by STEPHANIE BOYD
At least two people dead and more than 100 injured – this is the way Xstrata does ‘community relations’ in Peru. Meanwhile the mining company’s boss Mick Davis is in line for a $44 million pre-merger bonus.
While farmers in one of the country’s poorest regions are under siege by hundreds of police commandos, Xstrata officials in Europe celebrate a $90 billion merger with London-listed commodities giant Glencore.
With the festivities underway, Xstrata clearly doesn’t have time to consider petty requests from its Peruvian mine, like improving environmental monitoring or social policies. But the company can dig deep and reward its chief executive officer, Mick Davis, with a ‘bonus package’ worth tens of millions of British pounds, as part of the Glencore merger.
Is this what Xstrata means when it promises, on the company’s sleek web page, to ‘balance economic, environmental and social considerations’ in its administration?
‘Community relations’ seem to have gone back to the Dark Ages under the new Xstrata-Glencore regime.
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