Noir Canada compile une grande quantité d'informations au sujet des agissements, en Afrique, de compagnies minières basées au Canada en ce qui a trait aux droits de la personne, environnement, etc.

Dans une entrevue réalisée dans le cadre de l'émission Amandla (voir mercredi 19h00) sur les ondes de CKUT, 90.3 FM, une radio universitaire de Montréal, Alain Deneault répond aux questions de l'animateur, Roberto.

Notez que cette entrevue se déroule avant l'annonce de la deuxième poursuite, par la compagnie Banro.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-1951172905923886255]

*Voir aussi mon article SLAPP: tout s’achète, même la liberté d’expression

Last week, as Écosociété was preparing for their benefit show to raise funds for their legal battle with Barrick Gold, the small Montreal publishing house got his with another Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). Banro Corporation, which, while much smaller than Barrick, also holds rights to gold extraction in the Congo, filed a lawsuit in Ontario Superior court for $5 million dollars, claiming Écosociété and the authors of Noir Canada (Alain Deneault, Depphine Abadie et William Sacher) deliberately published falsehoods about the company. Deneautl has replied to this lawsuit the same way he responded to Barrick: that all the information published was already public knowledge, released by reputbale organisations such as the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, and that no lawsuits were ever launched over previously published reports.

This brings the total Écosociété is being sued for over Canada Noir, which deals with Canadian mining company human rights violations in Africa, to $11 million - or nearley 50 times the amount Écosociété takes in annually. Even more worrisome, writes the company on thei support campaign website, is that this also means defending themselves in not one, but two different jurisdictions, in two languages and under two different legal codes (civil law in Quebec and common law in Ontario).

The intrepid publishers were granted some good news on Friday, June 13, though, when the Quebec government, as promised, declared it would be introducing legislation to severely limit SLAPP lawsuits and help shift both legal and financial burden onto those who would launch such spurious lawsuits. As such things go, though, parliament is on the verge of it's summer recess, and the legislation will only be voted on this fall. In the meantime, Écosociété, author Deneault et al. will need to sweat it out over the summer, hoping that legal fees don't pile up too high.

To find out more about the Écosociété suppot campaign: http://slapp.écosociété.org

P.S. Watch for the double slap about 11 seconds in...

La maison d'édition québécoise Écosociété est actuellement soumise à une SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) de la part de la plus grande compagnie aurifère du monde, Barrick Gold.

Une SLAPP est une action en justice faite dans le but de faire taire, de bâillonner. L'idée est d'accabler une organisation militante, dans ce cas-ci, une maison d'édition, par le biais d'une poursuite en justice pour diffamation dans le but de l'intimider. La poursuite peut viser certains membres d'une organisation ou l'organisation elle-même. Les SLAPPs, en raison des frais, ressources et énergies considérables à engager pour se défendre, tendent à épuiser les ressources des organisation qui ont en face d'eux de puissantes corporations -dans ce cas-ci, une multinationale- qui ont les reins solides. Elles découragent également les citoyens qui voudraient s'impliquer dans la défense de leurs droits, de l'environnement, etc.

La poursuite intentée contre les éditions Écosociété et les auteurs du livre, Noir Canada. Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, Delphine Abadie, Alain Deneault et William Sacher (chercheurs du Collectif Ressources d’Afrique) est de 6 millions de dollars, une somme qui ruinerait certainement la maison d'édition et les auteurs impliqués.

Barrick Gold semble bien décidée à faire taire les critiques car cette action en justice fait suite à des menaces (légales, dit-on) reçues précédemment par Écosociété de la part de la compagnie, avant même la publication du livre !

Cette attaque contre la liberté d'expression n'est pas une première au Québec, comme en font foi les cas du site d'enfouissement de Cantey, en Outaouais, du projet de port méthanier de Rabaska et quelques autres cas.

Fait particulier à cette affaire, les agissements de la compagnie en Afrique étaient généralement peu connus et il est à se demander si Barrick Gold ne s'est pas tiré dans le pied avec cette poursuite en justice en attirant tous les projecteurs sur le livre Noir Canada et sur leurs agissements allégués.

Si vous voulez agir contre cette SLAPP (et d'autres à venir) et contribuer à protéger la liberté d'expression au Québec, voici quelques actions à poser:

• Signez la pétition pour une loi anti-SLAPP en ligne et la faire circuler largement
• Si vous vivez au Québec, écrivez à votre député et au ministre pour demander une loi anti-SLAPP
• Faites un don aux fonds de défense juridique
• Acheter le livre Noir Canada (ou offrez-le à des amis)

Faites passez le mot: la liberté d'expression, ça concerne tout le monde !

• Sign the online petition for an anti-SLAPP law and send it to all your contacts
• Write to your MP and to the minister to ask for an anti-SLAPP law
• Send a donation
• Buy the book Noir Canada

Background information here, here, here.

[Please invite your friends and redistribute this information all around]

* * *

SUNDAY, MAY 18: PUBLIC EVENT
@ 7pm

"Goldcorp Inc. - Investing in Conflict" = Hear speakers from Honduras (Carlos Amador), Guatemala (Fausto Valiente) and Rights Action (Grahame Russell) tell stories about how indigenous and campesino communities are resisting the environmental and development harms and human rights violations that Goldcorp is causing on their lands. Multi-media event.
LOCATION: Steelworker's Union, 7pm, 25 Cecil St, Toronto
CONTACT: Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org, cel: 250-231-5158 ; Sakura Saunders, sakura.saunders@gmail.com, cel: 530-304-8297

* * *

MONDAY, MAY 19: DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASE & BANNER MAKING GATHERING
@ 3pm – 10pm
Banner making & action planning for street education and activities in front of Goldcorp's Annual Shareholder Meeting.

LOCATION: OISE, 252 Bloor St W, Room 2198, (corner of Bloor St and St. George)
CONTACT: sakura.saunders@gmail.com, cel: 530-304-8297
@ 7pm

DOCUMENTARY FILM: "No Todo Lo Que Brilla Es Oro - Una Historia de Explotación y Resistencia"
(All That Glitters Isn't Gold - A Story of Exploitation and Resistance) is an hour-long documentary that tells the stories of community members residing near the San Martin open-pit heap-leach gold mine in the Siria Valley in Honduras, owned by Canada's Goldcorp. The first mine to be developed under Honduras' controversial new mining law passed in the wakes of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, San Martin opened in 2000 and is the largest open-pit heap-leach mine in Honduras. As the mine nears its closure, community members discuss the complications they have experienced since the mine began operating -- from wide-spread health problems to lack of water -- contesting the company's claims that the mine has been a model of healthy development for the community and has caused no adverse effects. Spanish with English subtitles. DVD. Comments will be made by Steven Schnoor (film maker) and Carlos Amador, community leader from the Siria Valley in Honduras.

LOCATION: 7pm, OISE, 252 Bloor St W, Room 2198, (corner of Bloor St and St. George)
CONTACT: Steven Schnoor, steven_s@yorku.ca, cel: 514 795 0825 ; Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org, cel: 250-231-5158

* * *

TUESDAY, MAY 20: STREET EDUCATION & PROTEST ACTIVITIES
@ 1pm – 2:30pm

GOLDCORP Inc's ANNUAL SHAREHOLDER MEETING – STREET EDUCATION & PROTEST ACTIVITIES: Come join a festive, colorful street "education session" (bring your own banners, posters, happy noise makers, etc) in front of the King Edward hotel where the Goldcorp AGM will take place - support community members that have come to protest the environmental and development harms and human rights violations that Goldcorp is causing on their lands.

LOCATION: King Edward Hotel, 1pm – 2:30pm, 37 King St. E., Toronto
CONTACT: Sakura Saunders, sakura.saunders@gmail.com, cel: 530-304-8297 ; Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org, cel: 250-231-5158 ;

* * *

WEDNESDAY, MAY 21: PUBLIC EVENT: "Indigenous resistance to Canadian mining corporations in Latin America"
@ 7pm

An evening with Sergio Campusano, Chief of the Pueblo Diaguita Huascoaltinos, indigenous people of Chile and additional speakers from Guatemala and Honduras also resisting environmental devastation and human rights violations at the hands of Canadian gold mining corporations on their lands. In a rare visit to Canada, Sergio Campusano -- an eloquent speaker on the subject of indigenous resistance to industrial development -- will share the struggle of his people against Canadian gold, uranium and copper extraction industries on ancestral lands. There will be special mention of the infamous Pascua Lama mine, which threatens the water supply for 100,000 farmers at the drought-ravaged border of Chile and Argentina.

The Diaguita community has pressed charges against the Chilean State for its complicity with these corporations, including a notice to appeal before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Their fight is not only for survival and human rights, but also to preserve the living systems of the Earth, which they regard as sacred. Community leaders from Guatemala and Honduras, in Toronto for the Goldcorp AGM, will also share their struggles to protect the land against open-pit industrial mining.

