The Dominion - Africa

War is Peace

Tim McSorley — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:26:04 +0000

Francophonie summit exposes Canada's hypocrisy towards the Congo

MONTREAL—Comforted by the contradictions befitting classic Orwellian “doublespeak,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the Sommet de la Francophonie in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over the weekend.

Prior to the weekend, Harper had already indicated to the Congolese, with a straight face no less, that they should engage in actions that favour democracy and respect for human rights. Such a posture of talking down to the Congolese allows Ottawa to cut short all legitimate questions concerning the historic responsibility of Canadian businesses and the Canadian government in the Great Lakes area conflict in Africa that claimed millions of Congolese lives between 1996 and 2003.

In the early 1990s, the power hold of Joseph Mobutu's Congolese kleptocracy had begun to waiver. Mobutu, who had ruled the Congo, and before that Zaire, as absolute master, largely by supporting the country's social system with a nationalized mining infrastructure, suddenly found himself cut lose by his former supporters. These included most notably Belgium, France and the United States.

Under pressure from the World Bank, Mobutu opened the country's prized asset, its mining sector, up for privatization. Barrick Gold, the Canadian gold mining outfit, at the time received an exploration lease for a mind-boggling 82 000 km2. Justin Kanhwenda, former assistant to the special representative of the Great Lakes area to the Secretary General of the UN, has noted that the Barrick Gold deal officially signalled to the world that the Congo was open for business.

What followed was the triggering of a bloody and protracted conflict over the country's mineral resources. The High Commissioner on Human Rights, referring to the violation of fundamental rights during this period, summarized the conflict as a clash between armed rebel groups and militias representing the government's interests. Both sides made war to secure mining leases, which they would then concede to international, private enterprises, for the very purpose of continuing to finance their own war.

Yet another UN report on the war-torn Congo, this one published in 2002, highlighted the actions of nine mining Canadian companies in particular, including AMFI, Banro and First Quantum Minerals. The report found that their actions went against the guidelines for multinational enterprises of the France-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as their dealings in the Congo were considered unethical.

In the mid-2000s, the Congolese parliament had recovered slightly from the shock of years of mineral-driven civil war, and created a commission charged with studying the contracts signed between the government and private industry during war time. The commission, signed-off on by then president Christophe Lutundula, concluded that an impressive number of extremely unequal contracts had been signed between private companies and the government-at-war during the period of 1996 and 2003. These ultra-advantageous contracts involved numerous Canadian companies, notably Anvil and Emaxon. Some of these Canadian companies ratified these contracts via their subsidiaries located in tax-haven nations.

A commission to “revisit” these mining contracts was subsequently put in place to attempt to restructure their terms, at least superficially. Fear of reprisal from foreign investors has limited this commission's strength.

Amidst the UN sources already mentioned, the “expert” report mandated by the UN Security Council on the October 16, 2002 (S/2002/1146) recommended that home nations investigate the companies suspected of having profited from the pillage of resources in the Congo during the war. The report added in no uncertain terms:

“The Governments have the power to regulate and sanction those individuals and entities. They could adapt their national legislation as needed to effectively investigate and prosecute the illegal traffickers. In addition, the OECD Guidelines offer a mechanism for bringing violations of them by business enterprises to the attention of home Governments, that is, Governments of the countries where the enterprises are registered. Governments with jurisdiction over these enterprises are complicit themselves when they do not take remedial measures.”

The UN report mentioned that the experts themselves did not have the legal prerogative to carry out such investigations, or bring private companies to justice.

Canada never capitulated to these demands. It did perhaps win itself some points, and time, by organizing round table consultations with various concerned parties, all within the sterile, and legally-unbinding, environment of determining “good governance.” The “consensus” that came forth from these consultations amounted to nothing, except for Ottawa's nomination of a powerless “ethics counsellor.” For this continued inaction, Canada has assumed the global leadership role as the regulatory and judicial safe haven of choice for mining companies. Today, 75 per cent of mining companies choose to register themselves within the Canadian legislative framework, as the lax system of accountability assists them in their mining endeavours outside of Canadian soils.

Canadians driven by ethic convictions are today at the same point as were Europeans at the end of the 19th Century. All attempts are made by the government to hinder the identification of the individuals responsible for the grave suffering caused to the Congolese people. In the age of Belgian colonial domination in the Congo, the Brit Edward Dene Morel and the American author George Washington Williams, having gathered information from returning Europeans as to the atrocities being committed, drew grave hypotheses as to the true goings-on in the resource rich African nation. Diplomat Roger Casement confirmed these allegations in an investigation undertaken by the British government.

Today, Canada has still not undertaken a similar investigation. Instead, we find ourselves with a regressive government seeking, through any possible artificial means, to create colonial-inspired propaganda that allows Canada to assume the role of a democratic older brother to the Congo. All this, when in reality the pressure should be weighing on Canada.

Alain Deneault's most recent book, written with William Sacher, is Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World's Mining Industries (Talonbooks: 2012). He is a member ATTAC-Québec and the Réseau international pour la justice fiscale. Translation from the French by Miles Howe.

Mining and War

Canadian Bomb Spending Soars

Tim McSorley — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 09:01:19 +0000

CanBomb8d.jpg

Extreme Extraction

stephlaw — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:03:49 +0000

Oil production plans could reshape Morocco's economy and environment

RABAT, MOROCCO—Many well-known voices trying to address the global climate crisis have posited that less-developed countries—those without a full-blown industrial base—can skip industrialization all together and transition away from fossil fuels. If that is achieved, development in those countries would ideally result in the construction of infrastructure suitable for a post-fossil fuel society.

But if Morocco is any indication, the opposite scenario appears more likely to happen. Instead of proceeding with climate-friendly energy developments, Morocco is poised to begin extracting crude oil from unconventional deposits—the dirtiest fuel available. Mining rock for oil in Morocco would leave massive craters in post-fossil, green energy hopes.

Morocco, like Jordan and Israel, is moving towards using the most carbon intensive fuel base on earth. This move is supported by present, and projected, oil prices that make synthetic crude from oil shale profitable on a near permanent basis. Technology has become cheaper while the price of oil has gone up dramatically. Recent industry estimates indicate that oil can now be extracted from shale for approximately US$40 per barrel, while the average price at an American pump is US$94 per barrel.

With global oil demand slated to grow, Morocco is set to become an unconventional oil producer through mining oil shale and converting it to mock crude oil in a fashion similar to Canadian tar sands development, but borrowing on shale technology from Brazil. Morocco also has contracts to use Estonian technology to mine and burn oil shale directly for domestic electricity.

Estonia is one of a few countries in the world that has ongoing oil shale currently in operation. The Tangier deposit of oil shale in the north of Morocco is likely to see Eesti Energy-owned Enefit of Estonia work to mine this shale directly for domestic electricity generation, which would treat the kerogen shale more like a cousin of coal rather than an ancestor of oil.

Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil company, has developed a technique of extracting oil as well as gas from oil shale, and has been involved in this process commercially since the early 1980s. A partnership between Petrobras and TOTAL energy of France has been developing towards shale-to-oil mining at the Timahdit deposit, a deposit much larger than Tangier, approximately 240 kilometres southeast of Rabat, Morocco’s capital. Petrobras would be the main operator of the Timahdit mine, but both world energy majors will share the costs and profits.

However, there is one persistent problem for both these projects: water. Even without proposed oil shale mining and in-situ developments, Morocco has a serious potable water problem.

To operationalize oil shale in Morocco, water would need to be sourced from nearby the Timahdit deposit. Throughout the country, waterways are already becoming silt-ridden as erosion slowly manifests as a result of another ecological tragedy in the area: illegal timber harvests.

Some environmental journalists, like Mohammed Attaoui, have recently landed directly in the crosshairs of the Moroccan Kingdom. Attaoui was imprisoned by the Moroccan government after he investigated ongoing illegal timber marketing and exporting. Although Attaoui was officially charged and convicted in March 2010 for the extortion of 1,000 dirham (approximately US$120), critics maintain Attaoui was set up in a ploy timed immediately after his research into the country's “cedar mafia” had been published. He was handed a two-year sentence for his alleged crime.

