Billionaires Behaving Badly? Panorama

On Panorama tonight: the billionaires to blame for an acid

waterfall. I promise you, standing here, it stinks to high heaven.

This whole place stinks of acid. The company responsible is one of

the biggest on the London Stock Exchange. So why didn't Glencore

fix this? Would you like to wash your hands with your Glencore

water? I know what the water is. I have seen it. I have been to that

river. Glencore's worth billions but did it try to profit from

This land is covered with blood. boasts it's an ethical business.

But has Glencore made money from children working deep under ground?

Young man how old are you? I am ten. I just wonder how the people who

are now pocketing the huge bonuses, how they can possibly sleep easily

In the wake of the financial crisis, big business is being challenged as

Protesters have been demanding a fairer form of capitalism. And the

prime minister is backing calls for change. I want these times to lead

to a socially responsible and genuinely popular capitalism, one

in which the power of the market and the obligations of

So is the City really mending its ways? I've been tracking one of our

richest multinationals. It affects all of our lives, but it's hardly a

household name. Has anyone here heard of Glencore? I haven't no.

Have you heard of this company? Have you heard of Glencore? Is it a

whiskey? No, it's not a whiskey. You may not have heard of it either,

but Glencore is one of the most powerful conglomerates on the

planet. In our country Glencore trades mainly with wheat, corn and

such stuff. It's a commodities giant that trades the raw materials

we all take for granted. You might not realise it, but we all use the

stuff Glencore makes its billions from every day. From the cotton in

my shirt, to the fancy metals in my phone, to the really important

stuff like barley and wheat. That's a sandwich and a pint to you and me.

Cheers. Glencore is massive. It trades a tenth of the wheat that

comes on to the world market, a quarter of the barley and half of

the copper. Commodities like these all have one thing in common - the

prices have gone up. For people in the UK obviously higher prices have

an impact on people's quality of life. But for people in developing

countries, that impact is much more stark, much more harshly felt, so

the World Bank has estimated that 44 million people have fallen into

extreme poverty simply due to those Rising prices may be hurting

ordinary families. But thanks to the commodity boom, some people are

doing very well. When Glencore floated on the London Stock

Exchange last year, it was valued at �36 billion. That's six times

the value of Marks and Sparks. It was London's biggest ever float.

Glencore was owned by its partners, so when the company listed on the

London Stock Exchange, 480 of them became multi-millionaires. The top

five partners went one better - they became billionaires. For such

a handful of people to become so rich so quickly, certainly in

market terms, was unprecedented. Other large-scale flotations in

London have seen enormous numbers of shareholders gain or sometimes

lose, of course, but never such a concentration of wealth in so few

hands. Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg was the biggest winner.

His stake in the company is now worth a whopping �4 billion. So

where does the money come from? Glencore was founded by an American,

Marc Rich in 1974. Accused of illegal oil deals, cheating tax and

racketeering, he fled to Marc Rich got a pardon and has now

gone, but Glencore's still here in Zug, enjoying the tax breaks.

Glencore says it "places the highest priority on the environment

and the local communities where it operates." Fine words. But I want

to find out if they are true. I'm off to see the �4 billion man. Ivan

Glasenberg has never given a TV interview before, but he's agreed

to see me. We care about the environment. We care about the

people. We care about these issues in the environment in which we

operate JS: And the local communities in which you operate?

Do you care about them? Very much. We care about the local

communities,we care the people who work at our operations and we care

about the people around our operations in which we operate.

a nutshell Glencore equals corporate responsibility? Is that

right? Oh, yes. I want to test that claim on the ground. Glencore

employs 60,000 people at sites all over the world. We're off to

Colombia, where the company makes a bob or two out of coal. In fact

coal boss Tor Peterson is now Colombia is only just emerging from

civil war. Hundreds of thousands died. For years, brutal

paramilitaries controlled much of Cesar province. People say it was

impossible to do business here unless you paid them off. I have

come to a prison in Valledupar to meet a hitman. He has been

sentenced to 72 years for organising the killing of 200

people. Samario has also given evidence about the way big mining

companies financed the TRANSLATION: It was impossible for

a multinational company to be in this region without having a

relationship with the paramilitaries. Impossible. We

ruled that area. We practically owned the place. And everything

that went on there, happened with our permission. All the

multinationals and other companies that were in the area paid us. They

financed us. We have been told it was impossible to operate in that

part of Colombia where your coal mine is without paying the

paramilitaries? Absolutely incorrect. We have never dealt,

never paid, never met the paramilitaries in all our years in

Colombia. One thing is clear. This was a tough place to do business.

