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Arabica Robusta

Like Water for Gold in El Salvador | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...water-gold-el-salvador

mining news mine gold rare miner environment earth latin america newmont social movements intervention human development rights corporate industry

shared by Arabica Robusta on 17 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • ADES (the Social and Economic Development Association), where local people talked with us late into the night about how they had come to oppose mining. ADES organizer Vidalina Morales acknowledged that “initially, we thought mining was good and it was going to help us out of poverty…through jobs and development.”
  • He talked about watching the river near his farm dry up: “This was very strange, as it had never done this before. So we walked up the river to see why…. And then I found a pump from Pacific Rim that was pumping water for exploratory wells. All of us began to wonder, if they are using this much water in the exploration stage, how much will they use if they actually start mining?”
  • As the anti-mining coalition strengthened with support from leaders in the Catholic Church, small businesses and the general public (a 2007 national poll showed that 62.4 percent opposed mining), tensions within Cabañas grew.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Three people recounted how a Pacific Rim official boasted that cyanide was so safe that the official was willing to drink a glass of a favorite local beverage laced with the chemical. The official, we were told, backed down when community members insisted on authentication of the cyanide. “The company thought we’re just ignorant farmers with big hats who don’t know what we’re doing,” Miguel said. “But they’re the ones who are lying.”
  • Along one wall is the Salvadoran version of the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in this case etched with the names of about 30,000 of the roughly 75,000 killed in the civil war. Thousands of them, including the dozens killed in the Lempa River massacre of 1981, were victims of massacres perpetrated by the US-backed—often US-trained—government forces and the death squads associated with them.
  • Anti-mining sentiment was already so strong in 2009 that both the reigning ARENA president and the successful FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes, came out against mining during the campaign.
  • We pushed further, trying to understand how a technical analysis could decide a matter with such high stakes. On the one hand, we posed to Duarte, gold’s price has skyrocketed from less than $300 an ounce a decade ago to more than $1,500 an ounce today, increasing the temptation in a nation of deep poverty to consider mining. We quoted former Salvadoran finance minister and Pacific Rim economic adviser Manuel Hinds, who said, “Renouncing gold mining would be unjustifiable and globally unprecedented.” On the other hand, we quoted the head of the human rights group and Roundtable member FESPAD, Maria Silvia Guillen: “El Salvador is a small beach with a big river that runs through it. If the river dies, the entire country dies.”
  • While he hoped this process would produce a consensus, Duarte admitted it was more likely the government and the firm would have to lay out “the interests of the majority,” after which the two ministries would then make their policy recommendation.
  • Oscar Luna, a former law professor and fierce defender of human rights—for which he too has received death threats. We asked Luna if he agreed with allegations that the killings in Cabañas were “assassinations organized and protected by economic and social powers.” Luna replied with his own phrasing: “There is still a climate of impunity in this country that we are trying to end.” He is pressing El Salvador’s attorney general to conduct investigations into the “intellectual” authors of the killings.
  • Our interactions in Cabañas and San Salvador left us appreciative of the new democratic space that strong citizen movements and a progressive presidential victory have opened up, yet aware of the fragility and complexities that abound. The government faces an epic decision about mining, amid deep divisions and with institutions of democracy that are still quite young. As Vidalina reminded us when we parted, the “complications” are even greater than what we found in Cabañas or in San Salvador, because even if the ban’s proponents eventually win, “these decisions could still get trumped in Washington.”
  • The brief methodically lays out how Canada-headquartered Pacific Rim first incorporated in the Cayman Islands to escape taxes, then brazenly lobbied Salvadoran officials to shape policies to benefit the firm, and only after that failed, in 2007 reincorporated one of its subsidiaries in the United States to use CAFTA to sue El Salvador.
  • Dozens of human rights, environmental and fair-trade groups across North America, from U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities and the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES) to Oxfam, Public Citizen, Mining Watch and the Institute for Policy Studies, are pressuring Pacific Rim to withdraw the case.
Arabica Robusta