Deforestation, destructive in its own right, is without doubt one of the major factors furthering the water crises of Morocco. But if the water needs for running a major mining operation are appended onto the existing crisis, the prognosis for the country's environmental health gets ever bleaker. The proposed mine at Timahdit happens to be in the same region as two national parks: the Ifrane National Park, which is already under threat from the illegal timber harvest, and Haut Atlas Oriental, which is home to tens of thousands of small farmers who rely on the area and its habitat for agriculture and subsistence.

The illegal timber harvest is the primary threat to the macaques, the last remaining large population of monkeys in northern Africa. Primarily living in the Ifrane National Park, macaques used to be common throughout the Mahgreb but are now endangered by loss of habitat elsewhere and by the shrinking forest. The only place outside Morocco where they live is in the small and shrinking Djebel Babor Nature Reserve on Algeria's coast. According to The Morocco Board News Service, the region is also home to more than 200 forms of plant life not found anywhere else.

Oil extraction is but another burden in a region defined by an already fragile environment. Between the three proposed sites for shale oil development in Morocco, early projections indicate that 50,000 barrels per day of mock oil could be produced for conversion into various fuels within a few years. (This figure does not include electricity generation where shale is burned in a similar fashion to a coal fired plant.)

That estimate includes the Tarfaya deposit near Morocco's border with the nominally independent Western Sahara, which is still occupied by Moroccan forces. Tarfaya has also just seen the completion of an in-situ pilot project constructed by San Leon Energy of Ireland, a smaller player with some operations in the continental United States. Building up Tarfaya has already meant the construction of major highways in less populated parts of southern Morocco to allow for the transport of supplies and materials for the project.

Morocco is on its way to becoming a testing ground for unprecedented oil shale extraction. “The environmental issues in places such as Colorado are not an issue in Morocco,” John Buggenhagen, San Leon Energy’s vice-president of exploration, told Petroleum Economist.

This article is the third in a four-part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published on the Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Email us at info@mediacoop.ca.

Morroco map shale oil

African Activists Blast Unconventional Extraction

Tim McSorley — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:28:32 +0000

Tar sands highlighted in lead up to UN climate summit in South Africa

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA—In Durban this week, you're blinded by green. From billboards to uniforms, it's impossible to miss that this South African city is hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

One would think you could not get any further from the northern hinterlands of the Alberta's Athabasca watershed. But in a city filled with palm trees and tens of thousands of delegates engaging in another round of high-level climate negotiations, environmental and community organizers from across Africa, the Middle East and North America came together over northern Alberta's tar sands and similar projects around the world.

“There's a lot of development right now globally around tar sands, oil shale, and other extraction projects,” said Oliver Meth, a Durban environmental activist and one of the organizers of Everyone's Downstream 5 (EDS).

Held for the past four years in Edmonton, Alberta, the annual conference was established to explicitly focus on the Alberta tar sands, both its impact on downstream communities directly affected by the project and its broader ramifications. It has gradually grown, and this year made the leap to a new location in order to build broader links with international communities, especially many African communities which are now seeing tar sands and other unconventional extraction projects beginning in their regions.

Presenters from areas including Congo-Brazzaville, Madgascar, Israel, Uganda and South Africa were all present to share the struggles they are facing against growing threats to human health and the environment, including wildlife, plant life and potable water.

While the diversity of participants pointed to the degree to which people are growing concerned, tar sands and unconventional oil extraction, and the specific issues they present, are relatively new to Africa and to environmental activists across the country. “We need to build more awareness about these projects,” Meth said. “Not everybody talks to each other.”

Clearly there are major differences from community to community, but many people echoed concerns heard in Canada for nearly a decade, as the Alberta tar sands has grown and its environmental impact has become more clear.

“If the extraction of 40 tons of conventional oil has not led us to economic development, it's clear that tar sands, which have led to negative impacts in Canada, and which are our best and only example we can look to, won't do so either,” said Christian Mounzeo, president of Engagement for Peace and Human Rights from Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo.

Since 2008, Italian corporation ENI has been developing a massive energy production undertaking, including palm oil plantations, natural gas and a major tar sands extraction project. Two months ago, the company announced it would be proceeding from the exploratory to extraction phase. But even though not a drop of tar sands crude has been extracted yet, there are already growing concerns, Mounzeo said.

The company has not been forthright on how an environmental impact assessment will be carried out, he said, and communities haven't been provided even the most basic information about the project itself or been involved in public consultations.

“There is a problem of access to information and public participation,” he said.

Such concerns are similar to the concerns expressed by many Indigenous communities in Canada, who have long called for the right to free, prior and informed consent before such major extraction projects take place on their lands, regardless of whether the project focuses on tar sands, conventional oil or mining.

Other activists from across Africa echoed similar concerns. They also discussed questions around government corruption, political instability and how to make trans-national companies—which often benefit from low tax rates, government corruption and the ability to work through a revolving door of subsidiaries—accountable for their actions.

In Uganda, environmental activists have been trying since 2000 to hold oil extraction companies accountable for environmental devastation, human rights abuses and tax evasion along the shores of Lake Albert. It is part of the water system that feeds from Lake Victoria in central Africa into the southern head of the Nile, featuring one of the most environmentally diverse ecosystems in the world.

Bwengue Rajab Yusuf of Nape-Oil Watch Uganda spoke about how a constantly changing corporate presence—from the Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Heritage Oil to Tullow Oil (South Africa) to Total (France) to, most recently, Chinese oil firms—has made it nearly impossible to seek financial compensation for the destruction of agricultural land and wildlife conservation zones. “Who do you pursue?” he asked, pointing out that it becomes even more difficult when confronted with corrupt government officials who refuse to uphold environmental assessment laws or to enforce the protection of wildlife sanctuaries.

As Mouzeno explained it, residents of the Congo and across Africa are up against the “link between oil exploration, conflict, debt, corruption and under-development.”

But if the challenges are shared, so is the willingness to build new, community-based means of resistance. In Uganda, it has taken the form of Sustainability Schools, where they are focusing on building “community resilience” by offering action training and providing research and investigative skills, said Yusuf.

Two members of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum in the Niger Delta spoke of the longstanding community mobilizations against oil development on their land, highlighting the fact that November marks the anniversary of the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Wiwa was a renowned environmental and human rights activist put to death by the Nigerian government in 1995 for his outspoken stances and non-violent campaigns, particularly against Shell.

Sorbarikor Demua told of how Ogoni women often bear the brunt of the oil development of their area, since they harvest the land that is often the most devastated by oil spills and chemical contamination. They also face extreme repercussions at the hands of military and para-military forces sent to punish protesting communities and who use sexual assault and rape as punishment for their activism.

Recently, women protested the impacts of oil development and the lack of resources for the Ogoni people by going naked. As Demual's colleague Celestine Akpobari stated, it is actions by women such as this that show the desperation and the extent to which they must go to ensure compensation for the destruction of their land.

Taking place for two days and involving 200 delegates just before a major international conference, Meth believes that EDS is necessary as part of the counterbalance to the bureaucratic, government-focused negotiation happening at the opulent Durban International Conference Centre.

A conference like EDS, he said, “gives us a chance to speak in peoples' own language and terms, in a way they understand best.” The government delegates and representatives of major international non-governmental organizations on the inside at COP17 are often far removed from the realities on the ground, he said, meaning different venues are needed to make concrete, on-the-ground change.

“We shouldn't be concerned or be bothered about COP17, but [we need to] challenge it for excluding communities that are being most affected,” he said, citing the example that there are representatives of the major South African utilities company ESKOM at the table, but that Indigenous communities are not officially represented.

And while some may question the impact of smaller events like EDS over the next week, many major delegations have already stated that they do not foresee any agreement to follow up on the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. If the major delegations are so effective, then, as Meth asks, “They have met so many times; why are we not making more headway?”

