ative Challenges to ining and Oil Corporations public libra* / boston Square Copley MA 021 16 Boston . Resource Rebels Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations Gedicks Al South End Press MA Cambridge, © Copyright 2001 A1 Gedicks Any properly footnoted quotation of up to 500 sequential words may be used without permission, as long as the total number of words quoted does not exceed 2,000. For longer quotations or for a greater number ofto- tal words, please write for permission to South End Press. Cover design by Ellen Shapiro Cover photograph by Luke Holland Page design and production by the South End Press collective Printed in Canada First edition Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gedicks, Al. Resource rebels native challenges to mining and oil corporations / : Al Gedicks.— 1st ed. cm. p. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-89608-641-0 - ISBN 0-89608-640-2 (pbk.) 1 Indigenous peoples—Land tenure. 2. Mines and mineral . resources—Environmental aspects. 3. Conservation of natural resources. 4. Indigenous peoples—Legal status, laws, etc. 5. Social responsibility of business. I. Title. GN449.3 .G43 2001 333.8'517~dc21 MA South End Press, 7 Brookline Street #1, Cambridge, 02139-4146 www.southendpress.org 05 04 03 02 01 1 2 3 4 5 Contents Foreword vi Introduction A World Out of Balance 1 Chapter 1 Scouring the Globe 15 . Chapter 2 Big the Environment and Human Rights 41 Oil, Chapter 3 West Papua: The Freeport/Rio Campaign 91 Chapter 4 A Multiracial Anti-Mining Movement 127 Chapter 5 Silencing the Voice of the People: How Mining Companies Subvert Local Opposition 159 Chapter 6 The Military, Trade and Strategies for Sustainability 181 Bibliography 203 Index 225 Nigeria: Ogoni, jaw 1 . I Colombia: U'wa 2. 3. Ecuador: Quichua, Huaorani, Shuar-Achuar, Cofan, and Siona-Secoya 4. Philippines: Subanen, Igorot 5. Mexico: Mayans Guyana: Amerindians 6. West Papua:Amungme, Komoro 7. 8. Manitoba (Canada): Cree 9. Wisconsin (USA): Chippewa, Potawatomi, Oneida, Menominee, and Mohican 10. Alaska (USA): Chilkat Mapby Michael Gallagher MidwestEducational Graphics www.MidwestEducationalGraphics.com [email protected] [email protected] Foreword Despite being the world’s fifth most-capitalized industry, mining has generated remarkably few well-informed critics. Among these, A1 Gedicks has been attracting deserved esteem for around 25 years. Professor Gedicks’ Center for Alternative Mining Development Policy was the first ofits kind and its com- bination ofrigorous social analysis and deep respect for the views of mining’s putative victims has rarely been improved upon. There is perhaps no better accolade for his work than the fact that today’s key corporate players, in alliance with some of their erstwhile critics, have now started their own “alternative devel- — opment initiative” vastly ill-judged though it may be. Professor Gedicks was among the first to make the critical connections between the emergence of a late twentieth century breed of extractive multinational, and the impending sacrifice of Indigenous Peoples’ rights in mainland USA. These companies had earlier spread their wings abroad, often to have them soundly clipped, especially by post-war leftwing governments in the global South. During the eighties they reconcentrated their capi- tal back home, trespassing on territory that had been mercifully free from encroachment. (We may forget that the United States is the first or second most important source ofmany of the world’s minerals, as well as their most profligate consumer). Professor Gedicks graphically mapped this process in his first book, New Resource Wars, in which he described the dramatic rise of native-led resistance to reconstructed extractive corpora- Now tions, notably Kennecott/RTZ (Rio Tinto) and Exxon. he Foreword •• vil — — my has updated and in view improved this original work, bring- ing his incisive analysis to bear on the consequences ofglobalization, as it weakens much further the capacities of debt-laden govern- ments and communities to control or benefit from the mining or up- grading of their minerals But this is not a simplistic tale in which exploiters and exploited are easily identifiable in a medieval morality play. In their confronta- tions with oil and mining companies, a wide spectrum of native communities have redefined themselves as actors, rather than pas- sive victims, and done so on the international stage (And some have A also joined the mining industry). brief fifteen years ago, only a handful of environmental or human rights organizations worldwide were prioritizing mining as a core issue. Now, every continent (ex- cept Antarctica) has several such NGO’s.Just in the past 18 months, new Indigenous-led initiatives have been launched in India, Indone- sia, the Philippines and western Africa. In a back-handed acknowledgment ofthis upsurge in resistance, in 1995 the then-chiefexecutive ofRio Tinto, the world’s most ruth- less mining company, admitted that some mining companies “are being naive about how easy it is to operate in someone else’s back We yard. [at Rio Tinto] see problems virtually everywhere” These problems don’t only derive from flat refusals by native peoples to countenance mining on their territory. Increasingly they are also re- flected in a growing reluctance by investment institutions and insur- ers to bankroll projects which might never come on-stream, or end Ok New up in costly litigation (as with the Tedi mine in Papua — — Guinea and the Grasberg mine in West Papua) or worst ofall hit global headlines in the shape of an unmitigated disaster. Each year since 1991, a major mine tailings containment has collapsed some- where in the world. The latest occurred at the Baie Mare gold mine in Romania in early 2000, and was characterized by the government as the “worst environmental disaster” the country had ever faced. Within the past year, the World Bank for the first time has advised the closure of an existing mine (Ok Tedi) and Britain’s state-owned Commonwealth Development Corporation has refused to finance destructive gold exploits in the Philippines. Resource Rebels Vlll Such reactions are raising alarms throughout an industry that has historically ridden roughshod over the opposition. Yet the cor- porate response is far from addressing the key issues raised in Pro- — fessor Gedicks’ work notably the legacy of destruction wrought by mining for which few companies will admit responsibility (there are half a million un-rehabilitated mine sites in the United States alone); the vast amounts of compensation which must be found for existing mine-devastated communities; and the absolute right of those communities to exercise fully-informed prior consent before a single sod of their soil is turned. Instead, the leading mining companies now boast ofpromoting “sustainable mining development” (an oxymoron, if there ever were one) and to recuperate their opponents as “stakeholders.” This is a process clearly designed to wear down resistance to the imposition of even bigger mines in even more precarious habitats: “We are be- ing dialogued to death” as one Indigenous Subanen opponent of mining recently put it in the Philippines. In pursuit of this agenda, the mining industry has launched a dubious new organization: Mines, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD). The companies behind this initiative, led (inevitably) by Rio Tinto, are among the most damaging in the world. Were they indi- viduals seeking posts in public office, none of us would give them the time of day. So far, not one organization critical of mining, nor any bona fide Indigenous community, has joined up. However, with MMSD a multi-million dollar budget to pursue its program, seeks to present the beguiling face of a reformed sinner. Reading this engrossing book will continually inform the reader about the nature of those sins, reminding her or him that they are being committed even as they read. A1 Gedicks places mineral re- — source extraction firmly at the center not ofa technical, economic, — or even purely social discourse but an essentially moral one, which we sorely need. Roger Moody