The Dominion - Tracy Glynn

Who Pays When Your Well is Sucked Dry and Your Home is Contaminated?

Tim McSorley — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 11:25:10 +0000

Supreme Court denies Port Colborne class action victory, squashes hopes for communities affected by industry across Canada for compensation in the courts

PENOBSQUIS, NB—Wilf Pearson was a jovial but straight-shooting retired truck driver who painted Christmas murals on downtown business windows in the small city of Port Colborne, ON, on Lake Erie. Pearson, like many others who lived on Rodney Street in the shadow of a nickel refinery, felt the city's largest employer, the refinery, was responsible for contamination and sickness in his working-class neighbourhood and surrounding farmlands. He didn’t live, though, to see the day that the Supreme Court of Canada denied his community a hearing on the matter.

Pearson, the original claimant on a historic class action lawsuit filed over 10 years ago, died in March of this year at the age of 80. Pearson and the other claimants on the suit made the difficult decision of going after Inco for only the devaluation of their properties—and not a list of other impacts they connected to the refinery (such as sickness) because of legal advice on how the courts work. In their class action suit, Port Colborne residents claimed that their property values were diminished by the nickel emitted from Inco's refinery over a 66-year period prior to 1985.

On July 6, 2010, Ontario Supreme Court Justice JR Henderson sided with the residents and awarded $36 million to 7,000 Port Colborne households, including Pearson's, in what was Canada's largest environmental class action lawsuit award. Households in the Rodney Street area, the location of the refinery, were each awarded $23,000. In their appeal, Vale, formerly Inco, questioned whether the trial judge had erred on different accounts, including whether the nickel discharge by Inco onto the property of the claimants had actually constituted an actionable nuisance. In April, the Supreme Court of Canada sided with Vale and ruled that the claimants had failed to establish Vale’s liability.

Diana Wiggins, a mother who pulled her son out of a Port Colborne elementary school in 2001 because she suspected that it was making her son sick, says she is not surprised by the court ruling given that three of the judges on the case had recently been appointed by the Harper government. "Harper won't be happy until this country has third-world standards," says Wiggins.

Beth Norrad argues that her farming community of Penobsquis, New Brunswick, has been living under similar standards for years. Norrad's house was one of the first to lose its artesian spring water in 1999. Hers and her neighbours’ wells went completely dry in 2004. Their homes are situated directly above the potash mine workings. Norrad and others in Penobsquis have been watching the Port Colborne lawsuit closely and thinking about what it could mean for their community's pursuit for compensation for devalued property.

Beth Nixon, spokesperson for the Concerned Citizens of Penobsquis and mother of four children under the age of 12, says that 60 wells in Penobsquis were lost at the same time that PotashCorp and Corridor Resources Inc were conducting rounds of seismic testing. Penobsquis residents reported hearing and seeing the seismic blasts, noticing dirty water or total loss of water not long afterwards. Seismic testing is occurring in different places in New Brunswick in the hunt for shale gas.

Penobsquis residents have expressed their frustrations of feeling abandoned by the provincial government. Chris Bell, a Penobsquis woman who lost her well water in 2006, attended an open house on natural gas in nearby Sussex in January 2011 to voice her opposition to shale gas and fracking to then Environment Minister Margaret-Ann Blaney.

"Blaney said to me: 'You people in Penobsquis are just so angry.'" Bell says she was shocked by the comment. "I responded with: ‘Don't you think I have the right to be angry? I have lived here for years without water. I have been manipulated, lied to and no one seems to care—especially the government.’" In May, Blaney, then Energy Minister, resigned from politics to accept an appointment as the Chief Executive Officer of Efficiency New Brunswick, a position that many including opposition parties say is a patronage appointment.

The Concerned Citizens of Penobsquis are taking their case to the Mining Commissioner, a public mechanism set up to deal with grievances related to mining in New Brunswick. They are asking for compensation for a long list of impacts they say are caused by potash mining including the loss of 60 water wells, plunging property values, the sinking of land that is damaging their homes, dust, noise and light pollution, and stress. The hearings before the Mining Commissioner, which started in the spring of 2011, are ongoing in Sussex. Regularly found at the hearings are supporters of Penobsquis from across the province. Rallies are occasionally organized outside the hearings to draw attention to the problems in Penobsquis and to protest against shale gas development and fracking, which has also occurred in the rural community. The Alward government has rejected calls for a moratorium or a ban on shale gas. The anti-shale gas alliance in New Brunswick includes more than 40 organizations, most of them community-based.

Natural Resources Minister Bruce Northrup, who represents Penobsquis and Sussex in the provincial legislative assembly, said in May during the release of a discussion paper on regulating shale gas that there have been no issues with seismic testing in the province in the past year. Heather Whalen, an organizer against shale gas from Durham Bridge, near Fredericton, disagrees with Northrup's claim.

"We ended up with dirty water after seismic testing for shale gas. We had to remediate the water ourselves by shocking it and then they tested again and it was clean. There was no proof it was from seismic testing but our water was fine when we bought the house a few weeks before," says Whalen. Whalen says that seismic testing in her neighbourhood has brought truck traffic, noise and dust to her back-country roads. "We moved here for peace and quiet. I had many sleepless nights due to stress of feeling like we were under attack, watching for them everywhere, having security parked at the end of our road, just a few metres up from my driveway."

New Brunswick was recently ranked as the top jurisdiction to mine anywhere in the world by mining companies in an annual survey published by the Fraser Institute. But mining has left Beth Norrad and other residents of Penobsquis, about a two hour drive from Fredericton, wanting to pack up and leave their communities forever.

“Residents of Penobsquis and of New Brunswick deserve better. We deserve a government that looks out for our communities. Instead, the burden of proof and the costs to prove anything rests on us,” says Nixon. Nixon says it is emotionally draining to watch her neighbours testify—many of them elderly, some in tears, their voices trembling.

The shale gas industry took a hit in May when the Royal Planning District Commission reported that New Brunswick's groundwater from the Bay of Fundy to Grand Lake is vulnerable to contamination. "This study is the only case of mapping of aquifers done in recent memory in the province of New Brunswick. We need groundwater mapping in order to assess future developments. They did this study not only for planning, but also because of the Penobsquis situation and the threats from the proposed Salt Springs gas storage, fracking and the proposed Millstream mine. We should be insisting that all planning commissions undertake studies like this around the province. This is one government body that is actually standing up and working for its residents," says Nixon.

For standing up to big industry in their communities, Diana Wiggins, Beth Nixon, Beth Norrad and many others have been labelled and are the object of looks and comments that make them feel uneasy. But they've also been recognized and celebrated for their efforts by different organizations and their neighbours, some who quietly support them but are afraid to do so publicly out of fear of losing their jobs, among other reasons.

"I know I will not stop until justice has been served," said Wiggins, contemplating the next course of action to take in the wake of the disappointing Supreme Court ruling. Wiggins, who originally called the Canadian Environmental Law Association, setting the lawsuit in motion, says her fight is not over. She says Port Colborne residents are contemplating filing individual lawsuits that will extend beyond asking for compensation for devalued properties, and will include health, environmental and other impacts.

"In Canada, one can appreciate the importance of jobs in the resource sector. If health and environmental issues in particular are not addressed by government, and legal processes don't allow for compensation, then there is no deterrent for companies. And communities like Penobsquis and Port Colborne will suffer the consequences," says Nixon.

A civil disobedience workshop was held on Saint Mary's First Nation on May 26. Many people who actively oppose shale gas are new to activism. They are quickly learning that the government and the courts are not there to protect them and that they need to take bold and decisive action that defies the current legislative and court frameworks to protect their families, communities and the entire planet from the devastating impacts of fossil fuel extraction.

Heather Whalen says that the prospects of shale gas development in New Brunswick has had one positive side-effect. "It has made some people who never fought anything in their life stand up and fight for what they believe in."

Tracy Glynn is an environmental activist in New Brunswick and a contributor to the New Brunswick Media Co-op.

PotashCorp

Beth Nixon

Occupons Edmundston

hillarybain — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:10:10 +0000

Edmundston workers, pensioners and students have many reasons to occupy

EDMUNDSTON, NB—The Occupy movement has spread to the small, francophone city of Edmundston, in northern New Brunswick. Occupations of public spaces have been ongoing since October 15 in cities across North America, but many smaller cities and towns have now joined in.

Around 50 people, mostly students but also workers and retirees, demonstrated in front of Edmundston City Hall on October 29.

"I'm here today because of social and economic inequality," said Nicole Ouellet, a caregiver for the elderly who is making the same salary today in Edmundston that she made 30 years ago in Montreal. "Food prices are going up all the time but not our salaries," remarked Ouellet.

At an age when she should be planning her retirement and enjoying time with her grandchildren, Ouellet has gone back to work in caregiving, a sector traditionally dominated by women that is today considered underpaid by pay equity advocates. Caregivers like Ouellet and her male co-worker, who also participated in Occupons Edmundston, would benefit from long-awaited pay equity legislation in the province. Pay equity is equal pay for work of equal or comparable value. Skill, responsibility, effort and working conditions are factors long ignored in jobs predominately done by women.

"My husband must work in Alberta. One of our kids is forced to work outside the province. We wish we could live near our kids so that we could get to know our grandkids," said Ouellet.

France Ritchie, a friend of Ouellet's, said, "They take $30 away from the poor all the time instead of ending the war. I'm old enough so it doesn't affect me to protest. A lot of people are afraid to lose their jobs or their reputation and that's why they're not out in the streets. We're here to support the people occupying Wall Street. We will not take it anymore. It started in Egypt. I knew it was only a matter of time before it spread here."