Tim McSorley is an editor with the Media Co-op. He is part of a six-person media delegation covering COP17 and parallel community-led conferences. You can find more of the Media Co-op's COP17 coverage at http://mediacoop.ca/durban.

Christian Mounzeo

Celestine AkpoBari and Sorbarikor Demual

The Changing Face of Oil Extraction

stephlaw — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:39:35 +0000

Shale oil and gas plays in Israel/Palestine, Jordan and Morocco

You may have heard of "Dirty Oil", "Ethical Oil", "Bloody Oil" or even "Conflict Oil"-- but have you heard of "Apartheid Oil"? This is the topic that Edmonton-based writer and activist Macdonald Stainsby has been exploring ever since he visited the Middle East and Northern Africa earlier this year.

In a four-part series to be released over the next month, Stainsby examines key shifts in technology and politics that could change the face of oil extraction in Israel/Palestine, Jordan and Morocco. As an introduction to the series, The Media Co-op had a chance to talk with Stainsby about what he learned on his visit and through the writing process.

Media Co-op: How important are the new shale oil and gas plays in the Middle East?

Macdonald Stainsby: The question is fairly technological, as well as geopolitical. If the Israeli plans go ahead for example, it could mean a dramatic shift towards Israeli power and away from the traditional sources of oil in the region. It would take many years for Israel to be able to produce at a level that could undermine other countries, but the impact of proving the ability would be immediate. In the case of Jordan, the question will be the destruction of local water first and foremost, as well as tightening the previous "peace accords" with Israel without repatriating a single refugee. In North Africa, Morocco has the potential to become one of the most polluted countries in the region where environmental standards are already alarmingly low. In each of these cases, it is hardwiring forms of oil production possibly even more destructive than Canadian based tar sands production.

Media Co-op: What surprised you about your time in the Middle East and North Africa?

MS: In all three cases, the biggest surprise was the level of media awareness [about tar sands and shale oil] in the business pages — which was quite high — and how little concern it seemed to generate among the population that one would hope should oppose such projects. In Israel in particular, the main opponents are pro-Zionist groups that openly collaborate with sectors of the government involved in ethnic cleansing inside the 1948 borders internationally recognized as Israel.

Media Co-op: Are people aware of what is going to happen because of these projects?

MS: Not really, though, community groups near the proposed site in Israel are taking an oppositional, "not in my backyard" approach. Considering the condition of water in Morocco and, even more so, Jordan, education about the potential dangers to the little water available is paramount.

Media Co-op: How could these new oil and gas plays factor into the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaign against Israeli Apartheid and other organizing in Canada?

MS: If BDS is to work, it has to be able to make the Israeli state economically scream, to borrow a phrase. The ability to sanction a state with a massive oil and gas sector is slim to nil. BDS is already having strong effects, but pollution aside, the energy security provided to the state by such a play would be monumental and could be the single greatest enabler of Israeli intransigence for years to come, all the more reason — along with those other pesky issues like climate change, peak oil and water in desert regions — such projects must be halted.

Media Co-op: Can you talk about the interconnections between the heavy oil discoveries and the longer term state response to the uprisings in the spring?

MS: It also appears the US is openly planning to use GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries — all of them currently major oil producers — as a local attack dog in the region for US interests. We saw this with Saudi and Qatari troops invading Bahrain, as well as Qatar openly engaging the adventure in Libya. With Morocco and Jordan invited into the GCC, likely also now to be oil producers — this locks them into that alliance, which ultimately also serves American and Israeli interests. This could end up having these tar sands and oil shale projects playing major role in global capitals efforts to steer the Arab Spring in the direction they want, again as we have recently seen in Libya.

Stay tuned: over the next month, the Dominion will publish four articles exploring the theme of Apartheid Oil. This series originally ran on the Media Co-op in November 2011.

Shale Oil Basins in Israel and Jordan

Abousfian Abdelrazik's Statement to the UN 1267 Committee

shainaagbayani — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:02:13 +0000

Abousfian Abdelrazik delivers a message to the UN 1267 list committee about the hardships he endures daily.

Abousfian Abdelrazik's Statement to the UN 1267 Committee

shainaagbayani — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:29:49 +0000

Abousfian Abdelrazik delivers a message to the UN 1267 list committee about the hardships he endures daily.

(video ID here: http://www.vimeo.com/25236316)

The Plastic Bag Debate

Tim McSorley — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 05:34:14 +0000

Lessons from Rwanda

KIGALI, RWANDA—One of the first things you will likely notice if you have the chance to visit Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is the extraordinary cleanliness that spans the city. This pleasant reality can be explained by looking closely at how the Rwandese manage their environment.

Of particular importance is their stance on plastics: Rwanda is now entering its fourth year with a nation-wide law banning all plastic bags.

As Canada continues to debate the future role of plastic bags, it is worth looking at the Rwandan example, and understanding how such an initiative operates, and what benefits it can bring.

Toronto is the only Canadian city with a mandatory fee to the consumer of five cents per bag. However, in recent months Toronto mayor Rob Ford has repeatedly attacked the fee, and has explicitly stated that he wishes to get rid of it. Why you may ask? The answer: consumers are apparently annoyed.

A spokeswoman for the mayor, Adrienne Batra, told CBC news in December 2010 that “the mayor speaks with residents every day, and the thorny issue of the bag tax keeps coming up. People are sick and tired of being nickel-and-dimed to death.”

It seems that Mayor Ford may be ignoring the facts, as multiple reports have indicated that the tax has greatly reduced the purchase of plastic bags in Canada. For example, Metro grocery stores have reported a drop of 80 per cent since 2009.

This reduction in plastic bag use is important for the Canadian environment, says Franz Hartmann, Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance.

“Plastic bags require fossil fuels and many chemicals to be produced. This is having a negative impact on the environment, and using up precious materials. They are also a major source of liter in Toronto, and are having a bad impact on wildlife outside the city.”

Although the fee is playing a positive role, it is worth looking past initiatives that simply aim to reduce use and toward those that target outright elimination. The perfect case study is the fight against plastic bags in Rwanda, a fight that has led to their complete demise.

For anyone who has travelled in Africa the ubiquitous nature of plastic bags sprawled everywhere is an undeniable reality. The problem has not gone unnoticed though: several African countries have been working to ban plastic bags for years.

Located in Eastern Africa, Rwanda is largely known for its tragic genocide that exploded in April 1994. Since then it has tended to operate as a relatively unknown country outside certain political and economic circles. However, for such a small, developing nation it is home to a variety of unique, forward thinking policies.

In 2008, Rwanda declared a nation-wide ban on all plastic bags.

The initiative was a response to the two most common ailments caused by plastic: a well documented understanding of plastic's negative environmental impacts, but equally influential, the extensive physical presence of bags around the country.

Dr. Rose Mukankomje, the Director General of the Rwanda Environmental Authority (REMA), has been at the forefront of this policy, and continues to work on a daily basis to monitor its progress.

“In 2004, the Ministry of the Environment began to conduct studies on the use of plastic bags in Rwanda,” she explains. “At that time people had started to see plastic invading everywhere—black, yellow, red colored bags—causing even visual pollution.”

In addition to the visual pollution, research from the National University of Rwanda reported the widespread environmental consequences of plastic. “Plastic was not only all over the ground, but underneath as well. This hindered agricultural production in Rwanda, as plants cannot grow past the plastic. As well, our water sources were becoming highly polluted with plastic being found inside many dead fish,” Dr. Mukankomje recalls.

The first step was raising awareness about this information. This began in 2005 during the national day of cleaning, called Umuganda. As the communities around Rwanda began to clean up they were asked to collect all the plastic they could find.

“We came up with a huge, huge amount of plastic—in the land, around our compounds, everywhere—everyone was scared,” says Dr. Mukankomje.

This event signaled the turning point. It not only sensitized many Rwandans to the problem of plastic within the country, but it got politicians thinking about the issue as well—President Paul Kagame took part in this event. A nation-wide campaign began by flooding the media. Furthermore, local NGOs and businesses were commissioned to create alternatives—mainly cotton or banana leaf bags.

