BIANCA JAGGER
Bianca Jagger was born in 1950 in Nicaragua, where she experienced the harsh
US-backed military rule of the Somoza family, which ruled Nicaragua for almost
half a Century until 1979. At the age of 16 she won a scholarship to study at
the Paris Institute of Political Studies. She was married to Mick Jagger from
1971-79.
During her childhood and adolescence she witnessed first hand the terror of
Somoza's National Guard, and when she returned to the capital Managua as a young
woman in 1972 to search for her parents after the disastrous earthquake that
left 10,000 dead - she witnessed the Somoza regime profiting from the tragedy of
the victims, ruthlessly pocketing millions of dollars Nicaraguans were meant to
receive from humanitarian aid. Ms Jagger’s early experiences had a profound
effect on her life and inspired her to campaign for human rights, social and
economic justice throughout the world. Over the years she has received
international attention as both a passionate and effective campaigner.
In 1981, she was part of a US congressional fact-finding mission visiting a UN
refugee camp in Honduras, when an armed death squad from El Salvador crossed the
border, entered the camp and abducted 40 refugees, and proceeded to march them
towards El Salvador. Bianca Jagger and fellow members of the delegation gave
chase along a dry riverbank, armed only with cameras. The abductors pointed
their guns at them, but were told, "You would have to kill us all or we will
denounce your crime to the world.” There was a long silence and without
explanation, the death squads released their captives and disappeared.
In the 1990s Ms Jagger evacuated 22 children from the worst war zones in Bosnia.
Mohamed Ribic, a boy 8 years old, lived with her in New York for a year after a
successful heart operation, before returning to his parents. In 1993, Ms. Jagger
went to the former Yugoslavia to document the mass rape of Bosnian women by
Serbian forces as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. For many years she
campaigned to stop the genocide in Bosnia and make the perpetrators accountable
before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Her
reports on the war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo contributed to the
international community decision, to intervene and stop the genocide. She has
been on many fact-finding missions, which have taken her to Nicaragua,
Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, to remote rainforests in Brazil and Ecuador,
to Bosnia, Kosovo, Zambia, Afghanistan, Iraq, India and Pakistan.
In the 1990s she also spoke out on behalf of indigenous populations rights in
Latin America, and to save the tropical rainforests where they live, campaigning
on behalf of the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua against the government's granting
of a logging concession to a Taiwanese company which would have endangered their
habitat on the Atlantic Coast; helping demarcate the ancestral lands of the
Yanomami people in Brazil against an invasion of gold miners; and working with
other rainforest groups against the threatened clearance of about 40 per cent
of the Amazon rainforests for soybean plantations for international export.
In 1996, she was given the Abolitionist of the Year Award by the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in the USA for her efforts on behalf of
Guinevere Garcia, a death row prisoner in Illinois, whose sentence was commuted,
after Jagger's campaign. In November of that same year, Ms Jagger received a
Champion of Justice Award as a “steadfast and eloquent advocate for the
elimination of the death penalty in America”. Her articles, lectures and press
conferences on the subject continue to challenge a penal system that is unfair,
arbitrary and capricious, and jurisprudence fraught with racial discrimination
and judicial bias. In 2004 she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the Fight
Against the Death Penalty by the Council of Europe. Jagger has also been a
goodwill ambassador for the Albert Schweitzer Institute and has worked for
Amnesty International on their "Stop Violence Against Women", "Torture" and
"Death Penalty Campaigns". She spoke at the anti war rallies in London in spring
2003.
In 2004 Jagger added her name to the international campaign seeking compensation
from ChevronTexaco for gross environmental damage in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The
US-based oil company is accused of creating a ‘Rainforest Chernobyl’, turning
the Ecuadorian Amazon into an environmental quagmire. During two decades of
operations in Ecuador (1971-1992) Texaco (now ChevronTexaco) dumped more than 50
per cent more oil into the rainforest environment than that spilled during the
Exxon Valdez disaster. The waste has spread over many years to contaminate
groundwater, rivers and streams on which 30,000 people - including five
indigenous groups – depend for water.