André Charest, who came out because his 15-year-old son, Emmanuel, felt it important to attend, said, "I'm against the model we have. The majority pays while a minority puts it in their pockets." The father and son held signs that conveyed this message. They were greeted with many honks of support from passing motorists. "I may be young but I'm going to feel the consequences," said Emmanuel.

The majority of the people who participated in the Occupons Edmundston protest were students from the Edmundston campus of Université de Moncton. They sang protest songs that warmed the crowd during what was a chilly October afternoon.

Two targets of protest have appeared at most Occupy sites: one being corporate greed and the banks, with the other being the system, namely capitalism. Opponents of the latter target argue that equality will not result from tweaking the system, regulating the banks or policy reform. They point out that the oppression of workers and crises are inherent to capitalism. The latest crisis, its effect on workers, and now the Occupy movement have created opportunities to question capitalism and discuss another form of economic and social relations where in which every worker is able to control their lives and realize their full potential, dreams and capacities.

"I'm here to protest against capitalism," said Sebastien Levesque, one of the university students studying philosophy, politics and history. "It's an important contemporary problem. The system is destroying everything including the environment." Étienne Rousseau, another university student, who held a sign with the popular Occupy slogan, "Capitalism isn't broken, it was built that way," agreed with Levesque. "I hate the system. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. It's expensive to study right now. We are the next generation. We have to do something," said Rousseau.

Dominic Duval, an arts and social sciences student, organized Occupons Edmundston after waiting for someone to organize it and no one did. "The Occupy movement has spread to over 80 countries and 1,600 cities. It is important for Edmundston to do its part. We don't want to promote the status quo. We want change. We need change," said Duval.

Nicole Ouellet said the Fraser Papers' pensioners in Edmundston who lost about 35 per cent of the benefits in their pensions are part of their movement. When Fraser Papers received protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in 2009, Brookfield Asset Management, its controlling shareholder, sold part of the company to itself and divested itself of pension obligations for all their pensioners and current workers.

Brookfield Asset Management, with former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna on its board, came under fire recently at the original Occupy Wall Street location for threatening to evict Occupy participants in Zucotti Park. Brookfield owns Zucotti Park. The company had called for protesters to be removed so that it could clean the park, but its efforts were unsuccessful and the occupation continues.

Like Nicole Ouellet, some of the pensioners have been forced to return to work to pay the bills. In an open letter published October 27, Jacques Sarlabous, a Fraser Papers' mill pensioner, said he sent 134 resumes over a five month period and got three part-time jobs at minimum wage. Sarlabous said he had to take the jobs because he and his wife suffer from serious health conditions that require costly medications.

Sarlabous wrote, "I worked at the Fraser Papers' mill in Edmundston, New Brunswick, for 36 years. On each pay cheque, I contributed a portion of my wages to the pension fund, which I believed would be a guaranteed investment. In 2009, with talks of a potential bankruptcy at Fraser, I decided to withdraw my pension plan with the aim of securing my assets. I signed documents and withdrew the first pension payment that I was entitled to. Unfortunately, I was able to benefit from my full pension for only three months. Having given 36 years of my life to Fraser Papers, I got a full pension for three months. In other words, one month of pension for every 10 years of service!"

Edmundston pensioners were among the first to participate in Occupy actions in Canada. Organized as the Victims of Brookfield Association, with a membership of 800 retirees, four Edmundston pensioners and two Thurso, Quebec, pensioners participated in Occupy Toronto and demonstrated in front of the Toronto offices of Brookfield Asset Management on October 15. They shared their stories of losing their hard-earned pensions.

It's not the first time that the pensioners occupied Brookfield Asset Management's head offices in Toronto. On January 2010, union leader Gaétan Ménard and Fraser Papers’ pensioners occupied the company's office. According to the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers' Union, the union representing the pensioners and workers, Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt was “not concerned” that pensioners could lose 40 per cent of their pensions as a result of the company’s restructuring plan. A year later, the pensioners and union leaders occupied the office again in an attempt to have the company reinstate the workers' pensions. The workers were escorted out of the office both times.

"Why the Occupy movement? Because too many laws in this country are about protecting big corporations, not workers," wrote Sarlabous.

Tracy Glynn gets to bash capitalism as a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick. She does reporting for the New Brunswick Media Co-op, where this article was originally posted.

Occupy Edmonston

Occupy Edmonston 2

Canada’s Largest Environmental Lawsuit a Victory

Moira Peters — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:08:59 +0000

Ontario court rules Vale must pay $36 M to Port Colborne residents

FREDERICTON—Almost 10 years after Wilfred Pearson, a retired truck driver from Port Colborne, Ontario, signed his name as the lead plaintiff to the largest environmental class action lawsuit filed in Canadian history, the verdict is in—and it is in his favour.

Port Colborne residents claim that their property values were diminished by the levels of nickel emitted from Inco's refinery. On July 6, 2010, Ontario Supreme Court Justice J.R. Henderson sided with the residents and awarded more than 7,000 households in Port Colborne a total of $36 million. Households in the Rodney Street area, in the shadow of the nickel refinery, were each awarded $23,000 while those living on the east side of Port Colborne were each awarded $9,000, and the west side, $2,500. Vale (formerly Inco) has said the company will appeal.

"It has been a very long 10 years. People said to me the day we launched this lawsuit that you can't fight large corporations and expect to win. They were wrong. I hope this court victory shows people can stand up and fight for justice," said Diana Wiggins, who originally called the Canadian Environmental Law Association, setting the lawsuit in motion.

The lawsuit’s initial defendants included Inco, the Ontario Ministry of Health, the Ontario Ministry of Environment, the Niagara Regional Health Department, the Niagara District School Board, the Niagara Catholic School Board and the City of Port Colborne.

In February 2001, Pearson was the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit of 8,000 plaintiffs who originally sought $750 million in damages to health, property value and quality of life. Although that suit failed in 2002 to be certified, it was subsequently modified to focus on devaluation of property. The suit was certified on November 18, 2005. The plaintiffs settled out of court with all defendants except Inco. In late June 2006, Inco’s efforts to stop the class-action lawsuit were dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada. The lawsuit that resulted in the July 6 verdict went to trial in October 2009.

Eric Gillespie, the lawyer representing the Port Colborne residents, said, "Our clients are very pleased with the decision. It's a very significant award and it's been made to the entire community."

Inco opened the Port Colborne nickel refinery in 1918, cashing in on the post-war demand for nickel. The refinery was a major employer in Port Colborne for decades after; the workforce peaked at about 2000 in the 1950s. The nickel refinery stopped refining nickel in 1984. Today, fewer than 200 people work at the plant that refines cobalt and other precious metals.

Wiggins and Ellen Smith, two Port Colborne mothers, founded Neighbours Helping Neighbours in 2001 to tackle the nickel contamination problem in their city. Smith became the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit when Pearson's health problems became too severe for him to continue.

Inco became one of the main landowners in the area in what many believed was an apparent attempt to buy contamination concerns, beginning in the 1960s. Some properties along Rodney Street, deemed to be the most contaminated, were remediated by Inco.

Residents feel that the Inco refinery is responsible for the heavy metal contamination of their soils, and Inco has admitted to contamination by nickel, copper, cobalt and arsenic. An estimated 20,000 tonnes of nickel oxide, a carcinogen, was spread over the Port Colborne area during the refinery's operation. In some areas of Port Colborne, nickel exceeds 20,000 parts per million (ppm). Ontario's Ministry of the Environment considers the safe upper threshold for nickel in residential soils to be 200 ppm.

Wiggins became aware of the extent of the contamination after talking to a friend who had been hired by Inco to pump out contaminated soil. Contaminants were said to be escaping into the ground water and wells. For decades, Inco had been dumping electrolyte nickel or "green liquor" into an aquifer below the Rodney Street neighbourhood. Over time, a fracture developed in the bedrock. By 2000, this "green liquor" was seeping into Lake Erie and surrounding areas.

Wiggins introduced herself to Smith after reading a story about her fears of property contamination in the local Tribune. In June 2000, Smith and her partner Craig Edwards requested that the Ministry of Environment test the soil on their Rodney Street area property. Smith and Edwards were astounded by the results. Their property contained between 14,000 and 16,000 ppm nickel, and over 600 ppm lead.

Smith, who is now the mother of two teenagers, wrote in 2003, "I have enjoyed watching my children play with their trucks and cars, making roads and bridges in the dirt. I thought that some day they might wish to become engineers. We have had numerous rounds of baseball, catch or Frisbee in the backyard. We spent warm summer days at the ballpark. Now the children's play areas are restricted. The ballpark is chained shut. They can't explore their world without barriers. They can't even enjoy the surroundings of their own home. They can no longer be the children they were."

Smith and Edwards paid off their home and property only to later find out their soil was contaminated. Smith said, "How can we sell this house and property to another starting family when we know what lurks beneath the ground and in the walls? As a mother watching her young children grow, I am sickened and at a loss for words to explain the feeling of not knowing what the future holds for my children. As a Port Colborne resident, I feel personally violated by those we trusted to protect our environment and our health and safety."

