FIELD NEWS: Indigenous Resistance Against Gold Mining

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Today we are asking for you to support MPI’s continuing work with Indigenous communities adversely affected by mining on their lands.

IMAGE LEFT: Mineral Policy Institute’s Communications Officer, Natalie Lowrey (front right) with Sakura Saunders, ProtestBarrick.net (front left), and (behind from left to right) Wiradjuri Elder, Neville Chappy Williams, Diaguita Leader, Sergio Campusano and translator, Gloria, Grupo No a Pascua Lama, on their way to visit Canadian politicians about Canada’s lax mining laws,Ottawa, Canada, 14 May 2008. Photo: Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

IMAGE RIGHT: Indigenous Leaders protest Barrick Gold, (from left to right) Anga Atalu, Secretary, Porgera Land Owners Association, Ipili, Papua New Guinea; Sergio Campusano, President of the Diaguita Huascoaltino Indigenous and agricultural community, Chile; Neville Chappy Williams, Wiradjuri Traditional Owner, Mooka/Kalara United Families, Lake Cowal, Australia; Mark Ekepa, Chairman, Porgera Land Owners Association, Ipili, Papua New Guinea; and  Jethro Tulin, Executive Director, Akali Tange Association, Ipili, Papua New Guinea. Thousand Islands, Canada, 11 May 2008. Photo: Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

Achieving systemic change in the practices of these companies, is possible as we build and strengthen a global movement that brings together indigenous people and other affected communites, NGOs, academics, politicians, shareholders and investors and members of the general public. We hope that you will be inspired by the stories of these courageous campaigners to join us in our efforts.

Wiradjuri Elder, Neville Chappy Williams in the jewellery district of Toronto, 8 May 2008. Over 80% of gold is used for jewellery. Photo: Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

The appearance of these Indigenous leaders at Barrick Gold’s shareholder meeting is the consequence of increasing international networking between mining-affected communities, the Mineral Policy Institute, and our partner organisations from across the globe. The tour comprised of speaking events with five different Indigenous communities, including community leaders from Papua New Guinea, Chile, Australia, Tanzania, and the United States of America – all adversely affected by Barrick’s operations. Barrick Gold’s Annual General Meeting was just one stop on a speaking tour that travelled from the Seventh Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, through Toronto and Ottawa, and finally on to Montreal.

Our entourage included: Neville Chappy Williams, Wiradjuri Traditional Owner, Mooka/Kalara United Families, Lake Cowal, Australia; Jethro Tulin, Executive Director, Akali Tange Association, Ipili, Papua New Guinea; Ange Atalu, Secretary, Porgera Land Owners Association, Ipili, Papua New Guinea; Mark Ekepa, Chairman, Porgera Land Owners Association, Ipili, Papua New Guinea; Larson Bill, Community Planner, Western Shoshone Defence Project; and Sergio Campusano, President of the Diaguita Huascoaltino Indigenous and agricultural community, Chile.

Throughout the tour, Indigenous participants shared common stories of Barrick Gold’s tactics in suppressing dissident voices, dividing communities, and manipulating local and national politics. They saw patterns in the sophisticated messaging and company public relations to the mainstream press, and the destructive impacts and lack of free, prior and informed consent for local people across various continents.

Interventions at the United Nations

These issues were taken up firstly at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 21 May, for the Seventh Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Interventions at the forum by Jethro Tulin (Ipili, Papua New Guinea), Neville Chappy Williams (Wiradjuri, Australia), Carrie Dann (Western Shoshone, USA) and Larson Bill (Western Shoshone, USA) all voiced the serious concern these communities have with large scale mining on their lands, particularly by Barrick Gold Corporation.

IMAGE LEFT: The 7th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was opened by Indigenous Bolivian President, Evo Morales. Photo: Eleanor Gilbert

“Madam Chair, ours is a clash of civilisations. Propelled largely by state services, the Engan and Huli people have shot from the so-called Stone Age, an age of true sustainability, to the space age in one generation, with stunning results for some. Tribesmen, who in their youth wore grass aprons and sported fantastical wings studded with bird of paradise feathers, now have health care and modern homes. But others are reeling from the impact of cash-for-land deals that have turned their traditions upside-down and their ancestral home into an industrial moonscape patrolled by guards and police, including one of PNG’s notorious “Mobile Units”, renowned for savages human rights abuses, including killings. The Porgera Mine Death and Injury case [Shooting Fields of Porgera Joint Venture, Papua New Guinea, 2005, by Jethro Tulin] is a textbook case of what can go wrong when large-scale mining confronts Indigenous Peoples, ignoring the impacts of its projects and resorting to goon squads when people rebel against it. This outrages local Indigenous communities, especially when the mine is right next to our homes; my people are exposed to dangerous chemicals like cyanide and mercury; some of our people drown in the tailings and waste during floods; and fishing stocks, flora and fauna are depleted down the river systems, leading to indigenous food sources being threatened.”

Extract from Jethro Tulin’s intervention at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. To see entire statement go to: http://www.mpi.org.au/campaigns/indigenous/barrick_agm/

IMAGE LEFT: Jethro Tulin with Mining Watch Canada campaigner, Catherine Coumans talking to press outside the Barrick Gold’s AGM, Toronto, Canada, 6 May 2008. Photo: Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

IMAGE RIGHT:  A river of mine waste, Porgera Joint Venture (Barrick Gold), Papua New Guinea. Photo: Sarah Knukley. 2007

The Mineral Policy Institute has undertaken investigations of allegations of extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses at the Porgera mine site together with a team from the Harvard University Clinical Human Rights Program.