This is Calenturitas - a vast, open-cast coal mine. Glencore's

subsidiary Prodeco owns it. But there's a serious dispute about the

land next door. We wanted to talk to the previous owners of the land,

but we can't, because they are dead. This land, called El Prado, used to

be home to 48 farming families. Word got out they were living on

top of a coal field. And then one morning, in 2002, the men with guns

arrived. TRANSLATION: It was Sunday and we

all were at home, when a group of 10 people arrived. They took my

brothers, my father and a friend of the family, tied them up, beat them,

and took them away. We haven't heard anything about them since

that day. Margot's husband and three sons were murdered.

TRANSLATION: I locked myself inside the house, I was screaming. I felt

like somebody was trying to get in. I've been left traumatised. Two of

morguo's family were killed by Samario.

TRANSLATION: There was a boy who was 16 or 17 years old I think. I

killed them with a .357 calibre revolver with mercy shots to the

head. At least ten people were murdered

by Samario's gang at El Prado. The survivors fled, saying their land

was taken over by henchmen, relatives and associates of the

killers. What happened later is disputed. People here told us that

Glencore eventually bought the land off the henchmen.

TRANSLATION: The first 48 families were replaced by other families

that were connected to the paramilitaries. And that's how

Glencore bought the land from the second owners, not from the first

ones, because they'd already been displaced and many were

assassinated. When we first put this to Glencore

it was flatly denied. Have you heard of the El Prado massacre?

I've heard about the massacre. people were killed, at least ten

were killed, and Glencore has ended up owning their land. Totally

incorrect. Glencore does not own the El Prado land, has never

intended to own the land. Glencore was telling us that it had never

intended to buy El Prado. But what about these documents from 2008?

They show that Glencore's subsidiary agreed to pay the new

occupiers of the land $1.8 million. Locals say the henchmen got the

cash. So what's going on? The Colombain courts have investigated

the paramilitary murders. This is a court judgment against two men

accused in what the locals say is the El Prado massacre. It's not

good news for Glencore. Paramilitaries told the court they

stole the land so they could later: "sell it to the firm Prodeco, who

would begin an open-cast coal mining operation." The court

concluded that coal was the motive TRANSLATION: We have evidence, with

proof, by law, formally atested by a Colombain judge that this land is

covered with blood. The blood of the peasants who were forced off

the land, humiliated, tortured and assassinated.

There is a court judgment which concluded that the motive for the

massacre was to take the land so that it could be sold to Glencore.

Was the court wrong? The court is wrong, if that's what the court

ruling was, I can assure you Glencore doesn't own the land.

There's no coal underneath that land or if there is, it's very deep,

not minable and therefore we would have no intention to own the land

and have no reason to own the land. Last week Glencore admitted it had

agreed to buy the land, after all. The company says it was asked to by

the government as part of a resettlement project. It says the

deal fell through and it has no mining rights at El Prado. But

Glencore now admits it paid $1.8 million to people that locals

insist were henchmen of the killers. Meanwhile, the search for bodies

continues. Margot's husband and sons are in a mass grave, but no-

So much for corporate responsibility in Colombia. We're

heading to Africa, to look at Glencore's copper business. It's

run by Daniel Mate Badenes and Aristotelis Mistakidis. Following

the Glencore float, they are worth Glencore prides itself on working

in countries where other companies And there are few places harder to

do business than the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's still

suffering from a war that's left five million dead. This is the wild

Welcome to Kolwezi in the heart of the copper belt. And almost

everybody here works for king There's a huge copper industry here,

for big multinationals and locals too. But there's little effective

regulation. Corruption is I travel down the road to the

village of Luilu. Glencore owns a It burns the rock with sulphuric

acid to get at the copper. The But the company's been pumping it

straight into the local river. This You can see the pollution. You can

see how bad it looks, but you can't smell it. And I promise you,

standing here, it stinks to high heaven. This whole place stinks of

This filth has been pouring into the river 24 hours a day, seven

There's nothing here, there are no fish. Fish don't survive the acid

conditions here. That man there, that Mr Glencore, he lacks any

respect for people, no-one would do that to another human being. It's

Upstream, the water is clear and green. Downstream, brown sludge.

Now the old Sweeney nose is not exactly a scientific instrument, so

I am going to do a simple test. You really don't want to fall into this.

But there's only one way of testing the water. Getting your hands a

little bit dirty. I did O-level chemistry all those years ago in

the '70s. To test for acid, we use litmus paper. If it's acid, it

Pink. That means there's acid in Glencore points out that the

pollution here started long before the company took over the Luilu

refinery. But they've been running If you dumped acid into a river in

Switzerland or the River Thames in England, you would be in trouble

within a minute? 100% correct, that is true. So why did you do that?

Because it was impossible to remedy anyway faster. It was very

important for the government to ensure we maintained employment of

these 6,500 people. So we had to fix this problem at the Luilu

refinery while we kept the employment and the refinery running.

Here's some water I took. Would you like to wash your hands with it,

sir? Not realI can see what it is. I can see it. Yes. Would you like

to wash your hands with your Glencore water? I know what the

water is. I have seen it. I have been to that river. That is what

people have dumped into the river for 50 years. Not correct. Terrible.