Diigo - macintyre2007_informed-consent_15d.pdf - 0 views

www.diigo.com/pickinjava

porgera gold PapuaNewGuinea

shared by Arabica Robusta on 01 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Nyamnjoh: Introduction – Academic Freedom in African Universities
  • Fair trade often rewards to agri-business
  • Parity, along with food production quotas and environmentally regulated supply management is critical for green new deal
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • Melinda Janki
  • In your important intervention you speak of increasing authoritarianism as a current condition. Should we not be as concerned about newly empowered transnational corporations, debt-driving inter-governmental organizations and hollowed-out states?
  • Is there a recorded inflation rate for gold currency in the interior?  How is gold exchange value determined.
  • Roberto Meza, I am so grateful for your work. How have agribusiness, monocropping and unequal wealth distribution affected your ability to respond to food distribution issues.
  • How do agricultural practices, especially agroecology versus pesticide-intensive GMO agribusiness, relate to issues of food sovereignty, collective support, local control, and race and gender equity?
  • How can we reconcile the very different perspectives of cooperative and corporate farming, each of which have strong advocates? 
  • How might we revisit Fonlon's instruction and the focus on Aristotle, Plato and other imperial, or imperialized, philosophers?
  • recalling the danger of firing squads that have been frequently used against political opponents (note to reader: remember the end of the Grenadian Revolution in 1983).
  • The fundamentals of our differences come down to, how does one understand the question of the internationalism of the oppressed? In order to answer this, there are two basic principles we start with: (1)a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, and (2)the law and nature of contradictions. We will attempt to apply both in our reply.
  • During this period, the so-called Cold War, where the USSR, China and several other countries were frequently identified with the cause of socialism and where, in many cases, workers and oppressed classes had succeeded in overthrowing formal capitalism and foreign domination, much of the Left fell into the fateful habit of deciding upon what stand to take on international matters not based on a substantive analysis but based largely on which countries fell on which sides of particular issues.
  • Baraka is absolutely correct in emphasizing that there is a long and ignominious history of social chauvinism by much of the organized Left in the global North, to which I would add a history of social chauvinism by numerous otherwise progressive movements—beyond the Left—in the global North. The infection of imperial consciousness became clear even in the international Communist movement by the 1930s when many revolutionaries in the global South felt betrayed by the approach of communist parties in the global North (and by the USSR) when too many of those latter parties abandoned the struggle against colonialism in the name of building anti-fascist fronts against the Germans, Italians and, later, the Japanese. This sense of betrayal led to splits in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America and, in some cases, the creation of new revolutionary formations (with often complicated politics).
  • The elimination of the Soviet bloc and the victory of neoliberal hegemony created challenges for countries in the global South which were following what the late Egyptian Marxist theorist Samir Amin would call “national populist projects.” By “national populist projects” Amin was referencing those regimes that had emerged out of anti-imperialist struggles but were not committed—in any serious/consistent way—to a socialist path, sometimes asserting themselves as non-aligned between the two superpowers, e.g., Egypt under Nasser. Many such regimes were able to survive through playing one superpower off again another, though this did not always succeed.
  • the national populist projects which were already in crisis due to internal contradictions—including class struggle, women’s movements, ethnic contradictions, democratic governance challenges—fractured.
  • With the collapse of the second superpower and the rise of neoliberal globalization,  the national populist projects which were already in crisis due to internal contradictions—including class struggle, women’s movements, ethnic contradictions, democratic governance challenges—fractured
  • The legitimacy crisis was not simply a public relations challenge. Struggle was breaking out within these states against the regimes. Sometimes led by forces to the left of the regime; other times by forces to the right of the regime (and sometimes both), these struggles were asserting that the regimes were abandoning their base; abandoning the people. One example of the ramifications of the legitimacy crisis unfolded in what came to be known as the Arab democratic uprisings or the “Arab Spring.” These insurrections, all beginning peacefully, were a challenge not only to pro-Western regimes, e.g., Egypt, but also to regimes that had emerged from the national populist projects, e.g., Syria.
