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Wikileaks reveal British and other Western diplomats target anti-mining activists

Richard — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:11:05 +0000

Further wikileaks reveal an even bigger “conspiracy” than earlier thought, on the part of western diplomats to undermine campaigns against mining in the Americas.

The diplomats – from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa – specifically targeted activists from Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela, but also included several European solidarity and support NGOs.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10740.

Tiara residents suffer from mining contamination, Venezuela

Richard — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:34:50 +0000

“Something is sickening the people of Tiara and their crops”. That’s what the Mines and Communities website reported more than five years ago.

In 2008, a study showed that Anglo American‘s Lomas de Nickel mine in Venezuela was responsible. But still, no adequate medical care has been provided for residents, while basic social services, promised ten years ago, allegedly remain unmet.

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10532.

Conflicts over mining: the illusory boundary between “legal” and “illegal”

Richard — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:33:37 +0000

It’s widely believed that “illegal” mining is only undertaken by small groups of entrepreneurs or artisanal operators. If, and when, the state cracks down on their operations, the culprits are removed (sometimes with considerable violence, as in Brazil and Indonesia) to be replaced by registered and “more responsible” companies. But the reality is often more complex, and the offenders more numerous and difficult to identify. In the recent past, major corporations, such as Anglo American and Rio Tinto, have not been above collaborating with smallscale miners, using them as a point of entry into untapped deposits. More benignly, some others (Barrick-Placer in Venezuela, Benguet in the Philippines) have allowed smallscale miners to occupy their diggings, pending takeover of the worked areas. Even where government and company severely frown on such tie-ups, they may turn an unseeing eye on illegal operations in return for payoffs. (This is something alleged in the case of Freeport-McMoran’s massive Grasberg mine in West Papua).

See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9870.

Indigenous communities in Venezuela seek land rights

Richard — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:09:09 +0000

Chief Sabino Romero is in two minds about Hugo Chávez’s socialist revolution. As the leader of a small native Indian community in the remote and lawless mountains on Venezuela’s northwestern border with Colombia, Mr Romero heartily approves of the president’s apparently pro-indigenous stance. But he despairs at his powerlessness to claim the rights granted to his people during Mr Chávez’s rule. His 12,000-strong Yukpa tribe complains that it is victim to a range of more powerful interests: not just wealthy cattle ranchers, whom they accuse of stealing their land, but drug traffickers, fugitive Colombians linked to guerrilla and paramilitary forces and mul-tinational mining groups – including Anglo American.

See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca53a8a2-4733-11de-923e-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1.