Table Of Contentative Challenges to
ining and Oil Corporations
public libra* /
boston
Square
Copley
MA 021 16
Boston
.
Resource Rebels
Native Challenges to
Mining and
Oil
Corporations
Gedicks
Al
South End Press
MA
Cambridge,
©
Copyright 2001 A1 Gedicks
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First edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gedicks, Al.
Resource rebels native challenges to mining and oil corporations /
:
Al Gedicks.— 1st ed.
cm.
p.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89608-641-0 - ISBN 0-89608-640-2 (pbk.)
1 Indigenous peoples—Land tenure. 2. Mines and mineral
.
resources—Environmental aspects. 3. Conservation of natural resources. 4.
Indigenous peoples—Legal status, laws, etc. 5. Social responsibility of
business. I. Title.
GN449.3 .G43 2001
333.8'517~dc21
MA
South End Press, 7 Brookline Street #1, Cambridge, 02139-4146
www.southendpress.org
05 04 03 02 01 1 2 3 4 5
Contents
Foreword
vi
Introduction
A World Out of Balance 1
Chapter 1
Scouring the Globe 15
.
Chapter 2
Big the Environment and Human Rights 41
Oil,
Chapter 3
West Papua: The Freeport/Rio Campaign 91
Chapter 4
A Multiracial Anti-Mining Movement 127
Chapter 5
Silencing the Voice of the People:
How Mining Companies Subvert Local Opposition 159
Chapter 6
The Military, Trade and Strategies for Sustainability 181
Bibliography 203
Index 225
Nigeria: Ogoni, jaw
1 . I
Colombia: U'wa
2.
3. Ecuador: Quichua, Huaorani, Shuar-Achuar,
Cofan, and Siona-Secoya
4. Philippines: Subanen, Igorot
5. Mexico: Mayans
Guyana: Amerindians
6.
West Papua:Amungme, Komoro
7.
8. Manitoba (Canada): Cree
9. Wisconsin (USA): Chippewa, Potawatomi,
Oneida, Menominee, and Mohican
10. Alaska (USA): Chilkat
Mapby Michael Gallagher
MidwestEducational Graphics
www.MidwestEducationalGraphics.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
Foreword
Despite being the world’s fifth most-capitalized industry,
mining has generated remarkably few well-informed critics.
Among
these, A1 Gedicks has been attracting deserved esteem
for around 25 years. Professor Gedicks’ Center for Alternative
Mining Development Policy was the first ofits kind and its com-
bination ofrigorous social analysis and deep respect for the views
of mining’s putative victims has rarely been improved upon.
There is perhaps no better accolade for his work than the fact
that today’s key corporate players, in alliance with some of their
erstwhile critics, have now started their own “alternative devel-
—
opment initiative” vastly ill-judged though it may be.
Professor Gedicks was among the first to make the critical
connections between the emergence of a late twentieth century
breed of extractive multinational, and the impending sacrifice of
Indigenous Peoples’ rights in mainland USA. These companies
had earlier spread their wings abroad, often to have them soundly
clipped, especially by post-war leftwing governments in the
global South. During the eighties they reconcentrated their capi-
tal back home, trespassing on territory that had been mercifully
free from encroachment. (We may forget that the United States is
the first or second most important source ofmany of the world’s
minerals, as well as their most profligate consumer).
Professor Gedicks graphically mapped this process in his
first book, New Resource Wars, in which he described the dramatic
rise of native-led resistance to reconstructed extractive corpora-
Now
tions, notably Kennecott/RTZ (Rio Tinto) and Exxon. he
Foreword ••
vil
— —
my
has updated and in view improved this original work, bring-
ing his incisive analysis to bear on the consequences ofglobalization,
as it weakens much further the capacities of debt-laden govern-
ments and communities to control or benefit from the mining or up-
grading of their minerals
But this is not a simplistic tale in which exploiters and exploited
are easily identifiable in a medieval morality play. In their confronta-
tions with oil and mining companies, a wide spectrum of native
communities have redefined themselves as actors, rather than pas-
sive victims, and done so on the international stage (And some have
A
also joined the mining industry). brief fifteen years ago, only a
handful of environmental or human rights organizations worldwide
were prioritizing mining as a core issue. Now, every continent (ex-
cept Antarctica) has several such NGO’s.Just in the past 18 months,
new Indigenous-led initiatives have been launched in India, Indone-
sia, the Philippines and western Africa.
In a back-handed acknowledgment ofthis upsurge in resistance,
in 1995 the then-chiefexecutive ofRio Tinto, the world’s most ruth-
less mining company, admitted that some mining companies “are
being naive about how easy it is to operate in someone else’s back
We
yard. [at Rio Tinto] see problems virtually everywhere” These
problems don’t only derive from flat refusals by native peoples to
countenance mining on their territory. Increasingly they are also re-
flected in a growing reluctance by investment institutions and insur-
ers to bankroll projects which might never come on-stream, or end
Ok New
up in costly litigation (as with the Tedi mine in Papua
— —
Guinea and the Grasberg mine in West Papua) or worst ofall hit
global headlines in the shape of an unmitigated disaster. Each year
since 1991, a major mine tailings containment has collapsed some-
where in the world. The latest occurred at the Baie Mare gold mine
in Romania in early 2000, and was characterized by the government
as the “worst environmental disaster” the country had ever faced.
Within the past year, the World Bank for the first time has advised
the closure of an existing mine (Ok Tedi) and Britain’s state-owned
Commonwealth Development Corporation has refused to finance
destructive gold exploits in the Philippines.
Resource Rebels
Vlll
Such reactions are raising alarms throughout an industry that
has historically ridden roughshod over the opposition. Yet the cor-
porate response is far from addressing the key issues raised in Pro-
—
fessor Gedicks’ work notably the legacy of destruction wrought
by mining for which few companies will admit responsibility (there
are half a million un-rehabilitated mine sites in the United States
alone); the vast amounts of compensation which must be found for
existing mine-devastated communities; and the absolute right of
those communities to exercise fully-informed prior consent before a
single sod of their soil is turned.
Instead, the leading mining companies now boast ofpromoting
“sustainable mining development” (an oxymoron, if there ever were
one) and to recuperate their opponents as “stakeholders.” This is a
process clearly designed to wear down resistance to the imposition
of even bigger mines in even more precarious habitats: “We are be-
ing dialogued to death” as one Indigenous Subanen opponent of
mining recently put it in the Philippines. In pursuit of this agenda,
the mining industry has launched a dubious new organization:
Mines, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD).
The companies behind this initiative, led (inevitably) by Rio
Tinto, are among the most damaging in the world. Were they indi-
viduals seeking posts in public office, none of us would give them
the time of day. So far, not one organization critical of mining, nor
any bona fide Indigenous community, has joined up. However, with
MMSD
a multi-million dollar budget to pursue its program, seeks to
present the beguiling face of a reformed sinner.
Reading this engrossing book will continually inform the reader
about the nature of those sins, reminding her or him that they are
being committed even as they read. A1 Gedicks places mineral re-
—
source extraction firmly at the center not ofa technical, economic,
—
or even purely social discourse but an essentially moral one, which
we
sorely need.
Roger Moody