  • Silence. There is no reply other than to challenge the authenticity of those of us on the Left who argue for an anti-imperialist AND anti-dictatorial politics of emancipation.
  • The question of solidarity of the globally oppressed must begin with a focus on the oppressed themselves. Baraka focuses on the struggle between governments. I start from a different standpoint: the question of the people. It is flowing from the question of the people that one can situate the larger context. In looking at Syria, for instance, what were the nature of the demands of the mass movement? Why was it that the response of the Assad regime was bloody repression? What does that response represent?
  • This is highlighted because many in the US Left have abandoned the demands for any action by the USA government on the basis that there is nothing that the USA government can or should do (or worse, that we, on the Left, should demand nothing of the USA government other than to cease and desist). The irony here is that during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the US Left was actively in favor of the USA, Britain and France providing direct, military assistance to the Spanish government against the fascists. It is important to remember that even with the danger of fascism, a threat to humankind, the demand for US assistance to the Spanish government came while the USA was still perpetrating crimes against the people of Latin America. A demand for a change in USA policy vis a vis Spain was not inconsistent with opposing the USA role in Latin America.
  • The main divide among anti-imperialists during the Cold War was rather caused by the attitude towards the USSR, which Communist Parties and their close allies regarded as the “fatherland of socialism”; they determined much of their own political positions by aligning with Moscow and the “socialist camp”—an attitude that was described as “campism.” This was facilitated by Moscow’s support for most struggles against Western imperialism in its global rivalry with Washington. As for Moscow’s intervention against workers’ and peoples’ revolts in its own European sphere of domination, the campists stood with the Kremlin, denigrating these revolts under the pretext that they were fomented by Washington.Those who believed that the defense of democratic rights is the paramount principle of the left supported the struggles against Western imperialism as well as popular revolts in Soviet-dominated countries against local dictatorial rule and Moscow’s hegemony. A third category was formed by the Maoists, who, starting from the 1960s, labeled the USSR “social-fascist,” describing it as worse than US imperialism and going so far to side with Washington in some instances, such as Beijing’s stance in Southern Africa.
  • Benghazi’s population implored the world for protection, while emphasizing that they wanted no foreign boots on the ground. The League of Arab States supported this request. Accordingly, the UNSC adopted a resolution authorizing “the imposition of a NFZ” over Libya as well as “all necessary measures…to protect civilians…while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” Neither Moscow nor Beijing vetoed this resolution: Both abstained, unwilling to assume the responsibility for a massacre foretold.
  • As the Western left has become more aligned with their imperialist bourgeoisie in the destabilization of the Global South, the radical Black tradition provides a clear approach to “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism."
  • The contradictory nature of that relationship has sharpened as a result of the current crisis of global capitalism and the U.S. led Western imperialist project fueled by two interconnected elements: the devastating social-economic conditions that workers and the laboring classes now face as result of monopoly capital’s neoliberal turn over the last forty years in both the imperialist center and global South; and the intensifying challenge to neoliberalism from states and social movements in the global South, with the corresponding response from U.S. and European capital that has ranged from economic sanctions meant to punish whole populations to direct and indirect political subversion and military interventions, all illegal and morally indefensible.
  • While U.S. and Western innocence was always a component of the propaganda to justify colonialist aggression, the ideas of humanitarian intervention and its corollary, the responsibility to protect, emerged in the 1990s as one of the most innovative ideological weapons ever produced since the end of the second imperialist war in 1945.
  • Of course, as I have said on many occasions, the reality is much more complex, with neoliberalism actually representing a more dangerous threat to colonized and working-class peoples in the U.S. and globally. This is because within the context of the U.S., Democrats have been successful in perpetuating the myth that they represent “progressivism.” This perception usually leads to substantial demobilization and actual liberal – left alignment with neoliberalism objectively when Democrats occupy the Executive Branch.