That's why Glencore has spent vast amounts of money to get rid of this

problem, to ensure clean water in two weeks' time will be discharged

into that river. Glencore now says they've stopped the acid pollution,

but so far have made no commitment to compensate the villagers. But

that's not the only complaint They're accused of profiting from

freelance miners working in This is Tilwezembe. Glencore owns a

mining concession here. They closed it four years ago and it's been

dormant since. And this is as far as we can go. Up there is a barrier.

The first of three. And beyond that, Tilwezembe mine. The whole place is

We sent a local researcher to the There are hundreds of miners

working on the site. Each of these Glencore says the site was invaded

by these miners two years ago and that it has repeatedly asked the

Some of the mine shafts are 150 feet deep. There's no safety

How many miners died here last Some of the survivors have agreed

to talk to us openly about the accidents, but they don't want to

We had already started working and at that time the rocks started to

fall. Some bigger and some smaller ones, and then one fell on my leg

here. And my friend, a rock hit him It's against international law for

anyone under 18 to work on a mine. But these teenagers all started

work at Tilwezembe much younger. This miner is 16 and he's been

working there for almost two years. We are suffering because my father

passed away, then I became unable to go on with my education and so I

went there. My life has become Our secret filming shows there are

other teenagers working illegally Then one of the children tells us

This ten-year-old boy appears to be working on a mining concession that

is still owned by the billionaires of Glencore. I am absolutely

appalled and sickened. I cannot believe how a multinational company

that's been allowed to list publically on the London Stock

Exchange can possibly justify having children present and working

on their site at Tilwezembe. And I just wonder how these people who

are now pocketing the huge bonuses, how they can possibly sleep easily

at night. The company insists it is not responsible because the mine

has been illegally taken over by freelance artisanal miners. They

raided the land in 2010 and artisanal miners today are on our

concession. Against all of our authorisation. And we are pleading

with the goverment to assist us to remove the artisanal miners from

our concession. Does Glencore take any copper from Tilwezembe?

Absolutely no copper, no cobalt from any of the miners on the T

concession. None? None. Sure? much as our controls put in place,

sitting here I have to say I am certain that our mines, the

instructions at the mines, none of our mines, none of our operations

take any material from artisanal miners. Glencore says all the

copper it buys is sealed and tagged at its mines to ensure none comes

from artisanal miners like these. The copper at Tilwezembe is stored

in bags marked GB. That stands for Groupe Bazano, a local company that

is one of Glencore's main partners The only way to find out who is

profiting from the child labour is to follow one of these lorries as

they leave the mine to see where it This isn't going to be comfortable

motoring. There's just one dirt road out of here and it's been

trashed by the heavy lorries. At The thunderstorm causes chaos and

It's late the next day when it finally reaches the town of Likasi.

We follow the lorry to a processing plant owned by Groupe Bazano -

Glencore's partner in the Congo. So the lorry from the mine that uses

child labour has finally arrived at its destination here in Likasi. We

have been tracking it for 27 hours. Groupe Bazano says it doesn't

profit from child labour and that it has nothing to do with

Tilwezembe. It says the GB bags at the mine must have been bought

second hand. Did you know that low grade copper from Tilwezembe is

taken to the Groupe Bazano plant? have no idea what the Bazano plant

does. What? I don't know what the Bazano plant does. Sorry? Bazano...

Yes? Bazano is not a part of Glencore. It's your major partner

in the Congo? No, no. He is a partner in one operation which we

have in the Congo. You take copper from Groupe Bazano? No, we don't

buy copper from Groupe Bazano. you taken copper in the past from

Groupe Bazano? No, we don't buy material from Groupe Bazano.

you sure? Yes. Groupe Bazano also denies sending the copper on to

Glencore. But we have obtained documents that suggest this isn't

true. They show Groupe Bazano sent some of the child labour copper to

a Glencore smelter. It's called Mopani. So Glencore not only owns

the mining concession where the children work, Our evidence

suggests it also gets some of the copper. The billionaires seem to be

profiting from child labour. Tilwezembe material is arriving at

Mopani, we are profiting from child labour, but I am, with the systems

in place, I am very sure, unless people can prove otherwise, how any

materials other than our own material can be arriving at Mopani.

If Tilwezembe material is arriving at Mopani, I have no idea how it

In this part of the world, locals are wary of politicians' promises.

Corporate social responsibility and environmental responsibility have

been constant themes in the arguments I've made and the

policies we've developed. Noble words. But does anyone really have

any traction on multinationals richer than many countries? If you

look at a market like copper where Glencore's control 50%, that's an

enormous control to have. It certainly raises a serious risk

that were that company to behave unethically, it would have the

power to really exploit that position almost certainly to the

detriment of some of the poorest Back in the UK, Glencore is about

to become even more powerful. It's announced plans for a merger with

Xstrata, another mining giant listed on the London Stock Exchange.