Jagger was part of a fact-finding mission to the area in October 2003 and 2004.
She confronted ChevronTexaco’s CEO at the company's annual shareholders' meeting
in April. "Instead of a single, dramatic spill that captured headlines around
the world, what happened in Ecuador was far more... insidious," she said. "Over
the course of 20 years, Texaco slowly poisoned the residents of the Oriente
Region by dumping toxic waste and crude oil into the water systems. None of my
past experiences as a human rights’ campaigner prepared me for the environmental
devastation I witnessed in the provinces of Orellana y Sucumbios. Nor was I
prepared for the sad stories of human suffering and the heightened incidents of
cancer and spontaneous abortions."
She argued that the oil company neglected to use the technology available at the
time to protect the environment. "The reason why they did not do it is they
believe life in the third world is worth nothing,” she said. "That's why this
case is so important. We need to make them accountable." In an earlier speech
in Ecuador itself, she said: "These visits lead me to conclude that until
ChevronTexaco addresses the environmental damage it has caused in Ecuador, it
should be treated as an outlaw company that does not deserve the right to do
further business or make further investments in any country anywhere in the
world." Jagger also played a prominent role with Greenpeace in the launch of
their "Boycott Esso campaign".
On June 9, 2004 Bianca Jagger received the World Achievement Award from
President Gorbachev for "Her Worldwide Commitment to Human Rights, Social and
Economic Justice and Environmental Causes".
In March 2004 Jagger made a keynote speech at the launch of Amnesty
International's Stop Violence Against Women campaign. She plans to make
campaigning against sexual exploitation of children a central plank of her
future work.
Bianca Jagger is a member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council for
Amnesty International USA, member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights
Watch -America. Ms. Jagger also serves on the Advisory Board of the Coalition
for International Justice. She is a member of the Twentieth Century Task Force
to Apprehend War Criminals; a Board member of People for the American Way and
the Creative Coalition.
Bianca Jagger was born in 1950 in Nicaragua, where she experienced the harsh
US-backed military rule of the Somoza family, which ruled Nicaragua for almost
half a Century until 1979. At the age of 16 she won a scholarship to study at
the Paris Institute of Political Studies. She was married to Mick Jagger from
1971-79.
During her childhood and adolescence she witnessed first hand the terror of
Somoza's National Guard, and when she returned to the capital Managua as a young
woman in 1972 to search for her parents after the disastrous earthquake that
left 10,000 dead - she witnessed the Somoza regime profiting from the tragedy of
the victims, ruthlessly pocketing millions of dollars Nicaraguans were meant to
receive from humanitarian aid. Ms Jagger’s early experiences had a profound
effect on her life and inspired her to campaign for human rights, social and
economic justice throughout the world. Over the years she has received
international attention as both a passionate and effective campaigner.
In 1981, she was part of a US congressional fact-finding mission visiting a UN
refugee camp in Honduras, when an armed death squad from El Salvador crossed the
border, entered the camp and abducted 40 refugees, and proceeded to march them
towards El Salvador. Bianca Jagger and fellow members of the delegation gave
chase along a dry riverbank, armed only with cameras. The abductors pointed
their guns at them, but were told, "You would have to kill us all or we will
denounce your crime to the world.” There was a long silence and without
explanation, the death squads released their captives and disappeared.
In the 1990s Ms Jagger evacuated 22 children from the worst war zones in Bosnia.
Mohamed Ribic, a boy 8 years old, lived with her in New York for a year after a
successful heart operation, before returning to his parents. In 1993, Ms. Jagger
went to the former Yugoslavia to document the mass rape of Bosnian women by
Serbian forces as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. For many years she
campaigned to stop the genocide in Bosnia and make the perpetrators accountable
before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Her
reports on the war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo contributed to the
international community decision, to intervene and stop the genocide. She has
been on many fact-finding missions, which have taken her to Nicaragua,
Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, to remote rainforests in Brazil and Ecuador,
to Bosnia, Kosovo, Zambia, Afghanistan, Iraq, India and Pakistan.
