonium* and chromium levels six to seven times higher than limits set by the Indonesian government. Treating waste water, which costs $1,000 per cubic meter, would either force contractors to increase the price they charge Western garment brands or cut into their profits.**

In 2018, activists won a lawsuit against Famatex, one of the largest textile contractors. After ordering the company to stop discharging toxic waste (according to Indonesian law the judge should have shut Famatex down), local authorities used cement to dam up illegal drainage pipes the manufacturer used to discharge toxic waste. Activists later found the company had removed the cement.

Famatex also refused to allow local activists to inspect their toxic waste treatment facilities as ordered by the court.

In 2018, the filmmakers collected Citarum River water samples to be tested by an independent Indonesian lab. The government has forbidden the lab to release the results.

Activists report household sewage and waste is at least 50% responsible for Citarum River contamination – local residents have no access to garbage collection, recycling facilities or sewage collection and treatment. The river is responsible for roughly two-thirds of the 2 million tonnes of plastic waste that ends up in the world’s oceans.

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*Polonium is a highly radioactive element which is deadly in very low concentrations. In commercial applications, polonium is occasionally used to remove static electricity in machinery or dust from photographic film.

**Yet another compelling reason (in addition to its massive carbon footprint) to boycott fast fashion. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0058-9

 

The Assassination of Yassar Arafat

What Killed Arafat?

Al Jazeera (2013)

Film Review

For me, the principal importance of this documentary series is that it exposes whitewashing by the western media of the death of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat.

I vaguely recall the 2012 BBC report on the Palestinian Authority decision to exhume Arafat’s body, based on evidence of polonium poisoning in his personal effects. After watching this two-part documentary, I now realize the western reporting was total disinformation.

Among the most important facts the film brings out:

• The Palestinian Authority, believing from the outset that Arafat had been poisoned, begged the Bush administration to prevail on Israel to provide them an antidote. Years earlier they forced Israel to give them an antidote after bodyguards captured the Mossad agent who poisoned the leader of Hamas.
• It was Al Jazeera itself that undertook, at the behest of his widow, a forensic investigation into Arafat’s death. They approached the Swiss University Center for Legal Medicine, whose scientists discovered high levels of radioactive polonium 210 in his hospital clothing.
• It was the Palestinian Authority, rather than Arafat’s widow as reported in the western media, that refused to agree to an autopsy. This procedure is routine under French law (Arafat died in a Paris hospital) when the cause of death is unknown.
• Arafat didn’t die of a stroke, as reported in western media. He died of Diffuse Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), a condition of whole body clotting triggered by a catastrophic medical condition such as leukemia, cancer, infection, HIV or poisoning.

At the time Arafat developed his mystery illness, he was living under siege in a two room apartment surrounded by ruble in bombed out Ramallah. The Israeli government had leveled the Palestinian Authority complex as part of a regime change exercise undertaken jointly by the Bush administration and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Arafat was in excellent health when he suddenly became violently ill (after a meal) with a mystery illness of four weeks duration. His French doctors tested him for a number of known poisonings. The possibility of polonium poisoning didn’t occur to anyone until it was used to assassinate Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

Part I

Part 2