  • Restoring the historic alliance between the U.S. and Europe was announced by Biden as a major objective of his administration. His “America is Back” slogan was supposed to signify that the U.S. was ready to reassume its leadership of the Western alliance. Biden proudly identified himself as an “Atlanticist,” and indeed a number of the members of his foreign policy team were plunked from the “Atlantic Council.” Similar to the Council on foreign Affairs (CFA), the Atlantic Council is a neoliberal think tank that is funded by a cross-section of the ruling class but significantly by neoliberals associated with the democrat party.
  • The Atlantic Council was a severe critic of the Trump administration, not because of any concerns about its “racism” but because the Council opposed Trump’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy and his dangerous ideas like pulling out of NATO, a desire to draw down U.S. troops and his insufficient hostility to Russia. Plus, the Council and the neoliberal ruling class never forgave Trump for his scuttling of the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it pulled the rug out from under the Trans-Atlantic Investment Partnership that was supposed to be the next agreement after TPP and would have solidified the hegemony of U.S. capital in Europe for next few decades.Biden and the Council believed that unity among the G-7 nations during the current global capitalist crisis was imperative. Consequently, Biden’s aggressive stance toward Russia, Venezuela, blind support for Israel and general hostility toward the progressive governments in Latin America signaled that belligerent U.S. policy would continue, but with an Obama-like smile.What has been response from the U.S. and Western left to Bourgeois Destabilization in Global South? Bolivian President, Evo Morales, faced a right-wing coup and instead of unrestrained mobilization the left engaged in a debate about the Bolivian process. In Europe, the liberal-left parliamentarians in the European Union awarded their Sakharav human rights prize to the Venezuelan right-wing opposition, an opposition known for burning alive dark-skinned Venezuelans assumed to be “Chavistas.” Bernie Sanders declares Hugo Chavez a “dead communist dictator” and most respectable liberal-left elements in the U.S. would not get caught dead at a pro-Venezuela demo as long as the new “authoritarian dictator,” Nicholas Maduro, is in power. Gaddafi deserved to die, Assad is a bloodthirsty tyrant, China is capitalist, and a human rights violator, and Haiti is a S…hole country that does not merit much thought or energy, let alone mobilization for.
  • The anti-anti-imperialism of a Eurocentric armchair commentator like Gilbert Achcar neatly captures the inanity of this approach, dressed-up as nuanced and sophisticated analysis. Grounded in Western chauvinism and completely suspended from the contradictory structures and class forces in the specific, concrete realities of this historical moment, it condemns the left projects that don’t correspond to the imagery of Western leftists who see revolutionary change as some pristine project. These leftists do not seem to notice or don’t care that they are usually on the same side of an international issue as the international bourgeoisie.
  • To counter the collaborationism and opportunism of the U.S. and Western left, Black revolutionaries must re-center the anti-colonial struggle that addresses the dialectics of the national and class issues produced by the colonial/capitalist system. This re-centering of anti-colonial struggle is not new. It has been the broad theoretical framework for African/Black radical tradition for decades — from Black socialists in Harlem like Hubert Harrison and the African Blood Brotherhood in the teens and the 1920’s to the revolutionary Pan African tradition. It was also reflected in the articulations of Lenin on the “National Question” and the assemblies of colonial peoples leading to the 1928 declaration on the right to self-determination on the part of colonized peoples and the declaration that Africans in the U.S. constituted an oppressed nation with the right to self-determination.The radical Black tradition provides an invaluable approach for how a left should address its bourgeoisie.  We say that concretely it means that authentic Western leftists must join us to “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.” Specifically for African revolutionaries in the U.S. we must build bottom-up organic black unity and an anti-colonial, pro-socialist movement anchored in the Black working class that must assert leadership of this movement and to the broader radical movement in the U.S.Biden and the neoliberal, neo-fascists are committed to countering the movements for national liberation and socialism by any means, including destroying the planet to maintain European imperialist power.The Western social-imperialist left that is still addicted to its material privileges and illusions of being a part of something called the “West” has a choice that it must make: either you abandon privilege and whiteness and join as class combatants against your bourgeoisie, or you will be considered part of the enemy.
  • we had not one conversation about how we economists induce harm and what ethical obligations follow from that fact.
  • That is, one cannot do any positive work with the concept, such as determining whether harm has occurred or measuring its extent, without the careful moral reasoning that defining harm requires.
Arabica Robusta