The advocacy was a success and in 2008 a bill was finally passed to ban plastic bags within Rwanda. While there was still much resistance from the affected private sector, the culmination of the campaign can largely be attributed to developing a general consensus among Rwandans. Dr. Mukankomje explains, “You need a policy to get rid of plastic bags, but it must be wanted to be successful.”

The benefits of Rwanda’s plastic bag ban were quickly evident: in 2008 UN Habitat named Kigali the cleanest city in all of Africa. Now three years since the bill was passed, Rwanda remains a plastic bag-free country, and has developed a reputation across the region for its extreme cleanliness. The passing of the bill coupled with Rwanda’s monthly day of cleaning has insured that it remains this way, and will continue for the foreseeable future.

As Toronto debates the future of plastic bags, the story of Rwanda, now more than ever, should be considered. Though different in many fundamental ways, Canada, like Rwanda, relies greatly on its natural resources. Thus, the future health of the land is of pivotal importance in both countries.

“Human civilization has worked just fine without plastic bags. It’s only been in the last 30 years that they’ve reared their ugly head,” says Hartmann. “Getting rid of them completely is the best solution. I don’t see what the issue is.”

Eliminating plastic bags will play a huge first step in curbing the prevalence of plastics in the Canadian environment. As Dr. Mukankomje frames it, “We must not see this as a challenge, but as an opportunity.”

Mayor Ford, take note.

Ryan Kohls is a freelance journalist out of Peterborough, Ontario.

Bag in tree

Barrick's Bodysnatchers

Tim McSorley — Thu, 26 May 2011 22:00:22 +0000

Wanton killings, criminalization, and degradation continue at the North Mara Mine in Tanzania

NEW YORK, NY—On May 16, over 1,000 people entered a mine in northern Tanzania, desperate to collect whatever gold they could from the modern industrial site that used to be their bread and butter. But instead of providing the displaced artisanal miners with a boost to their meager income, the day ended in horror. Seven men were killed, and at least a dozen wounded when police unleashed a hail of bullets.

The next day, African Barrick Gold, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick Gold, released a statement admitting that seven people were killed and twelve injured at their North Mara mine in Tanzania. The killings came at the hands of Tanzanian police, who Barrick originally claimed were under sustained attack by 800 "criminal intruders" (a number Barrick revised to 1,500), who illegally entered the North Mara mine to steal gold ore. Since this fatal confrontation, tensions have been high in the Tarime District, with an increase in the number of police, the deployment of water cannons, the arrest of journalists and two members of parliament for "instigating violence," and the theft of five of the seven bodies from the mortuary by police.

Confrontations between local people and the mine's security forces are not uncommon near Barrick's North Mara mine in Tanzania. As Bloomberg journalist Cam Simpson reported in a December 2010 feature story about the mine, before this latest massacre "at least seven people have been killed in clashes with security forces at the mine in the past two years." These security forces, according to company documents, include police who Barrick pays to guard its North Mara mine.

“They are not arresting them or taking them to court,” said Machage Bartholomew Machage, a member of the Tarime District Council, the highest local government body, in an interview with Simpson. “They are just shooting them.”

One week after the most recent spate of killings, the police stormed a local mortuary and stole the bodies of four of the dead. This move, according to locals, was to prevent the villagers from holding a planned memorial service at the mine on Tuesday.

Police also arrested and charged two members of Parliament, a legal advisor, and journalists for "instigating people to cause violence." MP Tundu Lissu, who was among those arrested, was in Tarime to assist with post-mortem medical examinations of bodies to identify exactly which parts of the bodies of the deceased were shot by the police.

“Normally if you shoot a person on the head it means you intended to kill them. However, if you shoot them on the leg it means you tried to stop them from doing something… this exercise will help us to know the police’s intention,” he explained to local journalists. Tundu was arrested two days later at the funeral of the local villagers killed by Barrick security.

At this time, Lissu and six others remain in police custody and their bail has been denied. Meanwhile, the four journalists, MP Esther Matiko, and opposition cadre John Heche posted bail and were released after six hours in custody.

According to George Marato of Tazania's Guardian newspaper, these violent confrontations can be blamed in part on corruption amongst the security forces at Barrick's mine. According to his interviews with locals following the latest killings, police and company staff conspire to facilitate illegal entry into the premises to scoop sand with gold concentrates. For example, one group would pay one million shillings (around $650) in exchange for a half-hour of scooping sand from the ground.

The violent confrontations occur, according to Marato, when disagreements arise over the amount of compensation for company insiders, often due to hikes in "gold theft fees." He writes, "Ensuing wars of words turn into confrontations that provoke policemen to fire at the very people who had been co-conspirators not long previously."

This situation, according to Marato, is then compounded by local youngsters who attempt to force their way to the compound to scoop the sand free of charge.

Tensions with the locals can be traced back to the mine's early history of displacement and dispossession. Before the mine opened, an estimated 40,000 people living in the area, a large majority of the population, depended on small-scale mining for their livelihoods, according to a history compiled by the mine’s first proponent, Afrika Mashariki Gold Mines Ltd.

Small scale miners, represented by five villages, had mineral rights to the lands that they mined, but were forced to sell these claims to Afrika Mashariki under illegal and irregular circumstances, according to a legal complaint launched in July 2003 by the Lawyers Environmental Action Team (LEAT) on behalf of 1,273 former small-scale miners. In another lawsuit, 43 landowners alleged to have been paid no compensation, while being forcefully evicted from their lands.

Since then, there have been multiple fatal confrontations at the mine site. In December 2008, one such incident resulted in a civilian uprising where locals set fire to $7 million worth in mine equipment. This number, which was originally estimated at upwards of $15 million, is disputed by locals. As now, Barrick blamed the damage to equipment on "well-organized groups" that raided the mine site. However, signed affidavits [1, 2] from witnesses to the event claim that angry villagers had only set one Caterpillar loader on fire on a road outside the mine, after they had heard of the killing of their compatriot. These affidavits and others [3, 4] describe this incident in detail, as well as documenting the history of violence and impunity at the mine site, and the criminalization of community advocates following the murders.

Sakura Saunders is the co-editor of protestbarrick.net, an all-volunteer network of groups researching and organizing around mining issues, particularly those involving Barrick Gold.

To read this article in Spanish/Para leer este articulo en espanol: No a la mina

North Mara mine

Living in the shadow of the North Mara mine

The "River Horse" Rides Again

Tim McSorley — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 06:30:29 +0000

Hippos keep on hippoing

For such a large and immovable animal, the hippopotamus plays a constantly shifting role in our popular imagination. A symbol of the god of virility in ancient Egypt, it was also brought to the Colosseum of Rome to fight gladiators. The hippo has inspired names for everything from children's games, to polkas and chess openings.

The fourth largest creature in the world, the hippopotamus naturally inhabits parts of north-eastern Africa, but populations extend west to Ghana and south into central and southern Africa. Once known to Greeks and Romans as the "Beast of the Nile," it no longer inhabits its historic habitat.

Weighing up to 4,000 pounds, the "river horse" is often considered to be a relative of the pig, but is actually part of the porpoise family.

While the hippo is reputed to have a temper, it is only territorial over small parts of the Nile, about 250 meters long. Most of a hippo's life will be spent in that tract of water, but in the evening it will wander as far as eight kilometres inland to graze on grass. Natural herbivores, hippos have only been known to eat meat in times of nutritional distress. And while they give off the appearance of lazy immobility, hippos can run at a speed of up to 30 kilometres per hour. Their girth also allows them to sink to the bottom of rivers and walk or run along the river bed.

Not very social animals, hippos will still live in pod groupings. Social attachment only seems to develop between mothers and daughters, if at all. At the same time, hippos will lay close together when on land, although the reason for this is unclear.