Wiggins recalls the moment in the year of 2000 that sprang her into action. "My son would come home from school quite often complaining of severe sinus headaches and stomach aches. He also had rashes on his body. At the beginning of these ailments, I did not suspect there was an environmental problem. I had my son tested for nickel in his urine. But when I went to my son's pediatrician for the test results, he was elusive. The doctor wouldn't look me in the eye, stood with his back to me and stated that he 'wasn't allowed to discuss this issue' with me."

Wiggins discovered that Inco had purchased a property and sold it to the Niagara District School Board.

"The original landowners farmed the [property]. It had been said that the lady of this house suffered from a severe skin rash, so severe that it was difficult for her to work on the land. A few years after Inco purchased the land from the couple, the Niagara District School Board acquired it and built Humberstone School," said Wiggins.

Wiggins spoke with various specialists in the environmental and health fields. "As time went on and more information started surfacing, it literally was making me feel sick to my stomach every time I put my son on the bus," said Wiggins.

Wiggins and Smith reluctantly joined the Community-Based Risk Assessment (CBRA) process—a process that was supposed to determine the risks of the refinery contamination and a process to clean up the contamination.

"Getting quite discouraged, I started to attend their meetings in September 2000. As time went by, I became even more discouraged as it was becoming increasingly clear that nothing was going to be done to ensure the safety of the people living with such high levels of contamination," said Wiggins. "I doubted this company-sponsored process. Here we have a known contamination in our city. However, it is still just sitting here for children to play in, people to grow crops in, for us to breathe."

The suppression of a phytotoxicity report from her son's school and soil test results in the Rodney Street area worried Wiggins. She also learned that the Ministry of Environment's office had been holding strategic communication meetings on how to deal with Port Colborne residents and their concerns about environmental contamination.

Smith remembers uncovering documents that demonstrated the government withheld information about the refinery's environmental problems. Reading each page made Smith push harder for the truth and for justice.

Nasal cavity cancers, linked to exposure to nickel oxide, have claimed the lives of several refinery workers, some before they received their first pension cheque. Surviving family members blame the refinery for the loss of their loved ones.

In November 2000, the community was shocked to hear government scientist Al Kuja say, "There's areas where every single household has someone sick, every single family, some member has something—cancers, rashes, leukemia... Personally I think that something is going on."

In early 2001, soil at Humberstone School tested at levels of 1,200 ppm of nickel.

"I spoke with the school representatives, trying to get them to do something to protect the children. At one point, I had a conversation with a Niagara School Board staff member in charge of the safety and wellness of the children. He said, 'If it were me, I would just move my child to another school.' I responded, 'That would be fine for my son... but what about the other 200 children in the school?' It appeared to me that authorities were not explaining to parents what the contamination statistics meant, so how could parents make an informed decision concerning the health risks for their children? There were children with quite severe skin rashes and ongoing headaches and stomach aches."

Wiggins pulled her son from Humberstone School in February 2001 to demand measures be taken to protect the children in the school. The school obliged and a week later her son was back at school with new rules: students were not allowed to play on grass, they had to wash their hands when they came in from the outside, and windows in the school were to to be kept shut when farmers were working on the land. She enrolled her son in a different school in the fall of 2002. The Humberstone School was shut down in 2003 and demolished in 2008.

The women, Pearson and others from Port Colborne have demonstrated outside Inco’s shareholders’ meetings in Toronto, holding signs such as, "Inco Nickel Found In My Kitchen, Attic And Left Lung." One of the more memorable shareholders’ meetings was in 2003 when Port Colborne residents handed out what they called "dirt bags"—bags of their contaminated soil—to Inco shareholders.

Both women monitor Vale’s problems at home and abroad. In 2003, Wiggins motivated others to organize a global day of action against Inco. In October of that year, people around the world demonstrated and held public presentations, film screenings and vigils in Newfoundland, Ontario, Guatemala, Indonesia and Kanaky-New Caledonia in the first global day of action against a Canadian mining company.

Vale, now under Brazilian ownership, has provoked the creation of a network determined to coordinate actions among communities affected by Vale in Brazil and worldwide. Striking Vale workers in Canada recently visited Vale-affected communities in Brazil and Indonesia.

Tracy Glynn sits on the Board of the Dominion/Media Co-op and is an organizer of the New Brunswick Media Co-op. She wrote a masters thesis on the the environmental and health problems of Inco's smelter and mines in Indonesia. She sits on the Board of Mining Watch Canada and is co-editor of the website MinesAndCommunities.org.

Inco Diana and Ellen

Inco Indonesia

Port Colborne's INCO chemical pond

Raising the Flag for Union Rights in Guatemala

Moira Peters — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:54:43 +0000

Bottle distributors trying to unionize face 2-year strike, 2 assassinations

GUATEMALA CITY—Guatemalan bottle distributors fired for trying to organize a union are in their second year of protest, camped out in a tent outside Guatemala's National Palace.

According to Edwin Alvarez Guevara, Secretary General of the Peten Distributors Union (SITRAPETEN), Agua Pura Salvavidas employees wanted fair working conditions so they decided to organize a union in 2007. In response, their employer used classic union-busting tactics: the company temporarily closed the factory, declared bankruptcy, then opened new subsidiary companies.

Thirteen bottle distributor workers filed a union application with the Department of Labour in February 2007. That same day, the Department of Labour notified the company, which immediately fired the 13 workers.

Three days later, the remaining workers decided to strike. Later that day, at about 6:00 pm, the company said they would re-hire the workers. The company then sued the 13 workers for Q400,000 (approximately CAD$52,100) in lost revenue from the one-day strike.

The workers tried six more times to unionize. "We contacted the Minister of Labour to find out the status of our last union application and we were told that the Department meant to tell us that our union application was successful but they said it did not matter now because the company no longer exists," said Alvarez. "They are not supposed to fire workers during a union application but that is what they did. They just changed the name of the company to avoid having to deal with a union."

Alvarez worked as a bottle distributor for Agua Pura Salvavidas for 13 years. He worked an average of 14-15 hours a day in order to meet the quota set by the company. Salvavidas delivery workers are paid on commission. Workers are not paid overtime for double and triple shifts, which occur when the workers are not able to meet their quota.

In February 2009, a judge ruled that the workers be reinstated but an appeal overturned that decision. The workers have taken their case to the Supreme Court of Justice and are currently waiting for its decision. They are worried the outcome will not be in their favour since one of the judges on the Supreme Court is a well-known legal counsel for the country's business elite. The workers have vowed to take their case to the Inter-American Court if they cannot get justice in Guatemala.

SITRAPETEN initially protested the firing of workers by setting up a camp in front of the Salvavidas plant in Guatemala City for four months. Forty-one workers took shifts living under the tent. The workers demanded their reinstatement, a raise in commission, and a just and realistic daily bottle distribution quota.

Because of constant harassment, they moved their tent to the front of the Guatemalan National Palace, where they have been for the past two years. They got a permit to be there but according to Alvarez, Guatemala does not want them outside the National Palace because they are a constant reminder that the State does not protect workers.

Alvarez says the strike is not just about quotas, it is about job security, worker health and safety, and the right to organize a union. SITRAPETEN, whose members are currently under human rights accompaniment, points to two assassinations of their members and numerous death threats from company supervisors and thugs. Of the 638 Agua Pura Salvavidas workers in Guatemala, 114 workers signed up to unionize but many have dropped out due to either fear of the consequences—including assassination—or the company coercing workers to accept severance packages.

The workers are up against the largest purified water distributor in the country, Agua Pura Salvavidas, owned by the powerful Castillo Brothers Corporation. The company has a monopoly over the country's entertainment and food and beverage industries, including the Gallo Brewery.

On December 10—International Human Rights Day—SITRAPETEN's camps were violently cleared for the filming of Mexico's version of "American Idol."

"It is ironic that while Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean was replacing the white rose to commemorate 24 hours of 'peace' in Guatemala inside the country's Constitutional Palace, 150 national civil police agents were outside violently evicting the SITRAPETEN workers from their makeshift homes in the Central Plaza," wrote Jackie McVicar, Breaking the Silence's Guatemala-based coordinator who witnessed the incident.

SITRAPETEN has filed two charges related to the eviction—one against the municipal judge who issued the eviction order and one against the Police Director. SITRAPETEN is arguing that the judge did not have the authority to issue such an eviction order and that the Police Director did not follow proper procedures.

On May 14, Alvarez spoke to a delegation of the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network. The delegation included union representatives from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada as well as university students and professors.

Before coming to Guatemala, the two delegates with the CUPW, Darrell Kelly of Woodstock, NB, and Nicola Boone of Westville, NS, raised money to give to an organization in Guatemala. After learning of the workers' struggle, they decided to give that money to SITRAPETEN.

"As members of CUPW we have a constitutional obligation to support international solidarity movements," said Nicola Boone.

Alvarez said the economic solidarity is important and that the money will be spent on food and maybe transportation to meetings, since many of their organizers have not been able to work since they were fired two years ago.

"I have always said that what is happening here isn't just a blow to our union but a blow to the international labour movement," said Alvarez in a 2008 interview with Upside Down World. "From all sides the labour movement is suffering a number of threats. So, in whatever way possible we are asking for international organizations to help us maintain the struggle."

"Supporting SITRAPETEN is important because an injury to one union is an injury to all unionized workers," said Kelly. "The world is now a global marketplace controlled by corporations seeking the cheapest place to do business. We're all workers struggling for the right to work in a healthy and safe environment with reasonable wages and benefits. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has been supporting international solidarity work for over twenty years...SITRAPETEN is the face of the union struggle in Guatemala and we're proud to support our brothers and sisters in any way we can."