Peru's great transformation - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...2012614113713713304.html

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry peru newmont gold humala

shared by Arabica Robusta on 26 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Since Humala took office, ten people have died in social conflicts in Peru, more than 120 civilians have been wounded, and states of emergency have been declared in two regions. More than 120 farming leaders and human rights defenders are reportedly under criminal investigation for their alleged involvement in protests against foreign mining companies, including one provincial and one state governor, a priest, and two Catholic Church workers.
  • Peruvian groups such as Red Muqui and CONACAMI, a nation-wide coalition of mining communities, say they are not against mining. They want a national zoning plan to designate areas for mining and other industry, agriculture and protected reserves. They're also demanding a moratorium on mining in watersheds and the use of cyanide in gold mining operations.
  • During the strike in November, Humala's prime minister, Salomon Lerner, a left-leaning businessman, was sent to negotiate. He wasn't given much time. One day after Lerner initiated talks, the president trumped him by declaring a state of emergency. This meant that civil liberties were suspended and martial law was in effect. At least 28 people were injured during brutal police repression, including a young farmer who was reportedly paralysed by a rubber bullet fired by police. Lerner resigned, allowing Humala to re-stock his cabinet with a decided shift to the right.
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  • The president's national security advisor is Adrian Villafuerte, an ex-colonel with alleged ties to Vladimiro Montesinos, the notorious security adviser to former president Alberto Fujimori. Both Fujimori and Montesinos are currently in jail for human rights abuses and corruption. Humala himself was an army captain during Fujimori's rule, and had been accused of crimes such as torture and forced disappearances when he was in charge of the Madre Mia military base. The case against Humala was shelved, but human rights groups in Peru are not satisfied and want to see the former captain on trial.
  • In an attempt to end the conflict, Oscar Mollohuanca, Espinar's provincial governor, asked the national government to mediate talks with the mining company. The following day, while Mollohuanca met with local leaders to plan the negotiations, about 50 police commandos reportedly burst into his office in a scene reminiscent of the reality show Cops.
  • Father Marco Arana, one of the protest leaders, says the government finds it easier to look for scapegoats than "to admit it has a widespread social problem". According to Peru's government ombudsman's office, there are 171 "active social conflicts" across the nation, most centred on mining, petroleum and hydroelectric projects.
  • "You were elected to be the champion of democracy, and not plutocracy, Mr President," wrote Gorriti. "There's still time to adjust your path. I hope you do so. Your success would be a triumph for all of us."
Arabica Robusta

COLOMBIA: Increasingly Broad Social Movements Fight Mining - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

ipsnews.net/news.asp

social movements intervention human rights development corporate industry colombia

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Colombia is one of the world's biggest per capita polluters with mercury, in the artisanal mining sector, with an average of between 50 and 100 tons a year lost during the gold extraction process, according to a report by UNIDO, which points out that artisanal mining has expanded fast as gold prices have risen.
  • The broad social movement in Santander has added its voice to the long-time struggle by environmentalists in Cajamarca, in the central province of Tolima, against the South African company AngloGold Ashanti.
  • Protests have also been held to the south of Bogotá against polluting activities in quarries run by the army on the grounds of the Artillery School, and by the Catholic diocese of Bogotá's Fundación San Antonio, Mexico's Cemex company and the Swiss firm Holcim.
Arabica Robusta

j.ctv47wfn1.10_jacka_metabolic_rift.pdf - 0 views

shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • My goal in this chapter has been to consider mining development impacts on the Porgera River in a holistic sense from the perspectives of Porgerans. When Porgerans discuss the ruination of the river, there is more at stake than just the loss of fish and frogs and the fouling of the water. The very riverbeds were dug out by the actions of ancestral hero figures that were also responsible for controlling the water balance in the land and the fertility therein. W ater itself is fundamental to Porgeran ideas of cosmology and well-being. For close to 50 years, the alluvial gold resources were the second gardens that provided livelihood benefits and cash incomes in a society that was just then being integrated into the global economic system. Foreign investment and loss of control over the gold resources resonate throughout Porgeran society today in the form of often violent political clashes over the restricted benefit streams available to a minority of people in the valley.
Arabica Robusta