In the 1990s she also spoke out on behalf of indigenous populations rights in
Latin America, and to save the tropical rainforests where they live, campaigning
on behalf of the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua against the government's granting
of a logging concession to a Taiwanese company which would have endangered their
habitat on the Atlantic Coast; helping demarcate the ancestral lands of the
Yanomami people in Brazil against an invasion of gold miners; and working with
other rainforest groups against the threatened clearance of about 40 per cent
of the Amazon rainforests for soybean plantations for international export.
In 1996, she was given the Abolitionist of the Year Award by the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in the USA for her efforts on behalf of
Guinevere Garcia, a death row prisoner in Illinois, whose sentence was commuted,
after Jagger's campaign. In November of that same year, Ms Jagger received a
Champion of Justice Award as a “steadfast and eloquent advocate for the
elimination of the death penalty in America”. Her articles, lectures and press
conferences on the subject continue to challenge a penal system that is unfair,
arbitrary and capricious, and jurisprudence fraught with racial discrimination
and judicial bias. In 2004 she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the Fight
Against the Death Penalty by the Council of Europe. Jagger has also been a
goodwill ambassador for the Albert Schweitzer Institute and has worked for
Amnesty International on their "Stop Violence Against Women", "Torture" and
"Death Penalty Campaigns". She spoke at the anti war rallies in London in spring
2003.
In 2004 Jagger added her name to the international campaign seeking compensation
from ChevronTexaco for gross environmental damage in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The
US-based oil company is accused of creating a ‘Rainforest Chernobyl’, turning
the Ecuadorian Amazon into an environmental quagmire. During two decades of
operations in Ecuador (1971-1992) Texaco (now ChevronTexaco) dumped more than 50
per cent more oil into the rainforest environment than that spilled during the
Exxon Valdez disaster. The waste has spread over many years to contaminate
groundwater, rivers and streams on which 30,000 people - including five
indigenous groups – depend for water.
Jagger was part of a fact-finding mission to the area in October 2003 and 2004.
She confronted ChevronTexaco’s CEO at the company's annual shareholders' meeting
in April. "Instead of a single, dramatic spill that captured headlines around
the world, what happened in Ecuador was far more... insidious," she said. "Over
the course of 20 years, Texaco slowly poisoned the residents of the Oriente
Region by dumping toxic waste and crude oil into the water systems. None of my
past experiences as a human rights’ campaigner prepared me for the environmental
devastation I witnessed in the provinces of Orellana y Sucumbios. Nor was I
prepared for the sad stories of human suffering and the heightened incidents of
cancer and spontaneous abortions."
She argued that the oil company neglected to use the technology available at the
time to protect the environment. "The reason why they did not do it is they
believe life in the third world is worth nothing,” she said. "That's why this
case is so important. We need to make them accountable." In an earlier speech
in Ecuador itself, she said: "These visits lead me to conclude that until
ChevronTexaco addresses the environmental damage it has caused in Ecuador, it
should be treated as an outlaw company that does not deserve the right to do
further business or make further investments in any country anywhere in the
world." Jagger also played a prominent role with Greenpeace in the launch of
their "Boycott Esso campaign".
On June 9, 2004 Bianca Jagger received the World Achievement Award from
President Gorbachev for "Her Worldwide Commitment to Human Rights, Social and
Economic Justice and Environmental Causes".
In March 2004 Jagger made a keynote speech at the launch of Amnesty
International's Stop Violence Against Women campaign. She plans to make
campaigning against sexual exploitation of children a central plank of her
future work.
Bianca Jagger is a member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council for
Amnesty International USA, member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights
Watch -America. Ms. Jagger also serves on the Advisory Board of the Coalition
for International Justice. She is a member of the Twentieth Century Task Force
to Apprehend War Criminals; a Board member of People for the American Way and
the Creative Coalition.