Tracy Glynn sits on the Board of the Dominion/Media Co-op and is an organizer of the New Brunswick Media Co-op. An original version of this article was published by the New Brunswick Media Co-op.

Guate Salvavidas Strike

Cranberry Co-operative Goes Big in Rogersville

Moira Peters — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:07:26 +0000

Ocean Spray to take over 3,400 hectares in New Brunswick

FREDERICTON—Rogersville, a predominately francophone village in southeastern New Brunswick with a population of 1,100 and a greater regional population of 3,500, is set to become North America's largest cranberry-growing farm. In spite of the promise of jobs big agricultural brings, not everyone is supportive of the new cranberry beds.

"Whoever approved this project must not care too much about the environment. This is my opinion,” said Roger Babin, from the neighbouring village of Acadieville. “I've talked to people, some who used to go to this area for pleasure and now they hate to go there for a drive. Seeing what is happening hurts them. Others seem happy that work is being generated. We saw around 30 pieces of machinery working today. Yes, there is work, but at what price?"

Premier Shawn Graham was on hand to break the ground for the operations last June. "This project puts Rogersville on the map as one of Canada's key cranberry growing regions. Having an internationally recognized juice brand such as Ocean Spray choose our province as the location for a potential regional hub demonstrates that New Brunswick is the place to be for business and that we have the expertise to produce world-class agricultural products," said Graham.

Approximately 3,400 hectares of Crown land has been leased to Ocean Spray. The company plans to transform 775 hectares into profitable cranberry beds and expects to employ 100 people. Ocean Spray has invested $8 million in the first phase of the project and plans to invest $90 million over five phases. More than 100 acres have been planted this spring and another 200 acres will be planted in the spring of 2011. The first yield of cranberries is expected in 2012.

The government of New Brunswick granted conditional environmental approval to Ocean Spray to develop the cranberry bog on May 29, 2009. The project will involve withdrawing water from Lac Despres and impounding South Lake, about 20 kilometres west of Rogersville. Ocean Spray is required to monitor pesticide residues, in-stream total suspended sediments, groundwater levels, stream flows, effects to Lac Despres and South Lake and effects to endangered and rare species such as the Southern twayblade. The Southern twayblade, a rare bog orchid, has been found at only six sites in the province.

At the end of the project, Ocean Spray must restore to functional wetlands those areas lost to infill from the project. Babin wonders whether restoration of the wetlands is possible.

"What will happen to the water around the project if pesticides are used? Now there are many jobs, but once the project is running, how many people will be needed to keep it going?" asked Babin.

Babin, a 64-year-old father of seven, grandfather of fifteen and great-grandfather of one, has worked in the woods all his life. Surrounded by woods and encroaching clearcuts, Babin and his neighbours no longer make a living from the forest. Two of Babin's children have worked in Alberta and two of his grandchildren now work in Edmonton.

Babin has seen too many clearcuts in his area. He wants the government to protect the public forest for its watersheds and biodiversity—and he is not alone. A public survey commissioned by the government of New Brunswick in 2008 revealed that respondents in all areas of the province ranked the environment their highest value. The protection of water, air and soil was ranked as the most important forest value by 45 per cent of respondents, and the forest as “a place for a variety of animal and plant life” was ranked second by 38 per cent of respondents. Economic wealth and jobs ranked third by 17 per cent.

Today, Babin is a driving force behind a petition to ban herbicide spraying in public forests in New Brunswick.

****

Ocean Spray, started 75 years ago by three farmers from Massachusetts and New Jersey, is the largest cranberry growers' cooperative, supplying two-thirds of the world's cranberries. The cooperative has been North America's top producer of canned and bottled juice drinks since 1981. Ocean Spray made $1.9 billion in gross sales in 2008.

Ocean Spray growers individually own their bogs while the factories and the brand are collectively owned. To meet global demand for cranberries, the company decided to create a separate investing business from the cooperative. Ocean Spray's search for an ideal growing environment for cranberries led them to the bogs of Rogersville.

Tracy Glynn is an organizer with the New Brunswick Media Co-op (NBMC) and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative. This article was originally published by the NBMC.

cranberry fields

Opposition to Canada-Colombia Free Trade Continues

Tim McSorley — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Protest targets Liberal trade critic over his support for accord

WOLFVILLE, NS—As the controversial Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement proceeds into second reading in the House of Commons, pressure is mounting on the Liberal party, and its international trade critic, to drop its support for the proposed accord.

On Friday, December 4, over 80 people rallied in front of the Wolfville, NS, office of Scott Brison, MP for Kings-Hants. Brison, the Liberal International Trade Critic, was targeted because of his support of Bill C-23—an Act to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA). The rally also came only days after the Conservative government cut funding to a well-known NGO critical of Canadian foreign policy.

Free trade critics say the CCFTA, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), serve the interests of capital. They describe free trade agreements (FTAs) as a mechanism that allows soaring profits and reduced labour costs through the super-exploitation of workers in economically and politically oppressed areas. Labour unions, human rights organizations and church groups across Canada have decried the 38 assassinations of trade unionists in Colombia this year as reason enough to oppose the deal.

Brison sits on the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade. Earlier this year, Brison and the committee “called for a full independent human rights impact assessment of the proposed FTA with Colombia,” said Kathryn Anderson of the Church in Action Committee of the Maritime Conference of the United Church of Canada.

“Brison no longer supports this and his uncritical support for the CCFTA today is beyond the pale,” she says.

Brison made a brief appearance before the rally began, and attempted to physically grab the microphone from Council of Canadians Atlantic Organizer Angela Giles. Brison told the crowd that he would not be staying for the rally and that they could meet him to have a discussion a half an hour later at Acadia University.

Large puppets of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez and paramilitaries mingled with protesters. Demonstrators held white masks with flowing red streamers to represent the victims of Colombia's state-supported armed violence.

Following songs by the Raging Grannies and speeches from representatives of labour unions and church and social justice groups, the crowd marched to Acadia University. Protesters chanted, “Hey Scott, just say No!” as they entered the building and room where Brison was waiting.

Brison asked the crowd if they supported market-based economies, free trade agreements and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“I was deeply disturbed by Mr. Brison's comments. Instead of taking the opportunity to listen to those with in-depth historical knowledge, Mr. Brison insisted on sharing with us a shallow and distorted understanding of the history and present reality in Colombia. It was particularly frustrating to have Mr. Brison read selectively from a UN document without stating the concerns and recommendations of the UN Rapporteur,” said Anderson.

One man in the room told Brison that his support for the CCFTA meant he “support[s] murderers.” Another, Tom Walsh, a Wolfville resident, asked Brison how, as a gay man, he could support the Uribe government that tolerates the organized murder of homosexual and vulnerable people in Colombia.

Colombian mining critic denied visa

The day before the rally, over 90 people attended a panel discussion about Colombia and the CCFTA. While the panel featured a broad range of speakers, one person was notably absent: Jairo Epiayu Fuentes, an Indigenous Wayuu man from Tamaquito, Colombia. Epiayu was scheduled to speak about the imminent eviction of his community for the expansion of the Cerrejon coal mine—the mine that supplies New Brunswick's Belledune coal plant and is on the list of approved suppliers for Nova Scotia Power. His two attempts at receiving a Canadian visa were denied.

Initially he was told that his form was not legible. The second rejection letter claimed the government was unconvinced that he would leave Canada at the end of his visit. "Family ties in Canada and country of residence," "purpose of visit," "limited employment in his country of residence" and “personal assets and current financial status" were listed as factors in the decision to deny his visa.

Although he was denied entry to Canada, the community leader was granted a multiple-entry visa into the United States. The two applications were filed within weeks of each other.

Last September, after a three-day visit to Colombia, Brison stated that “paramilitary groups have been disbanded in Colombia,” and that “to say that paramilitary forces are murdering union leaders today is false.” This stance has been highly disputed. Common Frontiers, a coalition critical of free trade, and which is working to propose alternative economic models, called on Brison for a public apology “to the long suffering Colombian people, and...the families and work colleagues of the murdered trade union leaders.”

James Brittain, author of the upcoming book Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia: The Origin and Direction of the FARC-EP, also disagrees with Brison's proclamations that the Colombian state under President Uribe has curbed corruption and violence and enhanced opportunity and security.

"Like Harper, Brison heralds the free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia as the way to improve living conditions in Colombia. Brison says the CCFTA will help reduce poverty, prevent the resurgence of illegal armed groups and help prevent more Colombians from entering the narco-economy.

"Such ideological pronouncements are interesting because they demonstrate a shocking lack of information... concerning Colombia's economic, political and social conditions. Colombia has participated in formal FTAs for over two decades. Each FTA claims to bring prosperity, development, sustainability and an end to the country's half-century of civil war. However, after a thorough investigation one becomes aware that very different outcomes have arisen as a partial result of liberalized economic policies."

According to Brittain, “War and the extraction of natural resources have led to the internal displacement of 4.6 million Colombians. Coca cultivation and the narcotics trade have increased since the 1980s. Thousands of workers and community leaders have been violently assassinated, arbitrarily disappeared, and/or harassed by state forces and state-supported paramilitaries.

“Brison neglects to address the fact that the Uribe administration is mired in scandal and murder. There are documented allegations and confessions that far-right paramilitary groups and over 100 government and military leaders—including dozens of Uribe's closest political partners, confidantes and family members—have worked closely together to eliminate state antagonists and threats to economic growth. The 'False Positive' program implemented by the current administration saw Colombian soldiers rewarded for murdering innocent civilians and subsequently dressing them as guerrillas. Under Uribe's tenure as president over 700 unionists have been murdered,” says Brittain.