Like their disappearance from the shores of the Nile in Egypt, the hippopotamus' population in general is diminishing. The largest decrease has been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where, since the 1970s, populations have dropped from some 29,000 to a maximum of 800. Worldwide, the population is placed at a maximum of 150,000 as of 2006, a decrease of up to 20 per cent from the last count in 1996, prompting the UN to place it on its vulnerable species list.

But there may be hope for re-population: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar kept hippos at an estate east of Medellin in Colombia. When he died, the hippos were left on the estate, too difficult to seize. As of 2007, they have reproduced, from the existing four to 16. It is still unknown what impact they may have on the Colombian ecosystem.

Baby animals. Because a serious world needs serious cuteness.

Hippos

More hippos

The Other Drug Trade

hillarybain — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 06:03:44 +0000

New bill could make cheap HIV meds easier to access

HALIFAX—On March 9, Members of Parliament will have a very simple choice to make, according to Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. They can vote for Bill C-393, and make it easier for people in the developing world to access affordable HIV medication.

“When you could do something with the most minimal of efforts to prevent these [HIV related] deaths from happening, to not [do so] is profoundly immoral,” says Elliott.

Despite Elliott’s confidence in the importance of the Bill, its passing on March 9 in the House of Commons is far from certain.

Bill C-393 seeks to amend a piece of legislation enacted in 2005, known as Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime (CAMR). CAMR was created to help Canadian generic companies produce and export generic medicines at reasonable prices to the countries that need them most.

In 2009, almost 15 million people in low- to middle-income countries were living with HIV, and only five million of them received treatment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Despite these numbers, CAMR has been used only once. Advocates for Bill C-393 argue that CAMR is too complicated and must be fixed to make it easier to export affordable medication.

Apotex, a Canadian generic drug company, successfully shipped anti-HIV drug Apo-TriAvir to Rwanda in 2008 and 2009 under CAMR. The shipments contained enough medication to treat 21,000 people living with HIV for one year.

Turns out, this feat was a one-hit wonder.

“We're not likely to repeat the process under [CAMR],” said Bruce Clark, Apotex’s Senior Vice-President, Medical and Regulatory affairs. Clark says CAMR is not easy to use. “It’s a practical reality that no second country has made a request under the regime because it’s so complicated.”

Many steps are required before a shipment of drugs can be made. It took four years for Apotex to complete the process and get their shipment authorized by the Canadian government.

Four years is a long time to wait, considering approximately two million people died from AIDS in 2009, according to the WHO.

Despite this, the pharmaceutical industry insists Apotex’s process was “extremely quick” and CAMR is working well.

“There was tremendous co-operation on the industry’s part because we support the intention of CAMR,” said Wendy Zatylny, Vice President of Government Affairs at Rx&D, the association of research-based pharmaceutical companies in Canada.

Rx&D represents the interests of 50 drug companies, including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Shire and Boehringer Ingelheim, which were the three patent holders for the drugs that Apotex needed to produce Apo-TriAvir.

Apotex requested voluntary licenses from the three companies in July 2007. Within a month, all three responded and granted permission to manufacture the drugs royalty-free, according to Rx&D’s records.

Many conditions were attached to the voluntary licenses.

“Two of the patentees went so far as to expressly reserve all rights with respect to their trademark rights, effectively threatening suit,” Clark said.

In the end, after fruitless negotiations, the patent holders retracted the voluntary licenses and Apotex applied for a compulsory license in September 2007 under CAMR, he added.

It took 68 days from the time Apotex asked for voluntary licenses to when the government granted the compulsory license. But the entire process took four years because of the details Apotex needed in order to start the process in the first place.

“We were turned back as the request was, in their words, 'premature' as no country had confirmed an order,” Clark said

The developing country has to put forward a request for an exact quantity of drugs to be produced and exported in order for the process to begin. It is difficult for a country to accurately estimate the amount of medicine it needs at any given time. This is particularly true for infectious diseases like HIV, where predicting how many people are infected, and will be infected in the near future, is difficult.

In addition to the barriers to getting permission for exporting generic drugs, CAMR mandates an expiry date of two years on the compulsory license.

Once Apotex had delivered medication to Rwanda, the country wanted to order more. In order to do this, however, both Rwanda and Apotex would have had to go through the entire process again.

So they didn’t.

After this one and only experience working with CAMR, its advocates started discussing how to improve it. The outcome was Bill C-393, which former NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis introduced as a private member’s bill in 2009.

The bill proposes a “one-license solution.” If passed, a generic company would be able to distribute drugs anywhere in the developing world simply by getting a single license from the brand-name companies. This would eliminate the daunting task of having to negotiate a separate license for each country that makes a request.

Furthermore, the bill wants to expand the list of drugs that qualify for compulsory licenses. CAMR only allows the export of certain drugs for certain diseases. Advocates of the bill argue that this list is too restrictive.

“That’s an unnecessary and unjustifiable restriction to the [CAMR] regime,” said Elliott. “It is both unethical and bad public health policy for Canada to tell developing countries that CAMR can only be used to get certain medicines for certain public health problems.”

A parliamentary committee gutted these two provisions from the bill in November 2010. The Conservative MPs in the committee and Liberal Marc Garneau took the position that CAMR works in its current form, a stance shared by Rx&D.

The removal of these provisions from the bill did not come as a shock to Elliott.

“I think there is of course tremendous pressure from Big Pharma,” said Elliott. “They're all over Parliament Hill arguing against the bill.”

During the second vote on the bill in 2009, the liberal MPs who voted against it sat in ridings where many pharmaceutical companies reside. For example, Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca and GSK operate within the ridings of Liberal MPs Marc Garneau and Stephane Dion.

In January this year, NDP MP Megan Leslie re-introduced the provisions as amendments to the bill in hopes of salvaging it. These amendments will be voted on in March.

While parliament continues to fight out this battle around reforming CAMR, the developing world faces a cruel reality. There is currently a global deficit of anti-HIV drugs suitable for children and many countries don't have the manufacturing capacity to develop and produce them.

"Unless Apotex or any of the other generic companies see a potential market, they're not going to go ahead on their own to produce the pediatric formulas," said Joel Lexchin, professor at York University. "And there's no market without a reformulation of CAMR."

Apotex has already committed to making and delivering infant and children-suitable HIV drugs if parliament votes to fix CAMR.

“It’s hard to imagine why there’s so much resistance to making this bill more workable and I think we continue to say whose interest[s] we’re protecting in the way the bill currently stands,” Clark from Apotex said. “It’s clearly not those of the developing world and not those [of people] suffering from AIDS.”

Steph Law is a freelance journalist, health rights activist and an epidemiologist. @lawsteph

CAMR 1

CAMR 2

Why is Canada Blocking Congo Debt Forgiveness?

dru — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:21:21 +0000

Mining companies and Canada's “civilizing mission”

WINNIPEG—In the lead-up to the G20 summit in Toronto, as several major demonstrations and tens of thousands of police and military personnel filled the downtown, a quieter summit took place 200 kilometres to the north, in Huntsville, Ontario. In closed meetings Canadian officials worked to convince the world's major military and industrial powers to criticize the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

They succeeded. The final G8 communique called on the DRC to “enhance governance and accountability in the extractive sector,” and “extend urgently the rule of law.” Just a few days later, on June 29, Canada attempted to block a decision by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cancel the overwhelming majority of the DRC's roughly $8 billion debt.

In spite of Canada's objections, the World Bank and IMF approved DRC's debt cancellation two days later. But Canadian diplomats delayed the process long enough that the announcement missed celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the country's independence from Belgium which had ruled Congo with legendary violence while extracting its mineral wealth. The DRC's debt, widely considered to be "odious"—consisting of loans to illegitimate rulers—had accumulated through their history as a colony of Belgium, then through the years of the Mobutu dictatorship and on to the present. The loans rarely benefited ordinary people in what is one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Even after one of the IMF's own reports during the Mobutu era showed the loans were being misused and would likely never be repaid, the lending programs were not only kept in place but boosted to higher levels.

Why would Canada want to interfere with relieving a poor country from illegitimate debt?

