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Company Response

17 May 2015

Author:
Holcim

Holcim response

...Holcim Lanka has a long history of operation in Sri Lanka and the focus of our CSR engagement has always been to improve the quality of life of our immediate communities, while a few initiatives were implemented – always in collaboration with local partners – at the national level... As part of our CSR engagement, we decided after the end of the conflict, taking into consideration the situation and needs of the country, to participate in the training of people in rehabilitation camps in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country and we estimate that in this context about 2000 people were trained as masons...The fact, that the army used Holcim cement to erect war memorials was completely unknown to us and under no circumstances would have been approved by us, had we known. In the meantime, all signs mentioning Holcim were removed and a rigorous approval and monitoring process was implemented...Since the conclusion of the mason training program, we are specifically targeting the Tamil community and launched a shelter project in 2014 in collaboration with UN Habitat, aiming at training people of the Tamil ethnicity to self-construct their houses and providing them with cement....

Part of the following timelines

Bürgerkrieg Sri Lanka/Schweiz: Nationale Kontaktstelle der OECD beschäftigt sich mit Zementkonzern Holcim wegen mutmaßicher Unterstützung von Internierungslagern der Tamil Tigers

Sri Lanka: Holcim accused of sponsoring military propaganda & rehabilitation camps linked to torture