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Franz Van Der Hoff, Founder of Max Havelaar, Awarded “Caballero de la Legión de Honor” By French President Jaques Chirac |
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September 15, 2005
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In the presence of Kofi Anan, Tony Blair and a 150 world industry
leaders, Franz Francisco Van der Hoff, founder of Max Havelaar, has
been decorated with the “Caballero de la Legión de Honor” By French
President Jaques Chirac during the annual meeting of the United
Nation’s Global Compact, which seeks to promote responsible corporate
citizenship through collective action and address the challenges of
globalization, with the vision of achieving a more sustainable and
inclusive global economy.
Gerald A. Herrmann, IFOAM Vice President, stated, “This honor is
merited by his life long engagement for changing societal patterns and
social injustice. His engagement has influenced the organic movement to
a great extent, and he was among the first to advocate a close
partnership between the fair trade and the organic movements.”
Mr. Van der Hoff arrived as a worker-priest in the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec in southeastern Mexico in 1980. The Bishop of Tehuantepec,
Arturo Lona Reyes, asked him to go up into the mountains – the Sierra –
to harvest coffee with the Indian peasants. In 1981, a meeting was held
and nearly 150 people showed up; the Union of Indian Coffee-producers
of the Isthmus Region (UCIRI – the Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la
Región del Istmo) was created to break away from the control by the
"coyotes" and the caciques – the crooks purchasing the peasants produce
and the corrupt leaders of local communities - and to be able to
benefit from coffee production without having to pay off the
intermediaries. UCIRI came to be one of the first farmer
cooperatives to introduce organic and fair trade organic certification
and to integrate Internal Control Systems (ICS), the organic
certification of smallholder producer groups.
Mr. Van der Hoff, a special guest at the Global Compact, spoke of his vision of an economy centered on the human being:
I infinitely thank for the recognition that is expressed in this
decoration for the work of the organizations of small producers of
Mexico and Central America, in its indigenous majority. With
dignity, honesty and joy I will speak in the name of thousands and
thousands farmers and workers in the field, to value this granted
honor. I feel like their spokesman and I am their servant.
First, I would like to thank for the invitation on the part of the
President of the Republic of France to be able to participate in this
meeting on the contribution and responsibility of companies in this
millennium. For the small producers of the field and the poor men
of the world, it is of extreme importance. In different forms and
responsibilities, we must fight for the communal property of all and
all the inhabitants of this planet. Economic and market policies
do not exist in a social vacuum. We must take advantage of the
diverse experiences of everyone and do everything possible to make
structural adjustments to create a world that we yearn for where
justice, solidarity, freedom and equality are not the privileges of
some, but that are a right and a reality for all. All my life I
have lived and fought in these sectors of the society where these
rights are left only in the imagination. For that reason, I see a
different world, from down and with those down below. It is not
the world that reporters cover, but continues to be a fascinating and
simultaneously horrific world of the great majorities. I
discovered that in practice that the trade of products of a high
quality and value was not working in the interests of the small
producer. This is why we founded a different market, that now it
operates in about 22 countries. It is a market of the poor men, a
market niche that attempts to correct the anomalies of the present
economy and that puts ethical social rules in place: a producer
has the right to payment for a product that covers at least the costs
of production, create conditions of development collectively with his
own means and necessities. I co-founded this alternative market,
which takes to the name Max Havelaar in France and fairtrade in many
countries. This market presents or displays a correction to the
supposedly free market. We needed an economy where the social and
political responsibility for the well being of all and all is essential
elements to create conditions of a distribution of the little goods of
this planet. To distribute the wealth by means of the market is
task and responsibility of all. It is my firm conviction that is
possible to create real conditions to make a just world for all.
It is question of will and rules of behavior. A wild market
damages the economy of the towns, the families and creates social and
political problems in the medium and long term. By means of the
Right Market, the market of the poor men inside the global market, with
its rules, its criteria, its traceability and exigency of physical,
human, social and democratic quality, we deliver an attack that serves
to improve the market in all and all, including the well-being of our
planet, as we are not the owners, but the people in charge of its
use. With this decoration, I feel recognition of the arduous work
of thousands of poor farmers who offer to the world their eagerness of
work, of solidarity, responsibility. For that reason I again
thank the President of the French Republic for an honor that I will
send to my companions. Thank you very much.
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