The Congo has long been the site of bountiful natural resources, which governments and corporations the world over have scrambled to access. The Vancouver-based mining company First Quantum has not been immune to this allure. In 2006, the company's president Clive Newall said of the DRC: "It's the holy grail of the copper industry. Companies are saying: to hell with the political risk, we just have to be here."[1]

The risk did not pay off as well as he would have liked. Over the past year, the government of the DRC canceled three of First Quantum's mining concessions, worth about $1-billion, as part of a review of contracts signed during the tumultuous period of conflict at the end of the 1990s. Canada retaliated on the company's behalf through the G8 and international lending institutions.

Maurice Carney, Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo, a Washington DC-based advocacy group, is asking why Canada was not worried about illegality in the Congo before the recent cancellations; illegality on the part of the companies themselves. He points to a 2002 UN Security Council report called the “Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” that showed connections between foreign mining companies, including First Quantum, and the ongoing conflict in the DRC, the deadliest conflict the world has seen since the second World War.

“The United Nations clearly stated that these companies that were involved are fueling the conflict, illegally exploiting Congo's wealth, and have violated OECD Guidelines,” says Carney. “Yet neither Canada, nor the G8 have issued any major declarations against these corporations.”

The report pointed to payouts by First Quantum to top Congolese officials.[2] The company's Kolwezi project, the first to be canceled by the DRC, was secured through deals with then-rebel leader Laurent Kabila before he took power in 1997, at a time when mining companies were helping finance his insurgency against the national government. The deal was made with a smaller firm called American Mineral Fields, which First Quantum was planning to buy, and did, securing the contract for themselves. From 1997 to 2001, while accumulating these contracts, their share prices shot “from zero to around $140 USD.”[3]

First Quantum's board has always been politically well-connected. Around this period, former Prime Minister Joe Clark was serving as an adviser and later he became a board member. In 2008, Carney told Democracy Now! that nearly all Canadian Prime Ministers since Trudeau have been involved in a mining company working in the Congo.

The international community's main concern remains re-shaping the DRC government much in the way foreign powers in Congo's colonial period saw themselves to be carrying out a “civilizing mission.” The World Bank and the UK have announced $92-million for their PROMINES project in the DRC “to increase transparency and accountability in the mining sector.”

Although the government of the DRC claims that during the period of mining renegotiation the people in charge of the First Quantum project in Kolwezi were “the only ones who refused to negotiate," and that "[t]hey refused with a lot of arrogance," the cancellation was, in fact, dubious. The holdings were transferred to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands owned by businessman Dan Gertler, among the wealthiest Israelis, who owns other companies financing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Carney says in regard to Gertler that “just about every deal he's made in the Congo has benefited him, a select few people in the government, and undermined the people.”

The Canadian Ministry of Finance did not respond to a request for an interview from The Dominion. A Ministry representative previously told Reuters they would “continue to work with our international partners to ensure Canadian investment in the DRC is protected.”

Carney asks us to consider another way the G8 leaders' summit could have played out. “We're not aware of any statements the G8 has issued regarding the millions of Congolese dead or the hundreds of thousands of women raped... Imagine if the call from the G8 was for an end to the conflict and bringing peace and stability to the Congo, as opposed to securing mining deals for First Quantum.”

With files from David Barouski.

Macho Philipovich lives in Winnipeg.

Notes

1.Bloomberg, “BHP, Anglo Shun Congo Risks to Expand as Copper Soars,” 7 February 2006, quoted in Global Witness, “Digging in corruption: Fraud, abuse and exploitation in Katanga's copper and cobalt mines,” July 2006.

2.UN Security Council 16 October 2002 “Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” p 9: “In its attempts to buy rights to the Kolwezi Tailings, First Quantum Minerals (FQM) of Canada offered a down payment to the State of $100 million, cash payments and shares held in trust for Government officials. According to documents in the possession of the Panel, the payments list included the National Security Minister, Mwenze Kongolo; the Director of the National Intelligence Agency, Didier Kazadi Nyembwe; the Director General of Gecamines, Yumba Monga; and the former Minister of the Presidency, Pierre-Victor Mpoyo.”

3.Alain Deneault et al., Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalite en Afrique, Montreal, 2008. p 69.

Congo debt

Underground Diplomacy

Moira Peters — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:57:53 +0000

Canada’s transnational mining industry implicated in abuses

TORONTO—Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani announced the termination of a mining contract for Barrick Gold’s Reko Diq project on January 5, 2010, following a unanimous decision by the Pakistani province’s cabinet. According to the minister, “They [Barrick and Chile’s Antofagasta, co-owners of the mine project] only have an exploration license, which does not cover extraction,” adding his government would not approve an agreement undermining people’s rights.

Immediately afterwards, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson warned that “multinational corporations will not invest in a country where deals are cancelled.” Canada’s international trade ministry followed suit, pressing Pakistani officials to “fulfill their obligations under a 2006 Pakistani-Canadian-Chilean agreement potentially worth billions of dollars,” according to the Vancouver Sun.

According to the Asia Times, “Critics said the local government’s action [to cancel the mining contract] was politically motivated to appease Baloch nationalists in the desperately poor and insurgency-hit province, who have been demanding the cancellation of the agreement.”

Balochistan, the province in Pakistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan, has been struggling for independence from Pakistan since 1948. The fifth uprising of the Balochistan independence movement was in 2004. More than 8,000 Baloch have been disappeared since then and 26 prominent leaders have been assassinated.

This ongoing independence struggle was overlooked by Canadian and US delegates as they pushed the Pakistani state to force Balochistan’s approval of the Barrick/Antofagasta mine. Meanwhile, in a move that the group American Friends of Balochistan say reveals insensitivity to the region’s politics, Barrick hired a Pakistani army colonel as its public affairs manager and head of security for its Balochistan mine project.

Disregard for political conflict reveals an international diplomacy concerned primarily with profits, and is consistent with the actions of Canada and its corporate ambassadors in situations around the globe where mining profits conflict with human rights.

Despite their human rights record, these corporate ambassadors of the mining sector will again be well-represented at discussions during the G20 summit in Toronto in June. Mining companies Banro, Barrick, Iamgold and Freeport McMoran will attend a parallel conference to the G20 summit, “G20 Business Leaders: Partnering with Africa’s Dynamic Markets,” at Toronto‘s Marriott Downtown Eaton Centre.

Questions about the ties between the mining sector and governement do not end in Balochistan though. Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala James Lambert published an op-ed in support of mining in Guatemala on the same day a survey revealed that 95.5 per cent of the people in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, Guatemala, opposed mining projects in their region.

Six years after that survey and the subsequent establishment of Goldcorp’s Marlin mine in San Miguel, villagers suffer from health issues linked to arsenic levels seven times the maximum limit recommended by the World Bank.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Barrick Gold officials during diplomatic visits to Chile and Tanzania, where Barrick mines have been widely protested for mistreatment of workers, environmental destruction, and for failing to pay Tanzanian taxes and royalties. Since Harper’s visit, a toxic spill killed 43 people and 1,358 livestock, according to the Ward authorities near Barrick’s Tanzanian North Mara mine.

An Amnesty International report published in February 2010 found Indigenous peoples in Colombia are at risk of being exterminated by state forces, right wing paramilitary groups and guerrilla organizations. “Far from creating a legitimate economy, as Liberal MPs have been suggesting in defence of the Colombia free trade agreement, the deal before Parliament would increase the chances that Canadian companies invested in agriculture, mining and resource extraction in sensitive areas will be doing business with murderers, drug traffickers and arms smugglers,” said Stuart Trew of the Council of Canadians in a recent press release.

As a consequence of this growing list of allegations, Canada has drawn criticism from around the world, first from environmental, religious and human rights organizations and labour unions, and now increasingly from international institutions such as the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste and Products.

The Canadian government has also begun to acknowledge its lack of accountability within the transnational mining industry. The first National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries was organized in 2006, in reaction to a 2005 report from Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT). The report acknowledged Canada does not have laws ensuring Canadian mining companies “conform to human rights standards, including the rights of workers and [I]ndigenous peoples.”