This event is the final evening in a two week long series of events focused on international indigenous resistance to indigenous resistance to Canadian corporations Barrick Gold and Goldcorp. For more information see http://www.protestbarrick.net and http://www.rightsaction.org/

LOCATION: Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle, University of Toronto (south west of Museum subway, off of Harbord St)
CONTACT: Paul York, pyork_2002@hotmail.com, cel: 647-342-7995

* * *

NEW REPORT: "INVESTING IN CONFLICT: Public Money, Private Gain – Goldcorp Inc in the Americas"
http://www.rightsaction.org/Reports/Mining_Goldcorp_BW_042608.pdf

Written by Dawn Paley (dawnpaley@gmail.com), with Mining Watch (www.miningwatch.ca) and Rights Action, and edited by Sakura Saunders, Investing in Conflict is about the "nexus of mining companies, the mainstream media, the Canadian government, International Finance Institutions and bought off NGOs" that are working "hard to keep the reality of large-scale, open pit mines out of picture, keep[ing] community resistance marginalized, and no matter what, to keep talking about "development"." Focusing on Goldcorp Inc., Investing in Conflict brings "hard facts and community perspectives together to help North Americans become more informed about the nature of the mining industry."

FREE COPY at www.rightsaction.org. Go to our website and read the report on line, or print your own copy. Feel free to print and distribute copies to family and friends, investors and politicians.

Facebook site:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19201587135

==================================================================

'Canada does not yet have laws to ensure that the activities of Canadian mining companies in developing countries conform to human rights standards, including the rights of workers and of indigenous peoples.'
– Canada's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. June 2005

'Canadian mining companies are taking advantage of [inadequate and poorly enforced regulatory controls] to expand into all corners of the globe, manipulating, slandering, abusing, and even killing those who dare to oppose them, displacing Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike, supporting repressive governments and taking advantage of weak ones, and contaminating and destroying sensitive ecosystems.'
– Jamie Kneen, MiningWatch Canada. November 2006

==================================================================

Resistencia a la minería aurífera canadiense en América latina

domingo, el 18 de mayo, a las 7pm.
----------------------------------------
Vengan a escuchar las historias de los lideres Fausto Valiente de Guatemala y Carlos Amador de Honduras sobre la resistencia de sus comunidades en contra de las operaciones de la empresa minera canadiense Goldcorp en sus tierras. Presentacion multimedia.
- Steelworkers' Union Hall, 25 Cecil, Toronto

lunes, 19 de mayo, entre las 3pm y las 10pm.
----------------------------------------
!!!La fiesta de afiches y mantas!!! Vengan a charlar con los y las organizadores mientras todos y todas hagamos materiales para la protesta del dia siguiente.
- Sala 2198, edificio OISE, Universidad de Toronto
- 252 Bloor St W (estacion de metro St George, salida calle Bedford)

martes, 20 de mayo, 1pm a 3pm
----------------------------------------
Vengan y apoyen la delegacion internacional con el festival de resistencia y de educacion popular. !Traigan sus mantas, afiches, instrumentos, consignas, y voces! Estaremos frente al hotel King Edward, donde la Goldcorp llevara a cabo su reunion anual general.
- 37 King St. E., en el centro de la ciudad de Toronto

martes, 20 de mayo, 7pm
----------------------------------------
'No todo lo que brilla es oro - Una historia de explotación y resistencia': Vengan a ver el nuevo documental sobre la grave situacion que enfrentan las comunidades afectadas por la mina de oro a cielo abierto San Martin en el Valle de Siria, Honduras. El documental se discutara con la participacion de Steven Schnoor, activista de video, y Carlos Amador, lider ambientalista de la zona.
----------------------------------------
Para mayor informacion, contacten a Derechos en Accion (info@rightsaction.org) o a Sakura Saunders (sakura.saunders@gmail.com).

As the lead author of Noir Canada, Alain Deneault, and Guy Cheyney, the president of Écosociété, have made clear, they see this as a straight-up SLAPP from Barrick Gold. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - lawsuits used by large corporations, or rich individuals, to try to overwhelm smaller critics and opponents who cannot afford fleets of corporate lawyers. Although SLAPPs largely originated in the United States, Quebec has seen a few high-profile cases in the past few years, including a widely-covered suit to silence critics of the proposed Rabaska natural gas port.

There was such outcry over the Rabaska case that the government held public consultations this spring for input on how to formulate a law regulating SLAPPs. The consultation, and proposed regulation of SLAPPs, even garnered support of all three parties in the increasingly acrimonious National Assembly. While the minister of public safety has said he is aiming to introduce legislation before the end of the current parliamentary session, the Barrick Gold suit has pushed SLAPP opponents to redouble efforts to get the bill past sooner than later.

Formed in 2007 in response to the Rabaska case, the satirically named Citoyens, taisez-vous! (Citizens, quiet down!) campaign is asking Quebeckers to join in a letter campaign to call on the government to pass a law as soon as possible, and to include five main points in the legislation (traslation mine):

1. Recognition of the right to public participation;
2. Establishiment of an emergency procedure to deny SLAPPs;
3. Reverse the burden of proof in order to favour victims of SLAPPs;
4. Financial support for vicitms of SLAPPs, reimbursement of expenditures and extra-judicial fees to those whose liberty of expression has been surpressed, and the awarding of punitive damages;
5. The possibility to annul gag orders in out of court settlements.

The full text of the call-out for the campaign and a sample letter are after the jump.

For more information read the fact-sheets from the Ligue des Droits et Liberté or the Mouvement d'éducation populaire et d'action communautaire du Québec.

Campagnes de lettres en faveur d’une loi anti-SLAPP (poursuites-bâillons)

(modèle de lettre ci-dessous et à la 2ième page de www.liguedesdroits.ca/images/campagnelettreslappmai08.doc).

Bonjour,

Par la présente, l’Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique (AQLPA) et la Ligue des
droits et libertés, membres de la campagne Citoyens taisez-vous, font appel à votre solidarité pour participer à
une importante campagne de lettres en faveur d’une loi anti-SLAPP (poursuites-bâillons).

Le 8 avril dernier, en conclusion de la commission parlementaire sur les poursuites-bâillons, le ministre de la
Justice du Québec, M. Jacques Dupuis, annonçait son intention de déposer un projet de loi d’ici la
présente session parlementaire. Les deux autres partis présents à l’Assemblée nationale se prononçaient
également en faveur d’un projet de loi visant à contrer les poursuites-bâillons, mieux connues sous l’acronyme
anglophone «SLAPP» (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).

Or, depuis la fin de la commission parlementaire, un géant minier, Barrick Gold, intentait une poursuite de six
millions de dollars contre les Éditions Écosociété et les auteurs du livre Noir Canada - Pillage, corruption et
criminalité en Afrique. Aussi pendant ces quelques semaines, au moins deux autres groupes de citoyen-ne-s
recevaient des menaces de poursuites (un de Lévis et un autre d’Amos). Deux résidant-e-s de Cantley en
Outaouais ont toujours sur le dos une poursuite à leur encontre de 1 250 000 dollars. À ceux-ci, s’ajoute
au moins une autre demi-douzaine de cas depuis 2005.

Il est urgent que le ministre Dupuis dépose et fasse adopter une loi anti-SLAPP. Une telle loi devra être efficace
et devra protéger la liberté d’expression et le droit à la participation publique.

Durant tout le mois de mai 2008, à l’aide du modèle qui suit, nous vous invitons à écrire au ministre
Dupuis (avec des copies conformes aux critiques des partis d’opposition, à votre député-e
provincial-e, à l’AQLPA et à la Ligue des droits et libertés).

Pour en savoir plus, on peut consulter le fascicule d’information de la Ligue à
www.liguedesdroits.ca/images/PDF/fasciculeslappmars08.pdf et l’outil du MÉPACQ qui se trouve à
www.mepacq.qc.ca/slapp.pdf.

Solidairement,

André Bélisle, président Dominique Peschard, président
Association québécoise de lutte Ligue des droits et libertés
contre la pollution atmosphérique

----------------------------

Logo de l’organisme

Ville et date

Monsieur Jacques Dupuis

Ministre de la Justice du Québec

ministre@justice.gouv.qc.ca

Télécopieur: 418-646-0027 (à Québec) ou 514 873-7174 (à Montréal)

Objet : Urgence d’une loi contre les poursuites-bâillons (SLAPP)

Monsieur le Ministre,

(Nom de l’organisme) constate avec satisfaction la volonté conjointe de la part de l’ensemble des partis
politiques présents à l’Assemblée nationale d’agir sur la question des poursuites-bâillons et a pris note de votre
engagement à déposer un projet de loi d’ici la fin de la session parlementaire. Nous tenons ici à réitérer notre
appui à une action législative que nous voulons forte, efficace et déterminée.

En effet, le phénomène des poursuites-bâillons est en émergence au Québec et constitue une menace réelle
pour la participation des citoyens et citoyennes ainsi que des groupes au débat public. Les poursuites-bâillons
ont aussi pour effet de détourner les finalités de la justice. Les poursuites-bâillons constituent des menaces
directes aux incitatifs à la mobilisation sociale; elles découragent l’expression publique d’opinions sociales et
politiques, minent la qualité du débat public, et se présentent comme des atteintes au droit du public à
l’information.

