Hundreds Gather in Duncan Oklahoma to Protest Outside Halliburton Shareholder Meeting

Hundreds of people are converging in a small Oklahoma town this week for the annual meeting of one the country”s most controversial companies. Not all of them are shareholders, however. Instead, the annual meeting of oil gas and services giant Halliburton will be met with scores of activists making the trip from near and far.

Halliburton – which was once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney -- has drawn widespread attention for its close ties to the Bush administration and its no-bid government contracts in places like Iraq and New Orleans. That attention has only magnified with a series of well-publicized accusations of mismanagement, corruption and sheer incompetence, in places like Iraq, Iran and Nigeria. All while it’s continued to pull in record-breaking profits – $2.4 billion last year.

Although the previous three shareholder’s meetings have been held in Houston, Wednesday’s meeting is tucked away in the little town of Duncan, over three-hundred miles away. Halliburton says it made the moves to honor its Oklahoma roots. Critics say the company is attempting to hide from its critics.

Well today we’re joined from Oklahoma City by two of these critics who’ve made the trip to Oklahoma.

* Pratap Chatterjee, Managing Director of CorpWatch. CorpWatch has published a new, alternative annual report for Halliburton called "Hurricane Halliburton: Conflict, Climate Change and Catastrophe." It’s available through the website CorpWatch.org

* Michael Keania Karikpo, lawyer from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where accusations of bribery and corruption against Halliburton date back several years. Michael Keania Karikpo represents Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria), a member of the Friends of the Earth International network.

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