Congo Siasa: Why legislation on mineral trade is a good thing - 0 views

congosiasa.blogspot.com/...ation-on-mineral-trade-is.html

cellphones intervention industry human extractive enough corporate congo coltan rights

shared by Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10 - Cached
  • I think the reason there has been such a backlash against "conflict minerals" advocacy has been due to the way these voices depict the violence. As I have said before, militias in the Congo do not rape women just because they want to get their hands on minerals. Most minerals in cell phones do not come from the eastern Congo. The war did not begin as a conflict over minerals. And so on. I find a lot of this kind of lobbying distasteful - we do not need to tweak the facts to get attention, it's bad enough already, just present the facts.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      Questioning the efficacy of arguments distorted in order to get attention.
  • I think the advocacy groups have really shot themselves in the foot by misrepresenting this issue. So yes, I agree with you there. It will not bring an end to the conflict in the Kivus, but it will make it more attractive for FDLR to go back to Rwanda and for Mai-Mai groups to enter demobilization programs (which also have a ton of problems, as you know). If constructed properly (it currently isnt) to include abusive units within the Congolese army, the regulations could also provide incentives to improve performance and accountability of the Congolese army. Finally, if applied correctly (difficult) they could get rid of some of their more flagrant patronage and collusion between businessmen and soldiers, such as ex-CNDP units and businessmen in Kigali and FARDC units and guys in Kinshasa, Bukavu and Goma.
  • That said, I wondered what your thoughts are on the second criticism you mentioned (DRC minerals being collectively labeled as being tainted, and therefore damaging the DRC's economy)? Cabot does plenty of advertising on the simple platform that it does not deal in coltan from the DRC period, not just 'conflict coltan'. I also noted that the price of tantalum is going up...
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  • Conflict mineral advocates see a DIRECT link between the exploitation of minerals and the perpetuation of the conflict. In contrast, we see the mineral sector as ONE important and wealth generating part of the wider economy. At the heart of our scepticism over the focus on the mineral trade is the fact that in the absence of genuine governance and security, any part of the economy - charcoal, cattle or fuel - can be exploited by a rebel group with guns, as you point out.
  • To pick up on the point made about Cabot’s campaigning for conflict-free minerals, it’s not just Cabot, there are a number of Western mining companies involved in this, as pointed out by the researcher Raf Custers in this article: http://www.intal.be/nl/node/9185
  • There is for example also Commerce Resources from Canada, about to develop two major tantalum-exploitation sites in British Columbia and Quebec. The anti-conflict mineral lobbyists they hired have allegedly been working closely with the Enough folks.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      Alleged collusion between Enough and British Columbia exploitaiton.
  • Advocates like myself, ICG, Global Witness, IPIS, Oxfam and, yes, Enough, have long argued for comprehensive security sector reform and support to the judiciary. ICG and myself (used to be one and the same) have also pushed for a holistic approach to the FDLR that would include more flexibility by the Rwandan government and the UN (although not political negotiations).The problem is that no one ever listened to us. I can't tell you how many briefings I've had with State Dept, FCO, DFID, EU and the AU about these issues. There was not enough of a domestic lobby for them to care. Now, Americans care because there has been intensive lobbying by advocacy groups, who sometimes simplify and bend the truth to pound their message through. I don't like that one bit, and it can lead to bad policy. This legislation is not bad policy, however, if it is applied correctly. I would like to see the US go one step further and push for large support to reforming the Congolese regulatory bodies in the Kivus, much like RCS if I understand correctly, which would make due diligence feasible. Also, if coupled with investigative bodies like the one we pushed for with CIC (http://www.cic.nyu.edu/peace_ssr/congo.html) even the underground gold trade could be better regulated.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      The continuing battle for visibility...
  • I doubt Enough does more than talk to those sources in the industry, but if you have doubts then we should emphasize that the bill was also supported by Catholic Relief Services, Amnesty International, Global Witness and Human Rights Watch.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      Response regarding reports of collusion.
  • Does this mean that the 2006 Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-2125) sponsored by then Senator Obama and co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton was not substantive or meaningful? Are there no provisions in the 2006 law that can play a constructive role in advancing peace and stability in the region?
Arabica Robusta