Brittain is a supporter of the campaign to free Colombian activist Liliany Obando. Obando, a human rights leader in Colombia's agricultural sector, traveled throughout Canada in 2005 and then again in 2006, highlighting how millions of women and children have been displaced by land seizures and state-based violence in Colombia. In August 2008, she was charged with "rebellion," separated from her two children and jailed. After repeated delays, and evidence of state forces tampering with files related to her case, Obando's trial finally began November 27 and is scheduled to continue on December 14 and 21. Her children and people involved in her support campaign have received threats.

Canada stops funding group critical of free trade

KAIROS, an ecumenical and social justice-based organization, was told November 30 by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) that the agency would no longer fund the organization. Mary Corkery, KAIROS' executive director, was told KAIROS no longer fits CIDA's funding priorities.

“We are disheartened that this longstanding relationship and decades of support by the Canadian government has been ended,” she said in a press release. “KAIROS and the millions of Canadians we represent through our member churches and organizations do not understand why these cuts have been made.”

CIDA funded KAIROS for the past 35 years. As the November 30 deadline for CIDA to approve KAIROS' funding loomed, KAIROS member churches, its partners and other organizations wrote letters of support to Minister of CIDA Bev Oda requesting she approve the organization's contract which had been sitting on her desk since July. One of those letters of support came from Colombia's Popular Women’s Group (OFP).

Yolanda Becerra Vega, OFP's Director General, immediately wrote to Oda when she learned the news about KAIROS' international programs.

She wrote, "As you know, we work in regions in Colombia where armed conflict has resulted in the denial of women’s basic rights. The economic support from KAIROS and CIDA permits us to implement programs which include legal and health services, community kitchens, and other humanitarian assistance that have saved many lives and given possibilities and opportunities to hundreds of women, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and entire families.”

KAIROS, a vocal critic of FTAs, pointed out in one of their campaign trading cards that 60 per cent of cut flowers in Canada come from Colombia. The roses and carnations are cut by women and children whose bodies are exposed to pesticides long banned in Canada.

CIDA has been criticized in recent years for the kind of financial support it provides to Colombia.

In 2001 and 2002, CIDA’s Colombia branch worked with the University of Calgary-based think tank Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) to streamline Colombia's mining and petroleum regulations. CERI is funded by various government departments and the mining industry. Critics of the new mining laws say Colombia's environmental regulations have been relaxed and the lands of Indigenous people have opened to more exploitation.

The length of company concessions was extended and royalty rates paid to the Colombian government were slashed. Prior to August, 2001, foreign companies paid 10 per cent for coal exports above three million tons per year and a minimum of five per cent for exports below three million tons. After August, 2001, private interests with rights to Colombia's sub-soil paid 0.4 per cent in royalties, no matter the amount of material they extracted.

Earlier this fall, Brison asked Mining Watch Canada at a hearing of the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade whether they could name mining companies guilty of human rights violations in Colombia. Jamie Kneen, Mining Watch's communications coordinator, told Brison that none of the companies could prove they were not complicit.

“We fear that by granting 'most-favoured nation' status to Canadian mining investments, the CCFTA will restrict the ability of the Colombian government to implement the recommendations of the Ombudsman in Colombia with respect to people who have suffered violence, threats, and forced relocation in the areas the mining companies are operating. As well, without—at minimum—undertaking a human rights impact assessment prior to implementing the Agreement, there is no way of excluding the possibility that these investments could be rewarding people who have undertaken systematic violations, and benefiting from those violations,” stated Kneen.

Tracy Glynn is an organizer with the Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative.

CCFTA masks

Scott Brison at CCFTA rally

Sprayed Kedgwick Women Fight Back

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:20:03 +0000

Herbicide use set to increase in New Brunswick

On September 4, people working in the woods of northern New Brunswick, including more than 50 women planting trees, were doused with chemicals from a helicopter spraying the public forest to kill the hardwoods for a softwood plantation.

Betty St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for the group of people who say they were sprayed, says people were told to evacuate the area in Kedgwick because of imminent spraying, but the spraying began before they had the chance to leave. According to St. Pierre, tree planters experienced runny eyes, sore throats and nausea after being sprayed by the herbicide.

Many of the women and men are afraid to speak publicly about the event for fear of losing their jobs. St. Pierre, who scales trees for a living, says someone has to speak up.

“We have had enough. They are scaring people by telling them there will be no work. Meanwhile, they are using us as guinea pigs.” She says that since the incident many people have relayed stories of getting sprayed while fishing or working in the woods.

The frustration is apparent in St. Pierre's voice as she describes the community and surrounding forest.

“A man reported fish kills along a stream here after the last spraying. It is not normal to do that to the forest. We can't prove we are sick because of the spraying but cancer and pesticides have been linked. People are starting to question why do so many people in our community, in northern New Brunswick, have cancer, and rare cancers,” she says.

A new high-tech wind tunnel was unveiled at the Acadia Research Forest near Fredericton on the same day that the news broke across the province that women sprayed in Kedgwick were calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. The HJ Irving-JJC Picot Wind Tunnel will be used to determine the exact location where spraying planes should fly depending on weather and wind.

St. Pierre says her message for the provincial government is to ban all pesticides. St. Pierre and a group of women have held community demonstrations and have collected 5,000 signatures on a petition calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. They plan to present the petition to New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham when the NB Legislature reopens on November 17.

On its website, the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources (DNR) admits it has tried alternatives to spraying herbicides on New Brunswick's public forest but continues to use herbicides because they are cheaper and involve less labour. “Natural Resources has tried clearing the brush using hand tools and brush saws. Cut stems re-sprout the following year, causing severe competition; therefore, these treatments must be repeated often. This raises the cost to over 10 times that of a single application of herbicide.” According to DNR, herbicides are sprayed on approximately 25 per cent of the softwood land cut over each year in the province.

In late January, the province of New Brunswick announced a new plan for the forest that would allow the area of plantations on public lands to increase to 28 per cent. Plantations currently represent 10 per cent of the public forest.

More plantations will mean an increase in herbicide spraying. The increase in plantation area concerns scientists working with the Greater Fundy Ecosystem Research Group. They recommend that plantations not exceed more than 15 per cent of the forest area in order to preserve biodiversity.

St. Pierre points to other regions in Canada that have banned spraying. No herbicides have been sprayed on Quebec's public forest since 2001. Carol Hughes and Glen Thibeault, two NDP MPs in Northern Ontario, are expressing concerns with aerial forest spraying. Hughes is calling for an investigation on the impacts of aerial spraying of glyphosate over forests in northern Ontario.

Over half of the forest in New Brunswick is designated Crown land (public land). This land has never been ceded by its Indigenous people.

Tracy Glynn is the Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative.

Aerial Spraying

Kedgwick - Foresticide cropped

Waste Not, Want Not

dawn — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:59:25 +0000

One company's fight against Newfoundlanders & Kanaks

FREDERICTON, NEW BRUNSWICK–The province of Newfoundland and the archipelago nation of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific seem to have little in common.

New Caledonia, also known as Kanaky after the indigenous Kanaks who inhabit it, is a French colony in the southwest Pacific. Kanaky-New Caledonia separated from Australia some 85 million years ago and is referred to as a Jurassic Park of prehistoric Gondwanan forest, habitat to plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. The New Caledonia Barrier Reef, which surrounds the country, is the largest coral reef and lagoon system in the world. The endangered dugong, a manatee-like marine mammal, makes its home there, and the green sea turtle depends on the reef as a nesting site. The nautilus, a living fossil species, is still found in these waters. Kanaky-New Caledonia’s tropical lagoons and coral reefs are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, identifying it as a site of outstanding natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.

Halfway around the world, on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, Sandy Pond lies about 100 kilometres west of St. John’s. Sandy Pond, a 38-hectare headwater lake near the community of Long Harbour, is the centre of a controversy that is forcing people to pick between employment or the environment. The economically depressed region is hungry for jobs but the toxic legacy of the community's 40-year-old phosphorous plant has environmental concerns at the forefront of many people's minds. Sandy Pond is home to trout, rainbow smelt, and American eel, a species of conservation concern.

****

Vale Inco (formerly Inco, then CVRD Inco) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale. Its nickel mining and metals division is headquartered in Toronto. The merger between CVRD and Inco in 2006 created the world’s second-largest nickel producer. Inco, a Canadian company, dates back to the early 1900s. Dark parts of Inco history include its provision of Canadian-mined nickel to Hitler’s Germany and its dealings with brutal dictatorships in Indonesia and Guatemala. Vale Inco's failure to fulfill human rights requirements had it struck from the FTSE4GOOD index in 2006. The company has been criticized repeatedly for its pollution and its treatment of indigenous communities and workers. Residents of Port Colborne, Ontario, affected by the company’s nickel refinery, are currently suing the company in the largest environmental class action lawsuit in Canadian history.

Today, Vale Inco wants to dump about 400,000 tonnes of waste every year into Sandy Pond as part of a proposal to process Voisey’s Bay nickel at Long Harbour. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, the mining company wants to build a pipeline into the ocean to dispose of mine waste.

****

A 2002 Canadian government decision means that natural bodies of water may be renamed as "tailings impoundment areas." This reclassification is part of the Metal and Mines Effluent Regulations under the Fisheries Act.

