Activists protesting against Nestl's involvement in a troubled Mexican region today picketed the company's York factory and targeted its York-based national finance director.

A police officer warns protesters not to go inside the gates of the Nestl factory in Wigginton Road today

About 25 protesters, who are not part of an organised group, but who describe their actions as showing solidarity with indigenous Mexican people, circulated leaflets purporting to give the home address and telephone number in York of Graham Millar.

Six activists descended on a York address at 6.30am today, but left when they were told the finance director no longer lived there.

Claims by the protesters that Nestl was involved with the oppression and exploitation of indigenous people in the area were categorically denied by a company spokesman.

The leaflets, handed to Nestl staff as they arrived for work, called on individuals to bombard the company with phone calls, jam its e-mail systems and boycott products.

Under a section called Against Corporate Rule, they also urged people to deface advertisements, go slow at work, sabotage machinery, steal items and "organise actions against corporations".

The protesters said they were demanding that Nestl pull out of the Chiapas region in Mexico where they claimed the company invests heavily.

A spokesman for the group said: "We are against Nestl going in to this region and setting up plants and felling the jungle.

"People are being forced off the land and into factory and plantation work."Police dispersed the protesters from outside the factory gates.

A spokesman for Nestle said: "We were extremely concerned at the irresponsible actions of these protesters who not only claim they are seeking to disrupt processes at the factory, but who have made public personal details of one of our directors.

"Nestle has been present in Mexico since 1930 and has made a significant contribution to the economy there.

"Our presence in the state of Chiapas is an important factor for the improvement of the standard of living of the people in one of the least developed areas of Mexico."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.