Indigenous Leaders expose Barrick Gold’s rhetoric

There was no doubt that the Shareholders meeting was Barrick Gold’s show, using this once-a-year opportunity with shareholders to further their branding as the “Socially Responsible” mining giant, boasting community programs and infrastructure development near their mine sites.

But it wasn’t long before Barrick Gold was cut down in front of their shareholders by a rarely voiced perspective on gold mining, that of Indigenous communities. In the Q&A session were indigenous leaders from Ipili in Papua New Guinea, Wiradjuri in Australia and the Western Shoshone from the U.S., each representing communities affected by Barrick Gold’s operations, and each with a vision that differed greatly from Barrick Gold’s self-propagated benevolence.

IMAGE LEFT: Indigenous delegation at a press conference after Barrick Gold Corporations AGM, Toronto, 6 May 2008. Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

IMAGE RIGHT: Demonstrators share information about human rights and environmental violations committed by Barrick Gold around the world with shareholders as they leave Barrick’s AGM, Toronto, 6 May 2008. Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

“Your security guards have been shooting and killing our people and raping, even gang-raping, our women with impunity for years now ... When will Barrick agree to move the more than 5,000 families who live within your mine lease in a way that is fair and will provide us an opportunity to be healthy, to feed our families, and to educate our children?”

Jethro Tulin, Executive Officer of Akali Tange Association, explained in a speech aimed directly at Barrick’s founder and Chairman, Peter Munk. Jethro’s was met with a round of applause inside the shareholder meeting.

“Barrick Gold has absolutely no respect for our cultural heritage and the very essence of our cultural being is at stake,”

stated Neville “Chappy” Williams, Wiradjuri elder and spokesperson for Mooka and Kalara United Families, the traditional owners of the Lake Cowal area.

“In addition to creating an open-pit mine in the “Sacred Heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation,” Barrick has confiscated thousands of Wiradjuri cultural objects from the mine site and refuses to return them to the traditional owners.”

IMAGE LEFT: Larson Bill, Community Planner, Western Shoshone Defence Project (USA) speaking to shareholders, Toronto, 6 May 2008. Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

IMAGE RIGHT: Diaguita Leader from Chile, Sergio Campusano talking to Angolan writer and journalist, Sousa Jamba at the house of Ardoch Algonquin Chief, Harold Perry, Ardoch, Canada, 10 May 2008. Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

“The international community has spoken quite clearly on these matters. The United States has been told on two separate occasions to cease and desist the destructive activities on Shoshone lands and Canada has been told to rein in its corporate giants like Barrick,”

stated Larson Bill, Western Shoshone Community Planner, referencing the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) in their review of Canada last year. 

“Barrick Gold says that they want to help the poor, but we don’t want their helping hand, we want their hands off our mountains,”

said Sergio Campusano of the stance of his community.

“Barrick asked us what we wanted, and we told them that we only wanted one thing, that they leave.”

After the shareholder’s meeting, Anga Atalu, the Secretary for the Porgera Landowners Association in Papua New Guinea, remarked that he found it funny that Barrick specifically mentioned building schools for local communities, “the only school for our community was buried by mine waste 6 years ago,” he said. These ironic twists of rhetoric were common when confronting Barrick.

[Barrick Gold’s board of directors includes former Canadian PM Brain Mulroney. Barrick Gold’s adjusted net income totalled $1,733,000,000 for 2007.]

A legitimate resistance exists

The webcast of the Barrick Gold’s shareholder meeting conveniently censored the entire Q&A session. The Canadian mainstream press also chose to ignore the presence of the community leaders, as not one article on Barrick Gold’s AGM even mentioned complaints were voiced within the meeting.

The experience drove home the challenge that lay before the community leaders and their international solidarity hosts. Similar to our challenges in Australia, the fight to hold Canadian corporations abroad accountable for violations in human rights included the struggle to hold the Canadian media itself responsible for reporting on Canadian companies abroad. Canada is home to 60 per cent of the world’s mining corporations, and yet no laws exist in Canada to ensure these corporations respect human rights. Our networking with sister organisations in Canada reaffirmed the need for us to work jointly at the national and internaitonal levels to ensure that measures are adopted to address these violations.

As part of the “Indigenous Resistance to Barrick Gold” tour, the communities fighting Barrick Gold teamed up with groups from Honduras and Guatemala who had also come to Canada to attend Goldcorp’s annual meeting and express their complaints about Goldcorp’s operation, as well as Native Leaders within Canada who had been jailed for blockading against mining exploration on their lands.

These delegations and Indigenous Peoples sent a clear message to the few who would listen that these problems are not a case of one bad apple, but are symptomatic of a system within which these abuses are inevitable.

Next year the delegation will be back in North America and hopes to be joined by Indigenous communities from Tanzania and the Philippines who are also struggling to be heard in their continuing opposition to Barrick Gold’s large scale mining on their lands.

 
IMAGE LEFT: Natalie Lowrey with Ardoch Algonquin Chief, Harold Perry, Ardoch, Canada, 10 May 2008. Photo: Allan Cedillo Lissner, http://allan.lissner.net

Natalie Lowrey on behalf of the MPI Team
projects[at]mpi.org.au

Download the Field Report [pdf]

For more information, please contact:

Techa Beaumont
Executive Director

Workphone: +61 2 9557 9019
Mobile: +61 (0) 409 318 406

Created: 24 Jun 2008 | Last updated: 24 Jun 2008

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