Eleven natural water bodies, many of them fish-bearing lakes, are slated to be reclassified as mine-waste disposal sites in the next year or so. Due to legislation protecting lakes and natural water bodies, the practice is not permitted in Quebec, New Brunswick, the United States and many other countries.

Canada is becoming more attractive to mining multinationals because using a lake for waste disposal is cheaper than constructing a tailings pond. Vale Inco estimated that using Sandy Pond would cost $62 million whereas constructing a tailings pond would cost $490 million.

Environment Canada has shortened the time allowed for public input at the national level, making it difficult for Canadians to organize to save their ponds and lakes. Chris Doiron, Chief of the Mining and Minerals Section at Environment Canada, argues that the environmental impact of man-made containment can be larger than the environmental impact of using a lake. Absent from this accounting system, however, is the lost value of a lake ecosystem.

The amended law requires that mining companies proposing to dump waste into fish-bearing lakes and rivers must devise a plan to compensate for loss of fish habitat. Vale Inco plans to compensate for the destruction of Sandy Pond by transferring its fish into two nearby smaller ponds, which will be merged and dammed to contain the water. Concerns have been raised about the impacts on all these water bodies, including the introduction of predatory fish to new habitats.

In June of this year, Newfoundland's Department of the Environment accepted the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Vale Inco to use Sandy Pond as a mine waste disposal site.

The Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW/CAW) who represent Placentia Bay fish harvesters are opposing a plan to dispose 1.6 billion gallons of waste effluent each year into Placentia Bay. Fish harvesters are worried that the proposal will severely harm fish habitat and adversely impact their livelihoods. The proposed processing plant will emit an estimated 555,000 kilograms of chemicals including lead, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid into the air every year, according to the company’s Environmental Impact Statement.

Those who support the use of Sandy Pond as a tailings dump do so for the local employment opportunities. With a current population of 211, down from 522 in 1991, Long Harbour is still reeling from the collapse of the cod fishery and the closure of the phosphorous plant. The mayors of Placentia and Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights have both put their support behind the Vale Inco project, hoping it will revitalize the community’s economy.

****

Many residents in the proposed area grew up in the shadows of radioactive pollution left behind from Erco’s phosphorous plant. Heaps of waste slag near the plant contained uranium and thorium, and were known to emit carcinogenic radon gas. The fisheries were closed down in 1969 after dead cod and herring were reported in the bay. According to Newfoundland and Labrador’s Heritage Website, investigations revealed that the untreated waste caused the fish kills, and that the plant's smokestack emitted fluoride that damaged nearby vegetation. The website noted: “Deformed moose and rabbits were found near the plant. Snowshoe hares were dissected and tested, and high levels of fluoride were found in their bones.”

“Canada should not be providing the mining industry unaccounted subsidies by sacrificing natural water bodies for mine waste disposal," says Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator with Mining Watch Canada. "Destroying Sandy Pond is clearly not sustainable development and it is not even good practice in mine waste disposal, as Vale Inco acknowledges that Sandy Pond will leak waste into groundwater, creating a contaminant plume. Additionally, the pond will require three dams to hold the waste and these dams will have to be maintained in perpetuity."

****

Vale Inco’s Goro mine in Kanaky-New Caledonia is expected to start production at the end of 2008. Since 2001, the Rheebu Nuu Committee, an indigenous group, has been protesting the mine. It has promised to use all available means to stop the construction of a pipeline into their ocean. Rheebu Nuu has already successfully stopped the company from laying its pipe in Kwe West by building a village of traditional homes in the path of the proposed pipeline. In April 2008, hundreds of Rheebu Nuu supporters gathered to set up a totem pole on a sand bank in the lagoon to show their firm opposition to the waste pipe and to challenge the company to meet with them in dialogue.

Inco’s past refusal to speak with indigenous Kanak groups such as the Rheebu Nuu Committee has been responded to with blockades and in one incident, to the alleged destruction of US$10 million worth of equipment. Sixteen members of the Rheebu Nuu group were arrested following this incident in April 2006. The court acquitted six of the accused and gave suspended fines to the remaining 10 in July 2006. Work at the site eventually resumed, with French military police acting as guards at key areas.

The Kanaks have requested that Vale Inco restore the areas it has destroyed by removing its installations and reforesting the area. According to the Rheebu Nuu Committee, critics have been detained by police for several hours and then released without charge. Youths have attacked security installations and vehicles of mine employees. The Rheebu Nuu Committee has also reported that hooded police have been raiding people's homes in the middle of the night and taking people away for arbitrary detentions and beatings.

Indigenous groups have taken to confronting police guards on ocean waters to stop the waste pipe that Vale Inco is trying to lay in a hurry. The defiant actions of the indigenous groups and the growing opposition from the non-indigenous population are all thought to have played a role in the eventual signing of an agreement between the company and indigenous community representatives.

Jacques Boengkih of the indigenous organization Agence Kanak de Developpement Nouvelle-Caledonie reports that indigenous groups, including the Rheebu Nuu Committee and the Kanak traditional authorities, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Vale Inco regarding the Goro Nickel plant. The agreement recognizes the legitimacy and rights of the indigenous people as declared in the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, and lays out terms for inclusive sustainable development structures. The Kanaks are now waiting to see how the national and provincial government authorities respond to the agreement.

Activists in Canada are making the connection between Vale Inco's operations at home and abroad. "Pipelines of waste should not be laid into Sandy Pond, Long Harbour or into the lagoon in Kanaky-New Caledonia,” says Coumans, who works with communities fighting Vale Inco's mining operations in both Kanaky-New Caledonia and Newfoundland.

The fate of the pipeline into the Kanaky-New Caledonia lagoon is awaiting a decision by the Southern Province government. Sandy Pond is slated for destruction in 2009.

Tracy Glynn is the Acadian Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and co-editor of the Mines and Communities website.

New Caledonia Water Protest

New Caledonia Protest

A Woman in a Mine’s World

hillarybain — Thu, 03 May 2007 15:11:24 +0000

National roundtable on mining fails those struggling against Canada’s corporations abroad

The hidden costs of the steel found in our forks, cars and bombs are not easily traceable but are more than tangible for those most affected by steel’s origins. Nickel, a main ingredient found in stainless steel, is all around us. The companies that have controlled the extraction, processing and refining of nickel have been implicated in a multitude of serious human rights abuses and extensive environmental degradation around the world.

Werima Mananta, known by her abbreviated first name Rima, turns 60 years old this year. At an age that many in Canada begin planning their retirement, she has begun a new life back on the land that she and others in the Karonsi’e Dongi Indigenous community say was stolen from them in the midst of a rebellion and resource-grab a half-century ago. Today, Rima and her community are once again being threatened with displacement.

Rima hails from the scenic village of Sorowako on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Historically, Sorowakans were shifting cultivators of various crops and jungle foragers of rattan, bamboo and other forest products. They lived in relative seclusion among mountains surrounded by impassable rivers.

The land where the Karonsi’e Dongi people lived produced such lucrative rice yields that the area was known in the local language as “Lembo Moboo”, the valley where the harvest rotted. The Karonsi’e Dongi would give away surplus rice to those less fortunate in nearby communities.

Rima was ten years old when the 1957 rebellion broke out and her family and community were forced to flee their homes for safer parts of the island. Rima and others in Sorowako rarely talk about this painful part of their past that claimed the lives of many including some of Rima’s family.

When the rebellion ended and it was safe to return in the late sixties and seventies, many came home to find their green roaming hills roaring with the sound of bulldozers and excavators stripping their sacred mountains for nickel. A contract had been signed in 1968 between Indonesian President General Suharto and Inco, a Canadian-owned mining company. Inco took control of huge swaths of land on the island of Sulawesi for the purposes of nickel mining and production.

The Karonsi’e Dongi received little or no compensation for their lost lands and crops. They were not involved in the land negotiations. Local leaders in the Sorowako community were jailed in an apparent demonstration of who was in charge.

The Karonsi’e Dongi people, stripped of their land and livelihoods, asked for assistance and justice from their local government officials. One official’s response is etched in the minds of many Karonsi’e Dongi people today: “It is better to get rid of one community at a time than it is to get rid of Inco.”

Once again, the Karonsi’e Dongi people were forced to flee their land to find a means to support their families. In the 1970s through the end of the 1990s, Rima lived in the nearby city of Palu, where she married and raised three children while working at a church bookstore.

President Suharto was forced from power in 1997 and windows of political freedom opened throughout Indonesia. Abandoned mining land was freed in 2002 along the outskirts of the Inco golf course, once the site of the homes, fruit tree groves and graveyard of the Karonsi’e Dongi people. In 2002, Rima walked away from her job - five years shy of retirement and a pension - to return to Sorowako and take part in the effort to restore, live and work on the land that she says is integral to the survival of her people’s Indigenous identity.

Thirty families, including the families of Rima and her equally vocal sister Naomi, have built huts and planted crops of cassava, corn and other vegetables and fruits on this piece of reclaimed land. Today, they are told that they may have to leave to make way for a world-class hotel to accompany the world-class golf course.

In the past, before the mining operations, Sorowako was a place of about 300 households with fertile land that provided livelihoods for growers of rice, cocoa, cassava, spices and a variety of fruit and vegetables. Three lakes provided transportation, clean drinking water, and habitat for the endemic Butini fish, found nowhere else in the world.