Puisque le droit québécois actuel ne permet pas de répondre adéquatement à ces poursuites abusives, une
intervention législative est nécessaire pour décourager ces pratiques. Une telle intervention devrait viser les
objectifs suivants : la protection du droit à la participation au débat public, la dissuasion des initiateurs de
SLAPP, la possibilité de faire rejeter rapidement ces poursuites abusives, l’équité du processus judiciaire.

Pour atteindre ces objectifs, l’adoption d’une loi est nécessaire et devrait comprendre les éléments suivants :

1 La reconnaissance du droit à la participation publique;

2 L’établissement d’une procédure d’urgence pour faire rejeter les poursuites-bâillons;

3 Le renversement du fardeau de la preuve en faveur des victimes de SLAPP;

4 Un soutien financier aux victimes de SLAPP, le remboursement des dépens et des frais extrajudiciaires
à la partie dont la liberté d’expression a été bafouée et l’attribution de dommages-intérêts punitifs;

5 La possibilité de faire annuler les clauses bâillon dans les ententes hors cour.

En vous remerciant de légiférer rapidement pour protéger la liberté d’expression, acceptez Monsieur le ministre,
nos salutations les meilleures.

(Signature d’une personne responsable)

(Nom et coordonnées de l’organisme)

C.c. : Claude L'Écuyer, critique de L’ADQ (claude.lecuyer-sahy@assnat.qc.ca), Stéphane Bédard, critique du PQ
(sbedard@assnat.qc.ca), (nom et coordonnées du ou de la député-e provincial-e, Ligue des droits et
libertés (communication@liguedesdroits.ca) et AQLPA (info@aqlpa.com).

Aboriginal leaders from Papua New Guinea, Australia, and Western Shoshone territory (in Nevada) are in Toronto on a rare visit to Canada. They are heading to Ottawa on Saturday.

The Papua New Guinea contingent have flown 32 hours to get here, and risked their own safety and the safety of their families to so do. At home they have suffered outright murder (villagers shot by Barrick security) and rape of women villagers.

In all cases, sacred lands are being desecrated and massive water systems and ecosystems destroyed irreparably. Some of the water systems destroyed are so large the mine tailings can be seen in satellite photos.

Sadly, their stories were not covered by mass media outlets at the Barrick Gold Annual General Meeting yesterday even though all the leaders obtained proxies to get in and all spoke up at the meeting and told invesors what was happening to them.

By not covering their stories, the mass media in Canada are indirectly responsible for the continued murder of their people by Barrick Gold. To arrange an interview with the Papua New Guinea and Australian contingent contact Natalie Lowrey, Friends of the Earth (Australia), 416 809 2755 - natalie.lowrey@foe.org.au

To arrange an interview with the Western Shoshone contingent contact Julie Fishel, Western Shoshone Defence Project (USA) - 775 397 1371 - wsdp@igc.org

Below is a news story printed in the independant media which serves as an example of the kind of coverage that responsible news outlet would publish:

International Indigenous leaders attend Barrick Gold's Shareholder's meeting

Tuesday 6th May, 2008 at 10am

Indigenous leaders from Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the United States traveled to Canada this week to attend the shareholders' meeting of Barrick Gold to make statements against Barrick's unregulated operations on their lands.

Complaints include the killing, rape and arbitrary detention of local village people in Papua New Guinea by Barrick security, the destruction of spiritual sites in Australia and the United States, and the pollution of water resources at all of Barrick's mines. The tour is heading to Ottawa after the shareholders' meeting where they have arranged meetings with members of parliament.

At Lake Cowal, Australia, Barrick is importing 6090 tonnes of sodium cyanide into the flood plain renowned for severe flooding. 'Barrick Gold has absolutely no respect for our cultural heritage and the very essence of our cultural being is at stake,' stated Neville 'Chappy' William, Wiradjuri elder and spokesperson for Mooka and Kalara United Families, the traditional owners of the Lake Cowal area. In addition to creating an open-pit mine in the 'Sacred Heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation,' Barrick has confiscated thousands of Wiradjuri cultural objects from the mine site and refuses to return them to the traditional owners.

According to Jethro Tulin, Executive Officer of the Akali Tange Association, a human rights organization in Papua New Guinea, 'Barrick's Porgera Mine is a textbook case of what can go wrong when large-scale mining confronts indigenous peoples, ignoring the impacts of its projects and resorting to goon squads when people rebel against it. This outrages the conscience of local Indigenous communities, especially when the mine is right next to our homes; my people are exposed to dangerous chemicals like cyanide and mercury; some of our people down in the tailings and waste during floods; and fishing stocks, flora and fauna are depleted down the river systems, leading to indigenous food sources being threatened.'

'The international community has spoken quite clearly on these matters. The United States has been told on two separate occasions to cease and desist the destructive activities on Shoshone lands and Canada has been told to rein in its corporate giants like Barrick,' stated Larson Bill, Western Shoshone Community Planner, referencing the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) in their review of Canada last year.

According to a 2005 Parliamentary Standing Committee report, 'Canada does not yet have laws to ensure that the activities of Canadian mining companies indeveloping countries conform to human rights standards, including the rights of workers and of indigenous people.' As of 2008, these regulatory issues have yet
to be resolved.

The leaders include:

Larson R. Bill, Community Planner, Western Shoshone Defense Project, USA

Neville Williams, Mooka/Kalara United Families within the Wiradjuri Nation, Lake Cowal, Australia

Jethro Tulin, Executive Officer, Akali Tange Association, PapuaNew Guinea

Mark Ekepa, Chairman, Porgera Landowners Association,

Anga Atalu, Secretary, Porgera Landowners Association, Papua New Guinea

This effort is supported by:

ProtestBarrick.net
Western Shoshone Defence Project (USA)
Mining Watch Canada (Canada)
SaveLakeCowal.org (Australia)
Mineral Policy Institute (Australia)
Friends of the Earth (Australia)
Porgera Land Owners Association (Papua New Guinea)
Atali Tange Association (Papua New Guinea)

Contact:
Julie Fishel, Western Shoshone Defence Project (USA)

&nbs; 775 397 1371 - wsdp@igc.org

Natalie Lowrey, Friends of the Earth (Australia)
416 809 2755 - natalie.lowrey@foe.org.au

La SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) est une poursuite agressive ayant pour but de réduire au silence les citoyens et de décourager qui que ce soit dans le futur de prendre position contre une compagnie. C'est une tactique violente et dévastatrice, anti-démocratique, mais tout à fait légale au Canada, puisque nos parlementaires n'ont toujours pas voté de loi anti-SLAPP.

Mais un autre aspect de cette poursuite vise indirectement les médias, comme le souligne l'auteur du blogue Les barbares sont à nos portes:

Le silence soudain des médias québécois et canadiens ajoutent à ce climat de persécution et d'intimidation par l'entreprise minière. Ce que l'on surnomme "le quatrième pouvoir" se met de facto au service de ces entreprises qui ont tout intérêt à ce que les informations et les témoignages relatifs aux "externalités" des activités minières ne s'ébruitent pas trop.

Évidemment, on a trop peur à Radio-Canada, TVA, à La Presse et dans le Journal de Montréal de se faire poursuivre et on préfère se taire, ou ne parler que très brièvement de l'affaire, de la glisser en flash à la fin du bulletin ou entrecoupées d'annonces publicitaires.

Ce que Barrick Gold attaque en ce moment, c'est bien davantage que la maison d'édition Écosociété: c'est la liberté de presse et la liberté d'opinion en elle-même. C'est bien beau de dénoncer la Chine comme le faisait Patrick Lagacé, sous prétexte qu'on ne peut pas y afficher une affiche disant le chef de l'État est un « sucker », mais il est tout aussi dommageable d'empêcher (ou de chercher à empêcher) de publier des critiques justifiées et fondées sur des faits comme cherche à le faire Barrick Gold.

Face à la censure centralisée chinoise, nous sommes victimes d'une autre forme de censure tout aussi violente mais plus insidieuse, car décentralisée, désorganisée. Et dans celle-ci, au lieu d'être les les chiens de garde du citoyen, nos médias jouent le rôle de sous-traitants au service de la censure en noyant dans un flot d'informations insipides une nouvelle pourtant primordiale pour notre vie démocratique.

J'ai rien contre Bernard Kouchner, c'est un grand docteur, un de treizes qui a fondé "Médecins sans frontières", une grande organisation humanitaire, bravo!

Sauf que parfois un médecin ça devrait faire de la médecine et ne pas trop dire d'imbécilités en termes économiques.

J'en doute pas que le docteur Kouchner prend la famine très au sérieux, et avec raison, mais quand on réfléchit aux propos du docteur Kouchner concernant la spéculation, on voit qu'ils sont remplis d'émotions et non de logique.

Ainsi dans un entrevue, Kouchner veut mettre fin à la spéculation des denrées alimentaires, il souhaite l'interdiction de spéculation sur les denrées.

Selon lui, la spéculation est une des principales causes de la flambée des produits alimentaires.  

Le docteur a donc proposé de tout simplement l’interdire.

«Il faut empêcher la spéculation qui s'abat sur les matières premières alimentaires comme le blé, comme le riz, pour éviter les risques de famine qui touche les pays les plus pauvres », a-t-il proposé.

