by CYRIL MYCHALEJKO
Rape. Murder. Corruption. Environmental contamination. Impunity. These are just some of the charges and incidents that have plagued Canadian mining operations abroad for years. Now one Canadian lawmaker has taken on the Herculean challenge of legislating mining reform in a country that has traditionally acted like a parent in denial.
“The mining industry in Canada is too powerful a lobby,” said Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) John McKay.
Sixty percent of the world’s mining corporations come from Canada. According to a report by InfoMine, Canadian mining corporations listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange had 1,010 projects in South America, 578 in Mexico, 703 in Africa, 376 in Asia and 345 in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in 2009. Canada also accounts for 19 percent of global mining exploration spending, which totaled at $13.2 billion. Gold, silver, copper and nickel are among the minerals the industry scours the globe for. In Canada the industry employs 193 registered lobbyists.
McKay’s bill, C-300, would empower the Canadian federal government to investigate complaints of human rights and environmental abuses leveled against mining companies. If the Ministers investigating a company find it guilty of violating social and environmental standards laid out in the bill, the company, if receiving support from the Canada Pension Plan or Export Development Canada could lose funding from the respective organizations.
“It’s limited, but a positive step forward overall,” said Sakura Saunders, editor of www.ProtestBarrick.net, a website that provides research and organizing information around mining issues, with a focus on Canadian Mining giant Barrick Gold. “But this bill is simply putting ethical guidelines on the investment and promotion of mining, oil and gas projects in developing countries. It treats the Canadian government as an investor rather than a government.”
Dirty Business
Sarah Knuckey, a lawyer at the center for human rights at New York University School of Law, testified at a parliamentary hearing in Ottawa in November that security guards working at a mine in Papua New Guinea, owned by Barrick Gold, are guilty of gang raping local women.
“The guards, usually in a group of five or more, find a woman while they are patrolling on or near mine property. They take turns threatening, beating and raping her,” said Knuckley. “In a number of cases, women reported to me being forced to chew and swallow condoms used by guards during the rape.”
Amnesty International issued a public statement on December 9, 2009 revealing that local police at the same mine in Papua New Guinea violently evicted local families and burned down and destroyed at least 130 buildings and houses. Barrick initially denied the allegations, but after the conclusions of Amnesty’s local investigation were released the company was forced to accept the findings.
Barrick was also recently accused of failing to comply with environmental standards in Chile and of anti-union discrimination in Argentina.
On November 27, 2009 another Canadian company made headlines when a Chiapan anti-mining organizer, Mariano Abarca Roblero, was assassinated. One employee and two former employees of Calgary-based Blackfire Exploration Ltd. were arrested for the murder. Other local anti-mining activists have also reported receiving death threats. Documents were later released revealing that the company was bribing the local mayor.
“We have obtained documents – which Blackfire admits are genuine – that clearly show payments of US$1,000 a month going directly into the Mayor of Chicomuselo’s bank account on the understanding that municipal authorities would keep community members opposed to the mine under control,” explained Rick Arnold, coordinator for Common Frontiers-Canada.
Less than a month later, two anti-mining activists were killed in El Salvador within a week of each other, where Canada’s Pacific Rim Mining Co. has been facing resistance to a proposed gold and silver mine in the area. The company is currently using a US-based subsidiary and provisions in the Central American Free Trade Agreement to sue El Salvador’s government for refusing to grant the company permission to commercialize the potentially destructive El Dorado mine.
“The company’s presence continues to create violence and conflict by their continued insistence on opening the mine despite widespread community opposition,” said Alexis Stoumbelis, Executive Director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). “At this point, the only ethical thing for Pacific Rim to do is to leave El Salvador and to withdraw their lawsuits against the Salvadoran government.”
Pacific Rim refuses to acknowledge that the violence is related to their widely unpopular project.
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