Today, Sorowako, to its disenfranchised population, is a place of hardship, where homes, lands and livelihoods have been taken away. Lack of access to land and overcrowding, due to immigration of people seeking jobs at the mining operation, have led to approximately 1,000 shanties on Lake Matano’s waters. The tectonic Lake Matano, the seventh deepest lake in the world, is now a disposal site for raw sewage and garbage. Its resident butini fish are a threatened species; and the fishes’ disappearing and shrinking teeth and smaller bodies are yet to be explained. Sorowako has become a place where an Indigenous community watches expatriates and local elite play golf on their land.

The turn of the century has been a time of frequent community demonstrations in Sorowako over unresolved land issues and unfulfilled promises of provisions that were supposed to accompany the mine like education, healthcare, electricity and clean water. Today, the Karonsi’e Dongi people continue to live in their huts along the Inco golf course with no secure water supply and no electricity, under the watchful eye of armed security.

In November 2006, Rima travelled across Atlantic Canada to talk to Canadians about her community’s struggle with Inco. The reaction of the audience was telling of a public sympathetic but largely ignorant of the plight of communities around the world affected by Canadian corporations. She commented repeatedly in public presentations and media interviews that her community is becoming an audience to its own extinction . “Our children are not able to go to school because parents cannot afford school fees. To feed our families, we women have planted vegetables and bananas around our huts. We can no longer grow rice because the land has been degraded. In 2003, the police and Inco security threatened to burn our huts because we were on ‘Inco land.’ Some of us were brought to the police station, interrogated and threatened with a three-month jail sentence.”

Rima gave her final speech before returning to Sorowako at a government-organized roundtable on “Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Sector in Developing Countries” in Montreal on November 14, 2006.

When asked what she wants to convey most to Canadians, Rima reiterates four demands, “First, the Canadian government must acknowledge that Canadian mining companies have caused human rights abuses and therefore the government has a responsibility to resolve these abuses. Second, the Canadian government must ensure that Canadian companies abide by the same regulations in Canada at its operations abroad. Third, the Canadian government must ensure that Canadian companies do not intervene on regulations of other countries, like what happened when Inco successfully lobbied the Indonesian government to amend its Forestry Act that previously banned all open-pit mining in protected forests. Finally, the Canadian government must ensure that environments destroyed by Canadian mining companies are restored, and compensation, agreed upon by the communities, is provided to communities that have incurred losses due to Canadian mining companies.”

The roundtable report released in late March 2007 by an advisory group comprised of industry, government and civil society representatives, recommended the adoption of a set of corporate social responsibility standards for Canadian extractive-sector companies operating abroad. The recommended enforcement of these standards is through reporting, compliance and other mechanisms.

At best, the long-anticipated roundtable report is a first step towards binding and enforceable legislation that would rein in mining companies and stop the wave of mining abuses seen today. But while Canadians pat themselves on the back for voluntary guidelines pointing in the right direction, according to local newspapers, the Sorowako community is turning to hostage-taking of Inco workers, road blockades and the occupation of the Inco regional office in a desperate attempt to defend their land.

Werima Mananta

Inco In Indonesia

Reclaiming the Forbidden Forest

hillarybain — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:59:51 +0000

Roundtable discusses community forestry

“Where are the voices of the First Nations, woodlot owners, ecologists and the public at the decision-making level?” asks Andrew Clark. “This governance model is key in getting a forest managed for the net benefit of the communities and not just for a few people.”

Clark, woodlot owner and director of the Carleton-Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board, crowded into Renaissance College in Fredericton with other woodlot owners, First Nations, community forestry proponents and those studying community forestry in New Brunswick and across Canada for the Conservation Council of New Brunswick’s public roundtable on “Reclaiming the Forbidden Forest: The Practice, Challenges and Opportunities of Community Forestry in New Brunswick.”

According to those attending, the current forestry model in New Brunswick is only benefiting a select few. Six multinational corporations currently hold licences over all of New Brunswick’s public forest. Seventy-two per cent of this forest is managed solely for wood production. J.D. Irving, with rights to 26 per cent of all wood originating from this forest, is leading a forestry industry lobby to secure more wood from public land.

David Coon, policy director at the Conservation Council is worried by the corporate control of New Brunswick’s forests. “Communities should have priority access to adjacent resources in order to build their local economy.”

Sarah Teitelbaum, a PhD candidate studying community forestry at the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management at the University of New Brunswick, sees hope in the model of community forestry, which aims to bridge the gap between sustainable livelihoods and healthy forests. She lists the characteristics she uses to define community forestry thusly: “a public forest area; Crown land but also municipal land; managed by the community; more than 50 per cent decision-making by the community; a working forest, with timber harvesting as one of the activities, for the benefit of the community.” Teitelbaum found 116 community forests across Canada that conform to this definition.

Many of these community forests are found in Southern Ontario and Quebec. Teitelbaum also found a vibrant community forestry movement in British Columbia with active community forestry pilot projects.

Teitelbaum’s survey results show that the bulk of community forests are mostly small-scale and relatively young; 74 out of the 116 community forests are five to 10 years old. “From my experience, community forestry is not a simple enterprise. There is room for success but there is also room for failure,” she says. “They have to work under the same market conditions as forest companies, but often they are smaller.”

While New Brunswickers are ineligible for a license to cut wood from public land, private woodlot owners struggle to compete against the public wood cut by private multinationals. “To make a living, we need stable access to markets,” says Clark. “In 1982, a social contract was struck between woodlot owners, the wood-using industries and the government that said private woodlot owners would get first access to markets before Crown wood. In 1992, Frank McKenna betrayed that trust and took away our right to sell wood to the sawmills first.”

Clark proposes changing the licensing system to provide first access to public wood to companies with more employment per cubic-metre harvested. A 'low value, high volume' forestry vacuum has sucked away jobs in the forests of New Brunswick. Community forestry has the potential to turn the tide in New Brunswick with more people employed in the business of diverse forest products of high value, but with a smaller ecological footprint on the forest.

Rural communities in New Brunswick are desperate to revitalize their economies after waves of job losses in traditional sectors such as forestry and fisheries. Dr. Susan Machum, a professor in the Department of Sociology at St. Thomas University and Canada Research Chair in Rural Social Justice, stresses the need for communities to develop a vision for their future. “What kind of rural communities do we want?” she asks. “Do we want them [only] to be places where people sleep? [Because] this seems to be the vision of the Self-Sufficiency Task Force that tells us we need good superhighways to get people out…Or do we want communities where people are both able to live and work?”

The village of McAdam and six other municipalities in southwestern New Brunswick had a vision for the future. Guided by this vision, they developed the St. Croix community forest plan with a 51-member advisory board that included representatives from local government, conservation groups, recreational groups and industry. “That plan was an opportunity for us to make money,” says Frank Carroll, mayor of McAdam. “It was also an opportunity for the province of New Brunswick not to spend any.” The plan did not ask for any capital assets, but only for a $1 million loan guarantee to support the $2 million already committed by the local communities. Despite this, the plan was rejected by the provincial government and now collects dust on the mayor’s shelf.

A recent Supreme Court decision that unanimously upheld the Aboriginal right to log Crown lands for domestic purposes may open the door for a new model of forest management in New Brunswick. “In the upcoming months, I anticipate our community meeting with the government to discuss next steps,” said Brad Paul, a councillor at St. Mary’s First Nation.

Andrea Bear Nicholas, a Maliseet historian and professor in the Department of Native Studies at St. Thomas University notes: “It was ridiculous to win the right to use wood off land we never sold. We really did not win anything. We never took any of these cases to court. We were taken to court.”

Low Impact Forestry

Where Have All The Fishes Gone?

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 22:38:57 +0000

Newfoundland losing lakes to mining waste

The reclassification of the two lakes in Newfoundland marks the first time that Schedule 2 was used to allow a known fish-bearing water body to be used as a tailings impoundment area. photo: Maretarium

The death knell of Trout Pond and an unnamed lake in central Newfoundland's Exploits River headwaters sounded quietly on October 18. The two lakes became the first casualties of Environment Canada's amendment to the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations (MMER)--a regulation under the Fisheries Act--that adds these water bodies to the list under 'Schedule 2.' Schedule 2 allows the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Environment Canada to exempt the companies from the law that protects fish habitat, notably Section 35 and Section 36(3) of the Fisheries Act, which prohibit the harmful alteration or destruction of fish habitat and the deposit of deleterious (toxic or harmful) substances into waters inhabited by fish. Mining companies need only get water bodies added to the Schedule 2 list to legalize the use of natural water bodies as 'tailings impoundment areas' or mine waste disposal sites.

DFO and Environment Canada officials are justifying the amendments by altering nearby areas to create new fish habitat as part of an 'environmental compensation plan.'

The threats of this amendment to Newfoundland's largest watershed, the Exploits River system--one of the most visited natural destinations in the province--has many concerned, including Dr. John Gibson, a former DFO biologist who lives in Newfoundland. Gibson knows the two lakes that have recently been added to Schedule 2 to be used by Aur Resources' Duck Pond copper and zinc mining operation. He notes that, "The two lakes have populations of Atlantic salmon and trout, and associated wildlife, such as beavers, otters, and waterfowl, all of which will be poisoned. The life of the mine is expected to be six years, but the ponds will become toxic waste sites in perpetuity. Over that time, there is a possibility that there will be leakage of copper and zinc, which are toxic to fish, and if the retaining dam breaks there will be massive mortality of salmon down the Exploits River."