Pauvre monsieur Kouchner.  La cotation en bourse du prix de denrées alimentaires, tel que le riz, le blé, le café, le boeuf font partie intégrante du système capitaliste.  Le Vietnamien qui produit disons 100 kilos de riz ça ne lui coûte pas plus cher le produire qu'auparavant qu'importe le prix du kilos de riz.  C'est au producteur à prendre la décision s'il vendra ses 100 kilos au prix du marché ou sous le prix du marché.  Rien ne l'oblige à vendre au prix du marché.

La même chose lorsque vous achetez une pièce d'or de disons de 1/2 once chez un marchand de pièces de collection.  Rien n'empêche le marchand de vendre sous le prix du marché.  Rien n'empêche le marchand de vous faire un meilleur prix si vous achetez 10 onces d'or.

Parlant d'or dans les années 90, Barrick Gold et les autres grands producteurs d'or spéculait l'or à la baisse avec des contrats de ventes sur l'once d'or.  Parfois ça peut être très bénéfique la spéculation.

C'est le même principe qui s'applique partout avec les denrées et les matières premières la spéculation tant à la hausse qu'à la baisse ce n'est pas d'hier que ça existe.

À ce compte là pourquoi ne pas interdire la spéculation sur le prix de l'or, les devises, les actions d'entreprises, l'aluminium,  le pétrole, etc... et établir le communisme partout dans le monde et laissons les États gérer les prix.

On voit bien que ça ne tient pas le discours de Kouchner et à mon humble avis, il devrait s'en tenir à la médecine.

Je ne crois pas qu'en Afrique la spéculation sur le riz change grand chose à leur famine.  Il y aura toujours des gens favorables à aider les autres et des producteurs ou des pays de vouloir donner pour aider le plus pauvre.  Les spéculateurs ne sont pas tous des gens sans merci, sans coeur. 

Aussi, si jamais un jour le prix du riz était rendu à je ne sais pas moi, 180$ le kilo, bien je suis convaincu que quelqu'un trouvera une alternative comme aliment au riz et se dira "Le riz est rendu tellement cher faudrait trouver une alternative et consommer autre chose".

La spéculation a des bons côtés et ce à tous les niveaux.  Quelque soit le produit, aucun produit spéculé sur cette planète n'est essentiel à notre vie.  Il y aura toujours des alternatives qui s'offriront à nous, si vous pensez le contraire faites preuve d'imagination. 

Dans certains cas également, l'absence de consommation ou la réduction de consommation peut s'avérer une alternative intéressante.  Je pense immédiatement au pétrole qui nous nords-américains surconsommons à outrance.

En terminant, savez-vous quand la spéculation se termine sur un produit?  Jamais sauf si le produit en question n'existe plus.
L'offre et la demande d'un produit est la base même de toute forme de spéculation.  Si je veux acheter un action de General Electric à 40$ et qu'une autre personne veut l'acheter à 41$, bien déjà il y a spéculation.   La négociation c'est de la spéculaiton. 

Interdire cela serait d'interdire la base même du système capitaliste, d'interdire les marchés boursiers, d'interdire la libre entreprise et d'interdire même de la liberté des individus.

Comunicado de Prensa

La Asambleas de Vecinos Autoconvocados en defensa de la Vida de la Provincia de La Rioja: informamos que el 08/04/08 vamos a realizar el 4ª corte de Ruta en Patquia, entre rutas Nac. 38 y 74, desde las 08, hasta las 18 horas. Reclamando nuestro derecho a un ambiente sano, y exigiendo a los gobiernos provinciales y nacionales que paren con la entrega de nuestros bienes comunes y el futuro de nuestras tierras.
En el Valle del Famatina el Pueblo está diciendo BASTA!!! BASTA DE ENTREGAR A LOS PUEBLOS POR PARTE DE LOS FUNCIONARIOS Y GOBERNANTES!! BASTA DE SAQUEO DE NUESTRAS RIQUEZAS Y LA CONTAMINACIÓN A PERPETUIDAD QUE PROVOCAN LAS CRIMINALES MINERAS!! BASTA!!!

Invitamos a las asambleas, sindicatos, organizaciones, y vecinos en general de nuestra Provincia, País y Países vecinos acercarse y adherir a esta lucha por la vida de nuestras montañas y cerros, fuentes de agua y vida para nuestras tierras.
A los Sres. Diputados Provinciales: Exigimos la quita de adhesión de la Provincia de La Rioja a las leyes mineras Nacionales.( proyecto presentado el día 03/03/08)

Exigimos la Presencia de la Comisión investigadora de la Cámara de Diputados de La Rioja, como así también del fiscal de Estado, en nuestro corte para que nos informen los avances de la investigación de los contratos y convenios entre YAMIRI S.A y Barrick Gold. ley 8139 aprobada el 08/03/07

Al Sr. Gobernador de la Provincia, que deje de entregarnos y traicionar a su pueblo. También denunciamos el doble discurso y la traición de este personaje que está al frente del ejecutivo provincial Luís Beder Herrara, y exigimos el cumplimento de las leyes provinciales: 8137, 8138 y 8139 que él mismo aprobó el 08/03/07.

También denunciamos que los funcionarios de todos los niveles a quienes se les pidió audiencia se niegan a recibirnos, evitan debatir la cuestión minera públicamente, no convocan a audiencias publicas porque seguramente sus argumentos son débiles y sucumbirán frente a los del pueblo.

Por todo esto nos vamos al corte en Patquia el 08/04/08, esperamos a todas las personas de buena voluntad que nos acompañen a defender la vida y el futuro de nuestras tierras.

EL FAMATINA NO SE TOCA, ARGENTINA NO SE TOCA.
FUERA BARRICK GOLD Y MINERAS CRIMNALES DE NUESTRAS TIERRAS!

24 MAR 2008
FUENTE: asamblea de vecinos Autoconvocados de Famatina
noalveneno@yahoo.com.ar

by alex

As a balikbayan, sometimes you’re confronted by a situation that makes you embarrassed to have a Canadian passport. This last Christmas season was pretty crushing for both the Filipino and Canadian in me.

I mean what do you say to a Filipino community where the air, food, and water are poisoned? Where almost everyone has heavy metal poisoning? Where many are suffering horrible symptoms, children are being born with physical and metal illness, and some are even loosing limbs and lives to it,--what do you say when the reason for all this ties back to Canada?

I spent this past Christmas season on the island of Marinduque, where a Canadian mining giant is responsible for one of the world’s greatest mining disasters (and then running away) and in Zamboanga del Norte, where another Canadian company is accused of major human rights offences (they're standing firm---behind a private army).

In the DiCaprio movie “Blood Diamond,” you see how the world’s love affair with diamonds resulted in conflict, displacement, and a lot of lost limbs and lives. “Conflict diamonds” are a massive cause celeb these days with Kanye West hogging airtime to rant political. For us Filipino’s our “conflict diamonds” is a much more common product, gold. Like diamonds, gold mining is responsible for the same sort of conflict, militarization, displacement, and loss of limbs and lives.

For us Fil-Cans this gold issue hits even closer to home.

The Philippines is ranked second to South Africa in production (per unit of land area). Gold is found throughout the islands and mining is one of the centre pieces of the government’s economic strategy. Canada is one of the world’s top mining countries, and the Toronto Stock Exchange (with 60% of the world’s mining listings) is one of the world’s three top financial centres for mining (with Melbourne and London).

Large-scale mining is recognised as one of the most problematic ventures in the world. Where ever there is a large scale mine there are community accusations of human rights abuse, and livelihood and environmental destruction.

Marinduque was depressing. There were three major toxic spills on this island: 1) Calancan Bay where 200 million metric tones of mine tailings were purposefully dumped into the ocean at surface level. This dumping continued 24 hours a day from 1975 to 1991; 2) the Boac River where a dam breach spilled 3-4 million metric tones of tailings in 1996; 3) the Mogpog river had a similar spill in 1991. The Canadian company responsible is Placer Dome/Barrick Gold.

This mine closed down in 1996, but the health and environmental problems linger. Heavy metal poisoning is rampant throughout the island, and none of the sites have been fully rehabilitated. Sometimes when the wind picks up the toxic mine waste is blown about, the locals call this their “snow from Canada.”

While there for Christmas I thought about the toy recall incident from last year when toys made in Asia were chastised for their lead content and possible health risks. In the Philippines the health risk from heavy metals is not a possibility but a fact, and it’s source is the West, often from Canada.

And Marinduque is not an isolated incident. Even without ‘accidents’ mining causes huge problems for the local communities. And the supposed economic benefits are difficult to see. Few jobs are created around large scale mining, and many are lost. Worse still, the money made from this mining doesn’t even stay in the Philippines as the government grants companies long tax holidays, and allows for 100% foreign ownership and 100% repatriation of capital and profits.

I also visited Mt. Canatuan, where Toronto Ventures Incorporated was tried and convicted by the local Subanon tribe for human rights violations including:

- Entering Subanon land without consent.

- The creation of a “Council of Elders” so as to circumvent the traditional leadership of the Subanon tribe.