The Roundtables released a consensus-based, multi-stakeholder report approved by the main industry group, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC).

The Harper government took two years to respond to the Roundtables’ recommendations. Its report, “Building the Canadian Advantage: A Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategy for the Canadian International Extractive Sector,” rejected the recommendations and offered no tools for redressing the documented abuses of Canadian industry abroad.

Instead, the report offered increased subsidies to Canadian mining companies under the CSR banner. The “voluntary approach of CSR” is a strategy advocated by G8 countries as part of the Heiligendamm Dialogue Process, initiated at the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany. Before this dialogue process, the Commission for Africa (CfA), launched in February 2004 by Tony Blair in the lead up to the G8 in Gleneagles, advocated the same strategies in a 2005 report.

In an analysis of the report, watchdog NGO Corporate Watch said, “The Commission for Africa does concede that ‘oil, diamonds, timber and other high-value commodities all fuel Africa’s conflicts.’ However, [CfA] points the blame at the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] Guidelines on Multinational Companies for failing to provide ‘clear enough guidance on what companies should do in these situations.’...Rather than regulating, or even dismantling, these corporations, the CfA will allow them to continue plundering at will, apparently satisfied by their ‘corporate social responsibility’ policies and promises to be more transparent.”

Recently, members of Canada’s parliament have proposed legislation to hold Canadian transnational resource extraction companies accountable to Canadian law. Liberal MP John McKay introduced private members bill C-300 to the House of Commons February 29, 2009. The bill would withhold government funds, including billions of dollars in Canadian Pension Plan investments and diplomatic support for companies found—following a government investigation—to be abusing human rights. Some contend that this bill—while a positive step forward in holding corporations to account for their crimes—is most valuable in its exposure of the Canadian government’s support for its mining industry abroad.

Canada is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Private member’s bill C-354 aims to codify these international agreements into Canadian law. The International Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Act (IPPHRA), introduced by NDP MP Peter Julian, amends the Federal Courts Act to permit people who are not Canadian citizens to initiate lawsuits based on violations of international law or treaties to which Canada is a party if the violations occur outside Canada.

“The IPPHRA contrasts with Bill C-300 in that C-300 keeps the monitoring of corporate activities out of the criminal or civil courts, in administrative processes controlled by ‘the Ministers,’” said Grahame Russell of Rights Action in an email.

“With respect to reforming Canada’s criminal code so that corporations and their directors could be brought to trial for criminal actions in their corporate activities in ‘developing countries,’” he added, “no one in Canada has taken up this challenge.”

Sakura Saunders is an editor for protestbarrick.net, an all-volunteer news site that networks organizations and community groups around the world against Barrick Gold.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

G20 Mining image

Jalil Rieki

A Pharm Reduction Approach

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:38:25 +0000

Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime barely workable

MONTREAL—The city of Montreal is set to be centre-stage in the coming months as a battle is waged between brand-name pharmaceutical companies, MPs, and a host of civil society organizations.

At stake is Bill C-393 (or drugs for international humanitarian purposes), a bill supporters say will help make Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) more workable.

Passed in 2004, CAMR was intended to facilitate the export of life-saving, generic medicines to “developing” countries.

Under CAMR, if patent-holders will not grant a voluntary license to the generic manufacturer, the company can approach the Canadian Commissioner of Patents and request a compulsory license be issued. This would give the manufacturer the right to by-pass patent holder's rights and produce a given medication, and in theory, allow generic medicines to be produced for export in public health emergencies.

But some organizations, including the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Canadian Grandmothers for Africa, say the legislation is unnecessarily bureaucratic and must be reformed; thus far, a single order of medications has left the country.

C-393 has passed its second reading in the House of Commons but is expected to continue to face opposition from several Montreal MPs including Liberal Science and Technology critic Marc Garneau and Liberal MP Stephane Dion. Dion’s riding, Saint Laurent-Cartierville, is home to such brand-name, research-based pharmaceutical companies as Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca and Glaxo Smith Kline. Russell Williams, President of Rx&D, the association that advocates on behalf of Canada’s research-based pharmaceutical companies, has repeatedly stated that CAMR does not need to be reformed.

Bureaucracy bars access

Shortly after CAMR was passed in 2004, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) approached Canadian generic manufacturer Apotex Inc. and urged them to produce a much-needed generic AIDS medication.

As Rachel Kiddell-Munroe, then Coordinator of MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign describes, Apotex had to overcome a daunting series of hurdles to make use of CAMR. These included applying to have the drug added to a list of medications eligible for use under CAMR, getting it tested by Health Canada despite the fact that it was pre-qualified by the World Health Organization and attempting to negotiate a voluntary license with Canadian patent-holders, a license none of the brand-name pharmaceutical companies was willing to grant in terms Apotex found acceptable.

“CAMR is extremely complex. These processes took over two years,” says Kiddell-Munroe of the back-and-forth she witnessed between Apotex, Health Canada and the Canadian patent-holders.

Even after going through these steps, the long journey was not over. MSF and Apotex still had to wait for a country to request the medication.

In 2007, Rwanda became the first and only country to ask for Canada’s help when it told the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it wanted to buy 260,000 packages of a triple-drug antiretroviral therapy—enough to treat 21,000 HIV-positive people for one year.

It wasn’t until September 2007, three years after CAMR was first passed, that Apotex was granted a compulsory license—the main aim of CAMR—and could finally begin production of the life-saving medication to send to Rwanda.

Kiddell-Munroe says these delays are unacceptable.

“Ten million people die each year from diseases that have available cures. Nearly a third of the world’s population does not have regular access to essential medicines, and in the least developed countries of Africa and Asia, this figure is more than fifty per cent,” she says.

Barking up the wrong tree

As Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network explains, CAMR is made much more complicated than it needs be. The generic manufacturer is required to apply for a separate compulsory license for each country to which it wants to export, and for each quantity it wants to export. Elliott is an advocate for the “one-license solution” proposed in Bill C-393, explaining how it would work.

“You instead give the generic manufacturer a license that’s not limited to supplying one country but is actually authorization to supply multiple countries already named in the legislation; and you don’t fix the quantity ahead of time, because obviously you need to actually discuss with those countries what their needs are and those needs will change over time,” says Elliott.

Critics of reform, including Montreal-area Liberal MP Bernard Patry, argue that changes proposed in Bill C-393 would stifle innovation and remove incentives for research and development in Canada.

“Recognizing intellectual property rights is crucial for the future discovery of drugs that will save lives,” said Patry in the House of Commons in November 2009, during the bill’s second reading.

“If we do not protect intellectual property rights, we will deprive ourselves of key research, not only in the pharmaceutical sector but in all sectors driven by research,” he said.

As Elliott explains, generic medications manufactured under CAMR can only be exported to a limited list of low-income countries, pre-determined by the WTO.

“CAMR excludes export to all of the countries that account for the vast majority of the profits made by the brand-name pharmaceutical industry,” says Elliott.

“In doing this [reforming CAMR], there is nothing that would in any way undermine the ongoing presence of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry in Canada, in Quebec, so he’s barking up the wrong tree.”

Garneau has repeatedly voiced concerns that reforming CAMR will do little to actually improve access to medicines.

“The reasons why CAMR does not work as we had hoped have to do with real problems in the field, in the countries that need these medicines,” he said in the House of Commons during debate on C-393.

“They have to do with access to properly trained medical staff. ... In short, they have to do with poverty.”

Elliott says that alleviating poverty and reforming CAMR are not mutually exclusive.

“We know from experience that having compulsory licensing regimes that work, and the competition by generics that they enable, is what brings the prices of medicines down for developing countries. ... If you can actually make the medicines affordable, then whatever resources you mobilize to actually buy the medicines will go that much further,” he says.

Kiddell-Munroe agrees. “You cannot have doctors and nurses in beautifully pristine clinics in the middle of Africa and they’ve got no drugs in their pharmacy,” she says. “It’s not one or the other. It's both.”