Gibson reviewed the mining company's environmental compensation plan and calls it, "totally inadequate and merely an excuse to allow the mine to pollute the two lakes. Trout Pond has effectively been privatized for the mining company to use as a toxic waste dump. The Fisheries Act, previously held in esteem, has been considerably weakened."

The Trout Pond Action Group, a local coalition of concerned individuals and environmental groups from across Newfoundland, contends that Aur Resources, the local Environment Canada Environmental Protection Branch, the Newfoundland Department of Environment and Labour, and the DFO did not fulfill their legal obligations to examine properly alternative mine waste disposal options. The group does not believe that the best option is sacrificing Trout Pond and putting the Exploits River at risk. Exploits River has had $30 million of federal money invested in it to enhance salmon habitat.

Previously, artificial impoundments were the accepted method of disposing of mine waste; critics of the plan worry that mining companies are finding the practice too expensive and have chosen to go back to the old days of dumping waste in natural water bodies. At the Louvicourt copper-zinc mine in Quebec, where Aur Resources is a 30 per cent owner as well as the mine manager, man-made structures hold the mine waste. Aur Resources and Canadian regulatory authorities have called it a viable alternative to the destruction of fresh water bodies.

But Maggie Paquet, a biologist in British Columbia who participated in the revision process of the MMER, says, "We reviewed all the public documents made available to us and could find no evidence that Environment Canada provided any advice to Aur Resources about less-damaging waste disposal technologies at this mine."

Pages 23 to 25 of the project's 2001 Environmental Impact Statement contains 11 lines of text, one map, and one chart based on a Multiple Account Analysis that concludes that the destruction of Trout Pond is the best alternative for mine waste disposal. This conclusion appears not to have been challenged by any of the provincial or federal government reviews of the project's environmental assessment.

Aur Resources bought the majority of the mine property in 2002 and mulled over ways to minimize costs to exploit their small but rich deposit. Aur finally made the decision to go ahead with the current plan in December 2004. What is not known is whether a bond has been posted that is adequate to cover costs of perpetual monitoring of ground and surface waters around the mine and perpetual maintenance of the dams to keep the highly acidic and toxic mine waste from contaminating the Exploits River watershed.

These are just some of the issues that The Trout Pond Action Group say should have been addressed in public consultations. Meagre public consultations regarding this project occurred several years ago and reached few people. They were conducted before mining regulations and standards were amended in 2002. Many affected parties, including residents, recreational fishermen, tourism industry workers and aboriginal groups, were not informed about the potential environmental impacts of this project. Aur Resources did not have to hold new consultations when it took over the mine. Environment Canada employees Chris Doiron and Patrick Finlay of the Mines and Minerals Branch claim they did not become aware of the project's intention to use Trout Pond as a mine waste disposal site until February 2005. There are concerns that the amendment revision process to include Trout Pond and the other lake on Schedule 2 was hastened to accommodate Aur Resources' desire to start operations in 2006.

Trout Pond is not the first natural water body in Canada to be used as a tailings impoundment area. For decades, mining companies dumped waste in a number of water bodies across Canada. But in 2002, changes under the Fisheries Act aimed at restricting the practice were passed.

Schedule 2 was also added to the MMER in 2002. This happened without any wide public consultation. Schedule 2 legalized historic mines' use of lakes--ostensibly, those lakes were non-fish-bearing arctic and alpine lakes--and also allowed new mines to dump waste into fish-bearing waters. The reclassification of the two lakes in Newfoundland marks the first time that Schedule 2 was used to allow a known fish-bearing water body to be used as a tailings impoundment area.

Environment Canada confirms that at least nine other mine projects in British Columbia, Nunavut, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories are seeking similar amendments to use lakes for waste disposal.

Environmental organizations and some First Nations are currently considering legal interventions to do away with Schedule 2 before more mining companies sacrifice freshwater lakes and fish-bearing water bodies.

Activists hope the loss of two lakes in Newfoundland to mining waste isn't the beginning of a new trend. Tracy Glynn learns

"There is Death in them thar' Pits"

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 13:03:55 +0000

Canada's Barrick Gold in Tanzania

Small-scale miners and farmers have lost their land and livelihoods to open pit mining in Tanzania. photo: Mustafa Iroga

Tanzanian environmental lawyer Tundu Lissu wants Canada's Barrick Gold held accountable for abuses perpetrated by the company in Tanzania. He is concerned by the latest rash of violent deaths occurring around the Barrick owned North Mara gold mine.

Local villager Kieva Yohanna was shot five times in the back after having allegedly entered the mine complex illegally on June 1. According to Lissu, his death marks the sixth violent death linked to Barrick's security operatives in less than a year.

In July 2005, police shot and killed Marwa Nyansinge on the grounds of the Nyabigena Primary School. As mine operatives fled the scene of the shooting they struck and killed another villager, Bhoke Maseke, who was holding a child. Marwa Nyansinge was targeted by police for allegedly stealing petroleum from the North Mara Gold mining company, then owned by the Canadian gold mining company Placer Dome and later bought by Barrick.

According to Lissu, the killings represent a shift in Barrick's strategy for dealing with locals critical of its operations.

In 2001, after being forcefully evicted from their homes to make way for the mine, hundreds of villagers, including community leaders and prominent locals, were targeted for illegal arrests, criminal prosecutions and long-term imprisonment. Lissu believes the strategy was intended to frighten community members and discourage resistance to the mine, but notes that it "never quite worked, particularly after we started to offer free legal representation to the villagers targeted."

The latest killings signal a change in tactics for Barrick to what Lissu calls 'naked violence,' but violence in Tanzania's mining industry and Canada's involvement is nothing new.

In the early 1990s, the Tanzanian government turned to Foreign Direct Investment to develop its mining sector. As Tanzania became the largest recipient of FDI in Africa, many Tanzanians' with small-scale mining and farming operations had their livelihoods destroyed through land acquisitions involving bulldozers and paramilitary forces.

"A potentially viable regional economy based on small-scale mining was physically destroyed at the behest of the World Bank and transnationals to make way for large-scale mining," says Jamie Kneen from Mining Watch Canada, "Who benefits? The companies and their shareholders. Not Tanzanians, or at least not the ones whose farms are being destroyed, or whose hand-dug pits were bulldozed, or whose shops no longer have customers."

The Bulyanhulu mine in northern Tanzania, operated by Kahama Mining Corporation is one of the world's most infamous cases of mine-related violence. In August 1996, it is alleged that over fifty artisanal (small-scale) miners were buried alive in a pit by a bulldozer used to construct the mine. The move was seen as a tactic to clear the pits of an estimated 250,000 artisanal miners in the community.

The Bulyanhulu mine was bought three years later by Toronto-based global mining giant Barrick Gold. Barrick and the Tanzanian government both denied allegations of mass murders at Bulyanhulu and accused those leading the charges of lying. Lissu and his organization, Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT), responded with videotapes, eyewitness accounts, family testimonies, and a list identifying 36 men that he says were buried alive.

One of the family testimonies came from Melania Baesi, the mother of two alleged victims, Jonathan and Ernest Lwekamwa. The last time she saw her two sons alive was when they were heading off to work in a small mine pit with a dozen other miners. One of the miners who had left the pit earlier that day to fetch a rope visited Melania Baesi's house that evening to recount what he saw when he returned to the pit from his errand: "Policemen were everywhere and the company's Caterpillar was leveling the pits. They tried to push me back into the pit but I managed to escape and run away into the bushes with sounds of gunfire behind me." When the families went to the pit hoping to rescue their loved ones, they found leveled pits instead.

Lissu and others maintain that the cover-up allowed Barrick to secure US$ 234 million in political risk insurance from the World Bank and Canada's Export Development Corporation. Critics also believe the cover-up may have been aided by Barrick's many influential friends—the company's international advisors have included former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former U.S. president George Bush Sr.

In 2001, many international organizations, including the Council of Canadians, Mining Watch Canada and Amnesty International, called for an independent international investigation into the allegations of mass murder in the Bulyanhulu pit. A number of appeals for such an investigation were made to then Foreign Affairs Ministers; John Manley, Pierre Pettigrew and Bill Graham all rejected the calls for an independent inquiry.

Barrick is now the largest gold mining company in the world, and the Bulyanhulu mine has become one of its most profitable.

Like many mining activists around the world, Lissu has been arrested, charged, and jailed. He was arrested at his residence in Dar es Salaam on December 23, 2002, immediately after returning from the U.S. where he was then a research fellow at the World Resources Institute, and was held for over 24 hours in an underground jail known as "The Hole." Lissu and two colleagues, including the leader of the Tanzanian opposition party, were charged with violating Tanzania's 1976 Newspaper Act No. 3 for "uttering words with seditious intention." The sedition charge stemmed from their persistent claims that artisanal miners were buried alive at Bulyanhulu. The criminal charges of for sedition against Lissu and his colleagues remain to this day, but the prosecutors have yet to kick-start the proceedings. Lissu and his colleagues at LEAT continue to press for justice for small-scale miners despite police intimidation including raids of their homes and offices.

Lissu says Canadians must take action "to support an end to the killings of innocent civilians. We particularly request that our Canadian partners and friends draw public attention to these abuses and help bring Barrick Gold Corporation to account for its actions."

Lissu's latest call comes at a time when a Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is holding roundtable discussions across the country on corporate social responsibility for Canadian mining companies operating overseas. It remains to be seen if these discussions will result in the attention and accountability that Lissu and so many others around the world are seeking.

Tracy Glynn investigates a recent rash of violent deaths around a Tanzanian mine owned by Canada's Barrick Gold.