- Physical injuries to the local people including: physical assault; firing live rounds at protestors; health complications resulting from polluted waterways.

- The destruction of their sacred mountain.

As Filipino-Canadians I believe that this is an issue we can get behind.

Subanon tribal leaders spoke to the Canadian Parliament in 2005 and helped jump start a committee to examine how Canadian mining operates abroad and their recommendations will finally be commented on this spring.

There is also a drive to create a kind of international branding for gold. There is a major initiative called ARM (Association for Responsible Mining) that is developing standards and verification systems to certify gold from small scale producers so it can be marketed like fair trade coffee. And there are also a number of organizations that are working on something called the Green Gold campaign.

Just a few years ago I remember how few people knew about the problems with diamonds in places like Sierra Leone. These days I think we’ve all gotten use to wondering if the diamonds we buy are ‘safe,’ I hope we can also start thinking about our brothers and sisters in the Phils and how the gold we buy here affects them.

So what do you say folks? I know there are some of you that are jewelry producers, and even more of us that are jewelry consumers, what are your thoughts?

Links:

The Association for Responsible Mining: http://www.communitymining.org/

MiningWatch: www.miningwatch.ca

* * *

I was interviewed about this on BlogTO: http://www.blogto.com/divercity_podcast/2008/04/divercity_3_alex_felipes_philippine_vignettes/

* * *

Please feel free to contact me directly for photo and story inquiries: alex.felipe@gmail.com

El gobierno de La Rioja pidió hoy la renuncia al director de Minería provincial, Herman Hünicken, y ratificó que su política para el sector es permitir únicamente la explotación que evite la contaminación ambiental.

Así lo informó hoy el secretario de Agricultura Jorge Ortiz, a cargo del área de Minería.

Hünicken generó una fuerte polémica al afirman en los últimos días a un diario de San Juan que la ley provincial de La Rioja que prohibió la explotación minera a cielo abierto es "inaplicable" porque "está mal hecha" y debería derogarse.

Apenas conocidas las declaraciones, la Asamblea de Ciudadanos Autoconvocados de Famatina y Chilecito, que reúne a ambientalistas y productores agrícolas que rechazan la contaminación minera, envió una nota al gobernador Luis Beder Herrera pidiéndole que defina su posición respecto de los dichos de su funcionario.

Asimismo, los vecinos advirtieron al mandatario que podría convocar a la "desobediencia civil" y a no votar en octubre próximo.

Hünicken fue nombrado por el ex gobernador Angel Maza y se mantuvo en el cargo pese al cambio de gabinete que dispuso Herrera al asumir, tras la destitución del mandatario por un juicio político.

Maza, quien fue secretario de Minería de la Nación durante el gobierno de Carlos Menem, mantenía una posición favorable al desarrollo minero, sin los reparos expresados por Herrera.

Maza y Hünicken defendían las tareas de exploración que la empresa Barrick Gold y la estatal Yamiri llevan adelante en el cordón del Famatina.

Los productores agrícolas de la región, ambientalistas y vecinos de los departamentos Famatina y Chilecito sostienen que una explotación minera a cielo abierto con uso de cianuro para extraer oro, contaminaría las napas de agua que usan para riego y provocaría daños ambientales irreparables.

Las declaraciones de Hünicken al diario de Cuyo de San Juan fueron interpretadas en un comienzo por los ambientalistas como "un cambio de posición política del gobierno" de Herrera en relación al apoyo que les manifestara antes de sustituir a Maza.

Pero el gobierno despidió hoy al director de Minería y ratificó que su política es impedir la contaminación.

Asimismo, Herrera dijo ayer que no permitirá que "se contamine el agua del Famatina" y anunció que reestatizará las minas de la región, hoy en poder de una empresa privada.

La ley que prohibe la extracción metalífera a cielo abierto con el uso de cianuro fue sancionada el 8 de marzo pasado, cuando Herrera presidía la Legislatura provincial.

La norma preveía que el 29 de julio pasado debía realizarse una consulta popular en Famatina y Chilecito para ratificar o rechazar la ley, pero finalmente esto no se llevó a cabo.

Asimismo, creaba una comisión investigadora sobre el convenio suscripto por Maza con Barrick Gold.

18 SET 2007
FUENTE:  Página/12 Web  LA RIOJA  ARGENTINA

Post relacionado La Rioja: PERFORMANCE ANTI BARRICK GOLD EN ACTO DE CRISTINA KIRCHNER

I spent my Xmas on the island of Marinduque. This is where a Canadian mining company had two "accidental" spills of toxic mine tailings into two different rivers, and purposefully dumped 200 metric tonnes of the stuff right into the bay at surface level.

Thus today, eleven years since the mines closure, the people are still suffering from severe health problems. The poison has destroyed much of the environment and what isn't destroyed it helping to poison the people further (as in the few fish and shellfish left pass on poisons to the eater, as do the agricultural products growing in an island with toxic waste everywhere, then there's the fact the toxic tailings are blown around by the wind so breathing ain't so healthy either).

On Xmas eve I slept in the home of a family with acute blood poisoning in the area near where 200 mil tonnes were dumped (again, this was done on purpose). The grandfather (a fisherman) can barely walk because of open sores and tumour growing on his feet (he still fishes), the son has the same problems with the addition of having almost died--he was saved by having his leg amputated, and the grandsons (the youngest is four) also have sores on their legs.

A few years back 59 children from the area of the dumping were chosen to be tested for heavy metal poisoning. All 59 were positive. Many have already died.

The dumping continued 24 hours a day from 1975 to 1991 when the mine decided to dump it's waste into an exhausted open pit mine. Unfortunately they didn't do much to reinforce this pit, so in 1995 the tailings broke through and 3 million tonnes spilled into the Boac River (thus destroying the livelihoods of freshwater fishers and farmers who use the river for irrigation--not to mention more of the same health probs as above).

Not much has been done to help the people of this island (really, as in they deny "legal" responsibility for the Calancan Bay dumping, they claim the Mogpog River spill was an "act of god," and though they admit culpability for the Boac spill, not many have gotten compensation---those that have only getting compensated for damages to property).

The Canadian company: PlacerDome, divested itself of the situation a few years after the Boac spill, and have since been bought out by Barrick Gold. In the meantime the people there continue to eat the seafood, drink the islands water (also contaminated), breath the air, and use the ocean and rivers...

(Photo: Uraguayan special forces MONUC hunting FDLR in Kahuzi Beiga National Park under Operation Falcon Sweep.)

Behind the Numbers

Untold Suffering in the Congo

By Keith Harmon Snow & David Barouski, CCA 26/10/06
Oct 30, 2006, 11:28

The British medical journal Lancet recently took greater notice of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) than all western media outlets combined. A group of physicians reported that about 4 million people have died since the “official” outbreak of the Congolese war in 1998 (1). The BBC reported the war in Congo has claimed more lives than any armed conflict since World War II (2). However, experts working in the Congo, and Congolese survivors, count over 10 million dead since war began in 1996—not 1998—with the U.S.-backed invasion to overthrow Zaire’s President Joseph Mobutu. While the western press quantifies African deaths all the time, no statistic can quantify the suffering of the Congolese.

Some people are aware that war in the Congo is driven by the desire to extract raw materials, including diamonds, gold, columbium tantalite (coltan), niobium, cobalt, copper, uranium and petroleum. Mining in the Congo by western companies proceeds at an unprecedented rate, and
it is reported that some $6 million in raw cobalt alone—an element of superalloys essential for nuclear, chemical, aerospace and defense industries—exits DRC daily. Any analysis of the geopolitics in the Congo requires an understanding of the organized crime perpetrated through multi-national businesses, in order to understand the reasons why the Congolese people have suffered a virtually unending war since 1996.

Some people have lauded great progress in the exposure of illegal mining in DRC, particularly by the group Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose 2005 report “The Curse of Gold” exposed Ugandan officials and multi-national corporations smuggling gold through local rebel militias. The cited rebel groups were the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) and the People’s Armed Forces of Congo (FAPC). The western companies targeted by HRW were Anglo-Ashanti Gold, a company headquartered in South Africa, and Metalor, a Swedish firm. The HRW report failed to mention that Anglo-Ashanti is partnered with Anglo-American, owned by the Oppenheimer family and partnered with Canada-based Barrick Gold described below (3). London-based Anglo-American Plc. owns a 45% share in DeBeers, another Oppenheimer company that is infamous for its near monopoly of the international diamond industry (4). Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, a director of Anglo-American, is a director of Royal Dutch/Shell and a member of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Advisory Board (5). The report also suppressed the most damning evidence discovered by HRW researchers—that Anglo-Ashanti sent its top lawyers into eastern DRC to aid rebel militia leaders arrested there.

Several multi-national mining companies have rarely if ever been mentioned in any human rights report. One is Barrick Gold, who operates in the town of Watsa, northwest of the town of Bunia, located in the most violent corner of the Congo. The Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) controlled the mines intermittently during the war. Officials in Bunia claim that Barrick executives flew into the region, with UPDF and RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) escorts, to survey and inspect their mining interests (6).