Garneau’s office did not respond to The Dominion’s request for a comment.

Nikki Bozinoff is a Montreal-based writer, agitator and health-enthusiast.

Fenced In Pharmaceuticals

Students calling for CAMR reform outside MP Marc Garneau's office

World Cup Knock-Out

Moira Peters — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:49:19 +0000

South Africa to score big public debt in 2010

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki wrote in his country’s 2004 bid to host the 2010 World Cup: “We want to ensure that one day, historians will reflect upon the 2010 World Cup as a moment when Africa stood tall and resolutely turned the tide on poverty and conflict.” Contrary to Mbeki’s professed aim of unity and economic development, it seems the legacy of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be limited to a handful of multinational and national corporations making massive profits on the backs of a reserve army of labour and through the generation of massive public debt.

VANCOUVER—While Canadian protesters throughout the 2010 Winter Olympic Games organized around the call, “Homes, Not Games!”, the same slogan could be shouted at the opposite end of the world, where this year South Africa will also be hosting a sport mega-event: the 2010 soccer World Cup.

In South Africa, over 13 per cent of the population lives in makeshift housing. In 2008—the year the food, energy, and financial crises simultaneously rocked the country—the rates of makeshift housing rose.

Twenty-nine per cent of the population of South Africa cannot afford to pay for water and almost eight per cent of households use bucket toilets, an apartheid leftover that successive democratic national governments have both pledged and failed to eradicate as an issue of immediate concern. According to Eddie Cottle, Coordinator of the Campaign for Decent Work Toward and Beyond 2010 in South Africa, the amount of South African public money being spent by the government on World Cup preparations “is equivalent to the amount the state spent on housing delivery over a ten-year period.”

Around the globe, the rhetoric employed by government leaders to exalt the potential of sport mega-events bears striking similarities. On October 30, 2009, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell announced at the Olympic Torch Relay Celebration that “the Olympics bring us together.” In South Africa, the government has announced that the World Cup is an unprecedented “unique opportunity” to build “unity and pride amongst South Africans.” Not only do South African government leaders present the World Cup as an opportunity to unite South Africans but also to unite and develop the African continent as a whole and “celebrate Africa’s humanity.”

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon stated the South African World Cup is a “time to present a different story of the African continent, a story of peace, democracy and investment.” His statement was met by a unanimous resolution passed in the UN General Assembly to endorse the World Cup in South Africa as a “platform for social development and peace across the African continent.”

Are these mega-sporting events really opportunities to bridge divides and build unity amongst citizens within and across nations?

For a country like South Africa, which is not only adjusting to globalization, but also dealing with massive socio-economic inequalities and ideological differences around issues of gender, race, class, and culture produced by the combined legacy of colonialism and apartheid, what impact can South Africa expect from hosting the World Cup?

As Cottle points out, the costs of sport mega-event infrastructure, such as stadia, are substantially higher in countries of the Global South than countries of the Global North, where the infrastructure to host these events is already in place. On its World Cup in 1994, the US spent less than US $30 million (US $50 million today). France spent less than US $500 million in 1998, and South Korea spent US $2 billion in 2002. The South African government will be spending at least US $4.1 billion by the end of the World Cup. Since 2004, when South Africa won the bid to host the World Cup, the cost to the South African public of building the stadia (and the necessary electricity, communications, roads, parking, water and sanitation infrastructure) to host the event—the most expensive item in the public’s World Cup expenditure—increased by over 750 per cent from the original budget.

Danny Jordaan, CEO of the South African World Cup Local Organizing Committee, claims the benefits of spending this $4.1 billion in public money will trickle down to South Africans through job creation and the development of public infrastructure.

While World Cup construction has created 22,000 jobs, 70-80 per cent of these jobs are subcontracted positions typically lasting three months. Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) research uncovered construction workers working for as little as US $1 per hour. The net wages of an average construction worker in 2008 was approximately US $2 per hour.

As Maytome Tachi, a construction worker at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg notes: “the World Cup creates jobs, but not better working conditions.” Two construction workers have lost their lives at World Cup construction sites. Workers at one of the hallmark sites, Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, embarked on an 11-day strike in 2007 in part due to unsafe working conditions.

The Durban strike was not unique. Throughout South Africa, World Cup stadia have been plagued not only by poor working conditions; they have also been sites of resistance for workers and their organizations, who have organized 26 strikes throughout the country since World Cup construction began. In July 2009, 70,000 workers embarked on a national strike—the first of its kind in a fragmented sector represented by different labour organizations—to demand a 13 per cent wage increase. In the end, because of inflation rates of 10-15 per cent, the subsequent agreement of 12 per cent did not amount to a substantial increase, let alone a living wage for the average construction worker.

If workers on World Cup projects are struggling to make a living and taxpayers are footing the cost of an ever-expanding bill, who is benefiting from this massive public expenditure?

According to BWI, “construction company annual reports for 2009 indicate mega-profits being made despite the downturn taking place internationally and in the local economy.” The largest South African construction companies report before-tax profits of 58 to 142 per cent. The average CEO of such a company contracted for the World Cup earns around 245 times the income of the average construction worker.

Whereas South African construction companies have been forced to address workers’ demands to a certain extent, as Cottle notes, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is guaranteed to make money, regardless of what happens in labour disputes. Thus, the biggest winner from South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup appears not to be a South African business or shareholder, but FIFA. The South African government passed legislation in 2006 treating FIFA and its subsidiaries “as diplomatic missions” and thereby creating a “tax-free bubble” around all their economic activities. With its tax-exempt status and before the World Cup has even begun, FIFA has already reported profits of US $3.2 billion from the 2010 World Cup– the largest profit it has ever made in pre-Cup economic activities.

While FIFA repatriates record profits from the World Cup, construction companies have secured the largest international venue to showcase their world-class stadia and thereby future opportunities for expansion. The South African public, however, will be left footing the bill for World Cup-related costs incurred even after 2010. According to Cottle, there is no way the stadia will generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining. The costs of sustaining them will therefore be offloaded onto municipalities, many of which are already cash-strapped and resorting to increasing fees for public services such as water and electricity.

As a result of its World Cup expenditures and its loss in revenue due to the world economic crisis, the South African government recently announced it is entering into deficit spending and will be borrowing over US $1 billion from international financial institutions. Meanwhile, predicting that World Cup-related travel will not reach the levels originally anticipated, FIFA’s official accommodation agent recently relinquished its rights to around half a million bed nights it had reserved at local hotels. South African corporate analysts then warned that the once-projected massive boost to the South African economy from the World Cup will be “muted.”

As public resources are diverted toward select national and transnational corporations that are profiting from the World Cup being hosted in South Africa, the very same South African public that will be indebted because of the event has had to be mobilized in support of it. Government and big business secured public support for the World Cup by promising that public revenue generated from the event would far exceed the costs of hosting it, and that over 500,000 jobs would be created. To guarantee this continued support, the South African government has spent over US$2.5 million in events to “mobilize communities and create awareness and enthusiasm for the World Cup.” And while the government mobilizes communities in the name of nation-building and “psychological readiness” for the event, it is spending close to US$100 million in security equipment and deploying a dedicated police force of 41,000 officers to contain the same public during the event.

Thus, while the government states it will “leave nothing to chance in securing the event,” it leaves the security of its citizens to chance as it bequeaths them with debt, and millions remain in need of stable housing, water, sanitation, and safe, secure jobs.

On opposite sides of the globe, 2010 in both Canada and South Africa has shown that hosting mega-sport events is actually widening the gap between rich and poor in host countries. The unifying potential of sport is ideologically employed, obscuring class tensions that these mega events in fact reproduce and exacerbate.

Rachel Elfenbein is a PhD student at SFU and Chair of the Teaching Support Staff Union. Before moving to Canada, she conducted popular education and research with civil society organizations in southern Africa. An original version of this article was published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

SAfrica World Cup