The company which hardly ever responds to concerns over their imports of conflict phosphates from occupied Western Sahara has now started talking.
The New Zealand fertiliser producer Ballance Agri-Nutrients has admitted to media in the country that the cargo which has been detained in South Africa this week is for them.
CEO Mark Wynne told Radio NZ on 4 May that the single shipment constituted a quarter of its annual imports for the year. He said his gut feeling is that the issue of the detained vessel will not be resolved immediately, but that it might take a number of weeks.
WSRW contacted Ballance Agri-Nutrients in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and never received answer to our questions from the company.
In 2015, as New Zealand TV did a piece on the imports, Ballance refused to comment. Instead, shortly after the New Zealand media coverage, Ballance posted an update to its shareholders.
In it, the company stated that it had "received advice that OCP’s operations in Western Sahara meet the requirements of international law, in particular the relevant Resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations that the trade in resources is done in a manner consistent with the needs, interests and wishes of the local people."
The statement is peculiar:
In Ballance's annual report from 2007, the company states to be "extremely proud" of the relationship with OCP. Institutional shareholders, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds from all over the world have blacklisted OCP and other importers for not respecting basic international law.
"Morocco is our largest supplier", Mr Wynne told Radio NZ today. It is not clear to WSRW whether this is correct. From what WSRW understands, Ballance does not get any phosphates from Morocco itself Mr. Wynne also states "it is possible" to get the phosphates from somewhere else, under certain preconditions.
Mr. Wynne is referred to by Stuff.nz as having stated that it had imported more than 100 shipments "without a problem".
"If it has only communicated only with the occupying power, of course Ballance sees no problem. Through decades of imports, Ballance has been one of the biggest funders in the world of the Moroccan illegal occupation of the territory. Leading opposition to the trade are serving life-time in jail, while the owners are malourished from not receiving enough humanitarian aid. Is that not a problem? Why does Ballance refuse to talk with the owners of the phosphates?", stated Erik Hagen of Western Sahara Resource Watch.
As EU ambassadors give their green light to a new Morocco trade deal, the public is still denied access to the very agreement they are voting on - a striking case of secrecy in Brussels.
A wave of reactions is rippling across Europe following the news that the EU is moving ahead with a new trade agreement in occupied Western Sahara. The vote is scheduled for tomorrow.
WSRW can today reveal a leaked EU document showing plans to continue trading with products from occupied Western Sahara, in direct violation of earlier rulings by the EU Court of Justice. A vote will take place this Wednesday.
Water pouring out of Moroccan faucets is soon powered by energy stolen from occupied Western Sahara.