George H.W. Bush served as a paid advisor for Barrick Gold. Barrick directors include: Brian Mulroney, former PM of Canada; Edward Neys, former U.S. ambassador to Canada and chairman of the private PR firm Burston-Marsteller; former U.S. Senator Howard Baker; J. Trevor Eyton, a member of the Canadian Senate; and Vernon Jordan, one of Bill Clinton’s lawyers (7).

(Photo: Rape has been used as a systematic means of instilling terror in the
people all over DRC. This girl (20) fled Eastern DRC and crossed the
country on foot to find some refuge in Western DRC.)

Barrick Gold is one of the client companies of Andrew Young’s Goodworks International lobbying firm. Andrew Young is the former Mayor of Atlanta, and a key organizer of the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council. Young was chosen by President Clinton to chair the Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund in October 1994. Goodworks’ clients—or business partners in some cases—include Coke, Chevron-Texaco, Monsanto, and the governments of Angola and Nigeria (note weapons transfers from Nigeria cited below). Young is a director of Cox Communications and Archers Daniels Midland—the “supermarket to the world” and National Public Radio sponsor whose directors include Brian Mulroney (Barrick) and G. Allen Andreas, a member of the European Advisory Board of The Carlyle Group.

Barrick Gold’s mining partners have included Adastra Mining—formerly named America Mineral Fields (AMFI, AMX, other names), formerly based in Hope, Arkansas, Bill Clinton’s hometown. Adastra had close ties with Lazare Kaplan International Inc., the largest diamond brokerage firm in the U.S., whose president, Maurice Tempelsman, has been an advisor on African Affairs to the U.S. Government and has been the U.S. Honorary Consul General of the Congo since 1977 (8).

Maurice Tempelsman accompanied Bill Clinton during his African tour in 1998, and he sails with the Clintons off Martha’s Vineyard. He serves on the International Advisory Council of the American Stock Exchange, and is a director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, a
”scientific” front for his offshore diamond mining—raking the seabed into oblivion.

Adastra also purchased a diamond concession on the Congolese-Angolan border from the Belgian mercenary firm International Defense and Security (1998), and currently has cobalt and copper concessions in Congo’s Katanga (Shaba) province (9). Adastra is a member of the Corporate Council on Africa, along with Goodworks, Halliburton, Chevron-Texaco, Northrop Grumman, GE, Boeing, Raytheon, Bechtel and SAIC—the latter two being secretive intelligence and defense entities involved in classified and supra-governmental “black” projects.

In April 1997, Jean-Ramon Boulle, a co-founder of Adastra (then AMFI), received a $1 billion dollar deal for mines in the Congo at Kolwezi (cobalt) and Kipushi (zinc) from Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire (ADFL) before they were even officially in power. The ADFL were even allowed to use Boulle’s private jet (10). Meanwhile, directors of Adastra are also former directors of Anglo-American (11). Other Clinton-connected founders of Adastra include Michael McMurrough and Robert Friedland—both involved in shady, criminal, offshore businesses in Indonesia, Africa, Burma and the Americas (12).

Barrick sub-contracts to Caleb International, who has also partnered with Adastra in the past. Caleb is run by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s half-brother Salim Saleh, the former acting General of the UPDF. When Uganda withdrew from the Congo in 2002 following a so-called “peace” agreement, Saleh began training paramilitary groups to act as Ugandan proxies to sustain the flow of minerals into Uganda (13).

Salim Saleh is a shareholder in Catalyst Co. of Canada, who has a 100% interest in Uganda’s Kaabong gold fields (14). He is a part owner of Saracen, a private military company created by the mercenaries-for-hire firm Executive Outcomes (15). The U.N. Panel of Experts on Illegal Exploitation of Congo’s Mineral Resources recommended Salim Saleh be put on a travel ban and have his assets frozen, but nothing was done.

Recent interventions by the armed U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Congo (MONUC) have concentrated on disarming or eliminating the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel group that opposes Rwanda, and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group that opposes Uganda. (Note that the Rwanda military has partnered with its erstwhile “enemies”—the FDLR—when necessary to secure resource plunder while Uganda has its own pattern of complicity with its “rebel” enemies. Rebel alliances are to perpetually shifting.) The removal of these rebel groups will effectively clear the eastern Congo for large–scale multi-national mining. The Mai-Mai militia, whose stated goal is “to protect Congo from Rwandan and Ugandan invaders,” has committed documented human rights abuses, yet they appear to be off the agenda for MONUC. The Mai-Mai operate in northern Katanga (Shaba) province and in the Kivus.

Katanga’s militias and racketeering are connected to criminal networks of businessmen, including Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, Billy Rautenbach, John Bredenkamp, and Marc Rich. U.S. diamond magnate Maurice Tempelsman has profited from Katanga concessions since the Kennedy era. Lawrence Devlin, the old CIA station chief of Lubumbashi under Eisenhower, maintained Tempelsman’s criminal rackets with direct ties to Zaire’s former President Mobutu, and was subsequently employed by Tempelsman (16).

The Forrest Group has the longest history of exploitation in the Congo, gaining its first mining concessions before the Congo declared independence from the Belgians. The group, which includes the Ohio-based OM Group, has numerous concessions in Katanga (Shaba). Chairman George Forrest is the former chairman of the Congo’s state-owned mining firm GECAMINES, and owner of the New Lachaussee weapons manufacturing company.

Coltan ore is widely used in the aerospace and electronics industries for capacitors, superconductors and transistors after it is refined to tantalum. The U.S. is entirely dependant on foreign sources for tantalum, an enabling technology for capacitors essential to aerospace weaponry and every pager, cell phone, computer, VCR, CD player, P.D.A. and TV. U.S. import records show a dramatic jump of purchases from Rwanda and Uganda during the time they were smuggling tantalum and cobalt out of the Congo.

Sony dramatically increased their importation of coltan following the release of their Playstation 2, while Compaq, Microsoft, Dell, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Nokia, Intel, Lucent, and Motorola are also large-scale consumers (17). Sony’s current Executive Vice-President and General Counsel Nicole Seligman was a former legal adviser for Bill Clinton through the D.C. firm Williams and Connelly, LLP, whose clients included Bill Clinton and Oliver North (18). Sony Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer Robert Wiesenthal is a former banker with First Boston, a supporter of Refugees International’s “humanitarian” relief efforts at Rwandan refugee camps in Eastern Congo, just before the fall of Mobutu in 1995; Wiesenthal was also financial adviser to Cox Communications, OM Group, Time Warner and The New York Times (19).

(Photo: FDLR "genocidaires" -- children with guns -- in eastern DRC.)

Walter Kansteiner, the son of a coltan trader in Chicago, is the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and former member of the Dept. of Defense Task Force on Strategic Minerals. Kansteiner’s speech at The Forum for International Policy in October of 1996 advocated partitioning the Congo (then Zaire) into smaller states based on ethnic lineage (20). Ironically, while the speech was given, Laurent Kabila and his ADFL were beginning their march to overthrow Mobutu with the aid of Rwanda, Uganda, and the U.S. (21). Kansteiner is a trustee of the Africa Wildlife Foundation—another euphemistic front for resource acquisition in Congo.

Bechtel, a U.S. aerospace & construction company, provided satellite maps of reconnaissance photos of Mobutu’s troops for the ADFL invasion of Congo in 1996; they also created infrared maps of the Congo’s mineral deposits (22). The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan President graduate of the U.S. Army officers school at Fort Leavenworth, used Bechtel’s NASA maps to locate Rwandan Hutu civilians that fled the cataclysm in Rwanda in 1994. An estimated 800,000 refugees were hunted down and killed in the Congo’s forests (23). Bechtel’s friends in high places include former Secretary of State George Shultz (Board of Directors), former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger (Bechtel Counsel) and retired U.S.M.C. general Jack Sheehan (Senior Vice President), who is also a member of the Defense Policy Board at the Pentagon (24). Riley P. Bechtel is on the Board of J.P. Morgan (25). Bechtel’s Nexant Company is the prime contractor on the Uganda-Kenya pipeline project, believed to ultimately facilitate petroleum transport out of the Semliki Basin of Lake Albert.

The U.N. Panel of Experts named New England-based Cabot Co. for conducting unethical business practices (26). Cabot is one of the largest tantalum processors in the world. The current Deputy Director of the U.S. Treasury, Samuel Bodman, was CEO and chairman of the board for Cabot from 1997-2001 (27). Current Director John H. McArthur is a Senior Advisor to Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank (28).

Private Military Contractors (PMCs) are also big business in Africa. Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, helped build a military base near Cyangugu, Rwanda just next to the Congo-Rwandan border. ”Officially,” Brown and Root was there to clear land mines, but instead housed mercenaries from Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) who trained the RPF and Laurent Kabila’s ADFL for invasion of the Congo in 1996, and the Rwandan army’s re-invasion in 1998, after
Laurent Kabila threw out the Rwandans, Ugandans, Bechtel and the IMF (29). The French intelligence service reported that U.S. Special Forces and mercenaries from MPRI participated in the murder of Rwandan Hutu refugees on the Oso River near Goma in 1996 and even claims to have turned over the bodies of two American soldiers killed in combat near Goma (30). The circumstances surrounding the unofficial recovery of these two U.S. soldiers remain very mysterious (31).

