Day 002 - 30 Jun 94 - Page 51
1 tried to introduce this so-called common purpose within
London Greenpeace for a start, which I will come on to in
2 a minute, but also by implication that somehow we have
agents and servants all over the world who we phone up and
3 say: "Give out some leaflet or print out our leaflet but
with your own address on it" or something. People are all
4 voluntary independent agents. It is up to them what they
do; they take responsibility for it.
5
The purpose of the campaign is education for the public
6 and improvements in society. London Greenpeace itself
which has been disparaged by Mr. Rampton in pretrial
7 hearings and also in the trial, no doubt it will come up,
is the original Greenpeace in the country founded in 1971,
8 and mainly at that time against nuclear power and nuclear
testing and broadened out into all areas of environmental
9 concern.
10 It is not a centralised or formal group; the plaintiffs
are aware of that. It is a loose collective. Decisions
11 are made by consensus and they are not binding on
individuals. There may be all kinds of differences of
12 opinion within that. Basically. Mr. Rampton and
McDonald's have to prove that Helen and I handed out that
13 fact sheet in the material time which is the winter of
1989/1990, if they are going to prove publication. That
14 will, no doubt, come up in the evidence, the details of
that.
15
London Greenpeace was described by Mr. Rampton, despite
16 him reading out the leaflet, although on principle it was
quite illuminating, but he described them as a group that
17 sought to disorganise society, or something like that,
which of course is an age old myth against people that may
18 have sympathy with anarchism is they do not believe in
organisation. In fact, the opposite is true. They
19 believe in a society organised by people themselves rather
than organised for them by governments and
20 multi-nationals. That is really the difference in
McDonald's Corporation and in this case, the London
21 Greenpeace, and other critics, which is that they want to
see a differently organised society, a decentralised one
22 and co-operatively run without exploitation and
oppression. If he wants to label that anarchism, so be
23 it.
24 Speaking personally, as I have already indicated, at the
material time of the alleged libel I was virtually
25 house-bound most of that time. I did manage to get out a
few times and do a few bits and pieces, but I was in no
26 way a core member of London Greenpeace, let alone the
anti-McDonald's campaign, which that will come up in
27 evidence no doubt.
28 I feel a bit under pressure here to finish off as quickly
as possible. I have not that much more to do. My
29 personal background is that I have been concerned about
the environment all my life, but I was specifically very
30 concerned about the workers' rights side of this whole
case because of my activities as a Trade Union branch
