Day 278 - 11 Jul 96 - Page 04
1 on with the rainforest, otherwise I will forget. You say
2 about investments, do you suggest you read anywhere about
3 "vast tracts of land sold to McDonald's by dollar hungry
4 rulers"?
5 A. I have actually read somewhere, and I cannot remember
6 where it is now, about McDonald's being one of the largest
7 land property owners around and I cannot remember where it
8 is now. And also I was aware that they, in common with
9 most multinational companies that operate in Third World
10 countries or in the poorer nations, that they had an
11 interest or investment in land which should otherwise be
12 used by the people who lived in those countries.
13
14 Q. But you cannot remember where it is that you have seen, if
15 you have seen, any reference to vast tracts of land in poor
16 countries sold to them by dollar hungry rulers?
17 A. I can't remember exactly where. I mean, without time
18 to go through everything in the documents, no, I can't
19 remember where. But I have read it somewhere about
20 McDonald's being a large landowner and about them having,
21 obviously, investments in, you know, in the food industry
22 in the cattle that are reared on the land, and so on. I
23 cannot remember the phrase, but I think I have actually
24 seen it in one of McDonald's own publications boasting
25 about how much property and, really, there was real estate,
26 something about them owning lots of real estate and--
27
28 Q. Whether that is so or not, I mean, you have given your
29 answer but it is the "vast tracts of land in poor countries
30 sold to them by dollar hungry rulers, often military". You
31 see, it might be thought that is a rather emotive statement
32 which would have a lot of impact on people, and that is why
33 I specifically asked you if you can remember where you have
34 read about anything like that?
35 A. Well, it is a common thing in political literature to
36 read about governments in Third World countries and the
37 privileged elites kicking the original inhabitants off the
38 land and selling it on to multinational companies. Whether
39 specifically McDonald's was named in what I had read, I
40 could not say. But all I am saying is that this did not
41 come as a surprise to me. If somebody writes a leaflet on
42 behalf of a group, I trust them to check up what they are
43 writing. And I had seen something about, like I was
44 saying, about McDonald's owning lots of real estate and
45 that, really, there was something about that in actual fact
46 they made more money from the real estate than they did
47 from the burgers and, I mean, this was early on in their
48 history. And so it was not like, you know, that is
49 contradicted by anything I personally know about
50 McDonald's.
51
52 MR. RAMPTON: Where did you read, Miss Steel, that McDonald's
53 were using lethal poisons to destroy vast areas of central
54 American rainforest to create grazing pastures for cattle
55 to be sent back to the States as burgers and to provide
56 fast food packaging materials; where you read that?
57 A. I have seen lots of programmes, books, reports and so
58 on, about the destruction of rainforest sometimes using
59 lethal poisons and that McDonald's had an involvement in
60 that.