MPRI is based in Arlington, Virginia and is staffed and run by 36 retired U.S. generals. It is contracted by the Pentagon to fulfill the African Crisis Responsive Initiative (ACRI). This program includes the Ugandan military, and it supplied military training in guerrilla warfare to Ugandan officers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in July 1996. During the invasion of the Congo in 1998, Ugandan soldiers were found with ACRI equipment while Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have implicated Ugandan battalions trained by ACRI in rapes, murders, extortion, and beatings of Ugandan civilians (32).

Executive Outcomes founder Tony Buckingham has established other Private Military Companies that operate around Africa. Buckingham’s Heritage Oil & Gas works closely with his PMC Sandline International to manipulate the petroleum options around Lake Albert, and is believed to have signed concession deals with warring armies and governments on both sides of the Uganda-Congo border. Branch Energy is another Buckingham affiliated company operating in the Great Lakes region.

Investigations of illegal weapons sales to Rwanda last year, in violation of the U.N. arms embargo on the region, have been hampered by the Rwandan government’s refusal to provide a list of serial numbers of the 5000 AK-47s delivered there. The shipping country, Bulgaria, also refused to provide serial numbers, and would only confirm that the weapons were sold legally to a non-embargo country, Nigeria, en route to Rwanda and DRC. The governments of Uganda, Congo, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea—a major U.S. petroleum protectorate—are equally culpable in supporting the clandestine arms sales to the region (33).

Weapons shipments arriving by boat from Tanzania, and the Government of Tanzania’s role in supporting war in DRC, are never questioned. This may have something to do with Barrick Gold’s mining licenses in Tanzania’s Masaai territories. Aircraft flying between Tanzania, DRC, and from Kenya, are allowed to do so without proper documentation, record-keeping or customs oversight.

Another shady “untouchable” arms dealer operating behind the scenes in the region is an Indian-American named Mr. Kotecha. Kotecha’s interests in South Kivu are substantial, and he is openly fingered as dealing in money laundering, arms, coltan and diamonds. After the first U.S.-sponsored invasion of the Congo in 1996, Kotecha is known to have repeatedly boasted of being the “United States Consulate” in South Kivu. Kotecha holds a U.S. passport and owns a mansion in California.

When an outspoken local defender of human rights working for a small NGO (Pascal Kabungulu of Heritiers de la Justice) was assassinated during the summer of 2005 in Bukavu, the alleged killers, including a local Congolese military commander, were identified but MONUC and the international “community” took no action. The killing revolved around his role in exposing the Congolese commanders’ involvement in contraband smuggling (which continues today).

A U.N. Panel of Experts in a forthcoming report will challenge many airlines and companies for undertaking illicit flights (illegal, secret, unregistered or falsely registered) into and out of DRC. One of many notable companies apparently connected to Victor Bout’s arms trafficking networks is Simax, an Oregon-based company using an address in Sierra Leone. However, the U.N. Panel of Experts has once again ignored certain western agencies—with histories of illicit activities—whose flights remain equally surreptitious and unaccountable. At the top of the list is the International Rescue Committee (IRC)—directors include Henry Kissinger —whose flights in and out of Congo, and internal flights to and from isolated airports in eastern DRC, are completely unmonitored by MONUC arms embargo inspectors. In Bukavu, for example, all light aircraft are subject to MONUC arms embargo inspections, but IRC flights are not within the MONUC mandate. As one MONUC Military Observer admitted, “The IRC should be subject to the same standards as everyone else; otherwise we have to assume they are shipping weapons, because they do not let us confirm they are not.”

Similarly, while the U.N. Panel of Experts have investigated and reported on certain illegal criminal networks and activities in Congo, they never attend to the top-level deals brokered behind closed doors by executives from Adastra, Anglo-American, the companies of Sweden’s Adolph Lundin (a close friend of George H.W. Bush), who have control of mining concessions in Lubumbashi, Kolwezi and Mbuji Mayi areas in the Katanga (Shaba) and Kasai provinces. U.S.-based Phelps Dodge is partnered in Katanga copper/cobalt mining projects with Lundin’s Tenke Mining. Phelps Dodge director Douglas C. Yearly is also a director of Lockheed Martin, and the World Wildlife Fund—partnered with USAID and CARE in “conservation”—read: acquisition—projects all over Congo while CARE’s “humanitarian” agenda is also funded by Lockheed Martin.

“Conservation” interests provide the vanguard of western penetration in Central Africa: USAID, WWF, AWF, and Conservation International lead the charge. Evidence from USAID cases all over Congo quickly contradicts all fanfare about USAID bringing “sustainable” or “community development” projects. Most notable are the Central Africa Region Partnership for the Environment (CARPE) and Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP), two programs pressing hidden military, intelligence and economic agendas. Notably, National Geographic is involved in furthering the mythologies of conservation, democracy, community development, or the lip service paid to respecting and supporting indigenous people.

Some people have suggested the reason that there isn’t greater awareness and equitable intervention in the Congo is because “we simply don’t know what to do” to remedy the situation. However, it is fairly clear what needs to be done, the West is just unwilling to do it because of powerful economic and geopolitical reasons.

1. U.S. Military Training programs must have an oversight committee and total transparency. Western governments must end their hypocritical stance and ensure they don’t train any “rebel” or ”dissident” groups, especially if they are against a democratically elected government (provided the elections weren’t fraudulent), even if the elected government isn’t politically aligned with the western ideology and/or economic ideals. To do otherwise would refute claims that the west is intervening to “spread democracy.”

2. In parallel with number 1, a committee must be set up to ensure the same doesn’t occur for the private military companies. As multinational corporations, these firms aren’t subject to obey laws of warfare as an established country’s armed forces are supposed to. The U.N. must pass resolutions mandating the World Court and International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute such corporations. Lastly, when such companies are exposed for conducting illegal activities, such as aiding coups or trafficking human slaves, the corporations who conduct these activities must be blacklisted from receiving government contracts, domestic or international, and the guilty individuals must be prosecuted (34).

3. In the arms arena, more substantial efforts must be created to intercept and prosecute “embargo busters,” illegal brokers, and arms sellers. Furthermore, those selling, transporting, brokering, funding, or wiring arms transactions for weapons specifically intended for children should receive the harshest of the penalties (certain ”small weapons” are modified to reduce their weight to make it easier for a child to carry). Firms that participate in arms shipments, transport and/or the movement of the flow of the money generated from these sales with countries, people or organizations that are embargoed or act against national or international law should be held accountable for their crimes. Assets can be frozen, travel bans imposed, and all government and economic business ties with such firms severed. These penalties must also have an assurance of enforcement.

4. Debt relief is essential, but ways must be found to protect IMF and World Bank loans from being used for military expenditures. The motivations of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz are suspect. Dr. Wolfowitz is a former Deputy Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush, a former ambassador to Indonesia under Ronald Reagan, a PNAC member, and dual citizen in Israel. Likewise, the World Bank and IMF must shift their policy of privatization as a stipulation for loan approval in order to stimulate business growth within the state instead of having the business sector growth be almost entirely from multinational corporations. The World Bank and IMF must also provide debt relief to the counties that need it most according to economic indicators. Some countries receiving debt relief, like Uganda and Rwanda, are among the biggest spenders of their loans in the military sector (35). It must be ensured that a majority of spending occurs on infrastructure and public services, and that this does not benefit the standard set of “embedded” western corporations. It must also be ensured the loan money is used in areas that need development the most. For example, in Uganda, the loan money Museveni has used for development has focused in the south in Kampala, the capital, and in Mbarra, his hometown. Meanwhile, the Acholi people, who always vote against Museveni’s party in the polls, are ignored and the situation in the Lira, Gulu, and Kitgum districts continues to deteriorate. In addition, individual countries must examine the aid they give to countries that spend a high percentage of capital on military, as well as commit human rights abuses. Lastly, debt relief doesn’t harm banks that gave the loans in the first place and collect on some of the interest rates, not to mention the American businesses that make profit on the privatized businesses as part of the loan deal. The debt is transferred to the taxpayers, so transparency is needed to insure that costs are also incurred by the firms granting the loans (if they want credit for their “humanitarian” debt relief).

5. Western countries must end the impunity for those responsible for looting minerals from Congo. Firms that purchase smuggled minerals, and/or purchase concessions from illegitimate rebel groups must be prosecuted. The World Court recently made a start by convicting Uganda and fining the government, but Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe remain unaccountable for their direct pirating, as are the Western firms that purchased the minerals, and Western individuals supporting them. (The Kimberly Process, established with the support of academic and intelligence experts at Harvard University, is a perfect example of the gatekeepers policing their own gates: the huge, entrenched, but secretive interests like the Oppenheimer/DeBeers and Maurice Tempelsman owned companies are legitimized as dealers of “clean” diamonds; while the other, far less connected competitors and challengers of the status quo, including Congolese children sneaking into mines and being shot for “stealing” the diamonds off their own starving families’ former lands, are demonized as dealers of “blood” diamonds.)