Conflict Minerals on the Blogs: Correcting Misperceptions | Enough - 0 views

www.enoughproject.org/...logs-correcting-misperceptions

mining news mine gold miner africa rights intervention industry human extractive enough corporate congo coltan cellphones

shared by Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10 - No Cached
  • Some criticisms of this campaign have implied that this issue is at odds with the views of Congolese people and civil society organizations. Again, this is simply false. We tend to be skeptical of anyone who tries to speak on behalf of “the Congolese people” because Congo’s population is far too vast, diverse, and opinionated to be reduced to a talking point
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      Important point about how "the local people" are often used as supporters (and opponents) of projects.
  • The Security and Exchange Commission is just beginning to work out the details of how the conflict minerals law will be implemented, and industry groups are lobbying hard to see that the SEC regulations carry as little weight as possible, by narrowly defining, for instance, which companies have to report on their activities in eastern Congo.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      Corporate dilution of policies
Arabica Robusta

nla.obj-332066213_Akmana_PNG_gold.pdf - 0 views

porgera gold PapuaNewGuinea

shared by Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • cific islands monthly : PIM.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      Doers, not recorders of facts.
  • Pacific islands monthly : PIM.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      Begin here
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      He was to tell them that the stolen goods were to be left on a flat rock on the river below the camp, other wise we would have to raid their gardens for food-and there would no payment this time!
  • ...4 more annotations...
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      "All members. masters and boys, were on the alert at all times. Personal boys would see that their master did not move far without weapons and handed them to him in case this occurred. There was no point in tempting the wigmen with our riches of steel and shell."
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      It turned out that back at Akmana Junction while we were on this Upper Maramuni job something was happening. We found on our return that the Akmana camp had been raided and most of our steel and trade goods stolen. As no natives came to the camp with food for trade as usual, we decided to take the offensive. We had very friendly relations with a wigman called Dribau. who had attached himself to the camp as friend and guide. He first joined us on the Baiyer and was a man of influence and obviously highly respected over a wide area. Drihau was now on hand and we asked him to spread the word by hailing across the valleys that we were very angry (we described with actions that our bellies were boiling with anger). He was to tell them that the stolen goods were to be left on a flat rock on the river below the camp. otherwise we would have to raid their gardens for food-and there would be no payment this time! The messages were passed, but by the next day there were no results, so we helped ourselves in the gardens. and put on a display with our .303 rifles, firing them at long range in the general direction of any stray native we saw on watch. sometimes in rapid fire to make the show more impressive. The shots were meant to demonstrate that we were serious, but we were not trying to hit anyone. This got better results. -The next morning there were some stolen goods on the flat rock. About midday we decided we would have to speed things up a bit, so Drihau passed on the news that we would "make thunder without a cloud in the sky" and that they had better watch out! We detonated a big supply of gelignite and made those old mountains echo and re-echo, much to the horror of those visitors who happened to be in the vicinity (who. unfortunately. didn't include any of the miscreants). Those near the camp clung to each other for comfort in their fear (the locals often did this also when they were perplexed and surprised. but not to such a degree of frenzy). They were also much
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      The booming of the dynamite did the job. Next morning most of our goods were on the flat rock and it was not long before we were friendly community again, with business as usual, and quite a few grins.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 04 Jun 20
       
      "The warriors were curious and friendly. but Beazley had completed his job and wisely retraced his steps to his previous night's camp. There he was met by another 200 warriors. and since the first group had followed him downstream he now found himself the centre of interest of 400 odd Highlanders who had never before seen a white man. After some demonstrations of fire power with his rifle and the magic of matches he returned to the main camp without incident."
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