6. The World Court and International Criminal Court must hold all military and civilian leaders—African, U.S., European—that are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity accountable for their actions. The West must not be allowed to shield criminals from prosecution by virtue of their economic and political alliances with Western governments. Governments that harbor these criminals should be subject to prosecution. Economic sanctions may not be proper, as poor nations generally suffer severe civilian casualties as a result; specific involved individuals in government and the military must be held accountable.

7. “Peacekeeping” forces, in particular MONUC, must be examined to ensure that the mission is being conducted with the interests of promoting stability in the country. As illustrated, elements of MONUC have used the mission as a cover to further the agenda of the West and its corporate sponsors under the banner of “peacekeeping,” causing the death of civilians in the process: those responsible should be tried and prosecuted. It must also be ensured that the investigations don’t stop at individual soldiers or brigades committing crimes, but to examine the chain of command and their allegiances to uncover the motivations behind MONUC operations. There have been reports of MONUC troops looting ivory, gold, and animal skins in National Parks. Villagers say that they have seen murders occur right in front of MONUC soldiers and they didn’t act to prevent the killings (36). MONUC soldiers have raped Congolese women (37). When pro-Rwandan rebel leaders Laurent Nkunda and Jules Mutibusi, both war criminals wanted by the U.N., took over Bukavu by force in May 2004, MONUC provided them with weapons and vehicles. Nkunda himself has stated the head of MONUC, William Swing, personally gave him a telephone to use during the raid. (38)

8. The international media is completely silent on virtually every major issue of significance with respect to war in DRC—and the international and criminal networks behind it. Misinformation about Africa prevails due to a concerted effort by the mainstream media to blackout the truth. A boycott of key publications is imperative, and must include the most offensive: Boston Globe, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report, USA Today, New York Times, the New Yorker (Conde Nast Publications), Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly (highly subsidized by Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman) and, especially, National Geographic.

9. The fog of war needs to be cleared away from so-called ”humanitarian” and “human rights” programs, organizations and individuals currently aligned with the Western corporate enterprise. Notables in this category include: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, CARE, USAID, Norwegian People’s Aid, International Crises Group, International Rescue Committee, Refugees International, the Genocide Intervention Fund, and many U.N. bodies, but especially UNHCR. Most of these agencies appear to exist merely to perpetuate their own survival. Doctors Without Borders also deserves scrutiny for their recent actions in DRC.

10. The peace and justice community remains unaccountable for its failure to take any significant actions to mitigate war in Congo and expose the true reasons behind it. A first step should be open up the spaces to alternative voices currently excluded by major social justice media venues. Second is to declare a total boycott on diamonds and gold, and an organized campaign to protest and economically castigate diamond stores where Lazare diamonds are sold. A third action is the commitment of meaningful funds—both from individuals and from organizations—to support the vibrant grass roots organizations and individuals working for human rights, women’s health, disarmament, education, food security, rainforest and environmental defense in Congo. Fourth, people need to break through their fear (inculcated by the western media) of taking action to help people in the Congo: there is no reason—except the unacceptable—that westerners cannot establish a “Witness for Peace” program situated in the Congo.

11. Rights groups with missions pertinent to Congo’s need must expand their missions to include Congo. Rape is endemic in the Congo: a source of psychological and physical trauma, it contributes to the spread of HIV, Ebola and other sexually transmitted diseases. Survivors often give birth to HIV positive children with no prospects for medical or financial help. This has lead to an insurmountable need for aid to care for the orphans. Mothers of children conceived of rape are often disowned by their village and families. Western feminist and women’s rights activists and organizations must get involved and provide resources for the victims of rape in Congo. Those responsible for rapes must be tried and punished as per the law if guilty. Indeed, evidence from rape cases in rural DRC shows that sexual violence is significantly reduced simply by holding military officers accountable for their troops’ actions, but this is not happening.

12. MONUC’s Radio Okapi is the lifeline of news in DRC today, but programming is largely comprised of U.N. programming. The United Nations needs to be pressured to open up the Radio Okapi network, eliminate the “fluff” pieces, and diversify and deepen its programming and reportage. As a simple example of how things could easily be improved in DRC, programs that sensitize the public o the issue of rape, and sensitize the military to the punishment for it, could easily be implemented; such programming is never considered.

13. The transitional government in Congo is comprised of military leaders and government officials who must be held accountable for their crimes. Like the individuals, organizations, corporations and governments that have supported them, all are responsible for crimes against humanity. The current profiteering in DRC is enabled by these key players, who hold the highest levels of the DRC government, and whose crimes remain hidden by the western press. The transitional government must not be allowed to appoint war criminals to cabinet or parliamentary positions, as well as local governor positions in the provinces.

References

(1) “Mortality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Nationwide
Survey.” Benjamin Coghlan, Richard J. Brennan, Pascal Ngoy, David
Dofara, Brad Otto, Mark Clements, and Tony Steward. The Lancet, 7
Jan. 2006. Number 367 pp. 44-51

(2) “Thousands’ dying in DR Congo war,” BBC News, 6, Jan. 2006:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4586832.stm .

(3) “Depopulation & Perception Management Part 2: Central Africa,”
keith harmon snow. Pioneer Valley VOICE, Feb. 2001:
http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-32Depop&PercepMan.htm ;”Congo: Capitalist Mineral Lust Fuels Bloodshed,” Direct Action:http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/back%20issues/DA%2028/regulars3_1.html
.

(4) “The Lost World War,” Erik Vilwar, Corporation Watch Newsletter,
Issue 13, March-April 2003:
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue13

(5) “Depopulation As Policy, or, How the Despair and Death of Millions
of African People is Daily Determined by the Lifestyle of Ordinary
Americans, in Small Town USA, With Nary a Word of Truth In the US
Press, If Anything At All, And Why Most of Us Know Nothing About It,
And Do Nothing To Stop It When We Do Know,” keith harmon snow, 2003: http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-52Depopulation%20As%20Policy.htm
.

(6) Private interview, keith harmon snow, Bunia, 2005.

(7) “Central Africa: Hidden Agendas and the Western Press,” Pioneer
Valley Voice, keith harmon snow: http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/showflat/cat/WorldNews/48471/0/collapsed/5/o/1

(8) “Genocide and Covert Operations In Africa 1993-1999,” United
States One Hundred Seventh Congress. Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. First Session. 17 May 2001. comp. Centre for Research on Globalization.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD111A.html .

(9) Ibid.

(10) “Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo,” Dena Montague, SAIS Review, vol. XXII no. 1
(Winter-Spring 2002); “Congo: Capitalist Mineral Lust Fuels
Bloodshed,” Direct Action:
http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/back%20issues/DA%2028/regulars3_1.html; “Congo: The Western Heart of Darkness,” Asad Ismi, The Canadian
Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, October 2001.

(11) “Depopulation & Perception Management Part 2: Central Africa,”
keith harmon snow, Pioneer Valley VOICE, Feb. 2001:
http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-32Depop&PercepMan.htm .

(12) “Proxy Wars in Central Africa: Profits, Propaganda, and Luxury
Goods for the White World—Pacification, Rape, and Slavery for the
Blacks,” keith harmon snow, World War 3 Report, Issue No. 100, 19 July 2004: http://ww3report.com/proxy.html .

(13) “Named and Shamed,” Ruud Leeuw: http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout17.htm .

(14) “Uganda, Sanctions, and Congo-K: Who is Who in Uganda Mining,”
Africa Analysis, 5 June 2001:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/congo/2001/0606uga.htm .

(15) “Corporate Soldiers: The U.S. Government Privatizes Force,” Daniel
Burton and Wayne Madsen:
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/us_military/162741.html .

(16) David Gibbs, “The Political Economy of Third World
Interventions,” University of Arizona Press; and Wayne Madsen,
”Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellen Press,
1999.

(17) “The Lost World War,” Erik Vilwar, Corporation Watch Newsletter,
Issue 13, March-April 2003:
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue13 .

(18) “Sony Corporation of America: Executive Biographies,” Jan. 2006.
http://www.sony.com.SCA/

(19) “Proxy Wars in Central Africa: Profits, Propaganda, and Luxury
Goods for the White World – Pacification, Rape, and Slavery for the
Blacks,” keith harmon snow, World War 3 Report, Issue No. 100, 19 Jul. 2004: http://ww3report.com/proxy.html .

(20) “Genocide and Covert Operations In Africa, 1993-1999,” United
States One Hundred Seventh Congress, Subcommittee on International
Operations and Human Rights, First Session, 17 May 2001, comp. Centre
for Research on Globalization:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD111A.html .

(21) “The U.S. (Under)mining Job of Africa,” :
http://cryptome.org/us-africa.wm.htm .

(22) “Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo,” Dena Montague, SAIS Review, Vol. XXII, No. 1,
(Winter-Spring 2002).

(23) “A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa,”
Howard French, 12 April 2005, Vintage, New York, NY.

(24) “The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Polititians, War
Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them,” Amy Goodman, David Goodman,
2004, Hyperion Press, New York, NY.

(25) See: “Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story.”

(26) “Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo,” Dena Montague, SAIS Review, Vol. XXII, No. 1,
(Winter-Spring 2002); Named and Shamed, Ruud Leeuw:
http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout17.htm .

(27) “Rwanda’s Secret War: U.S.-Backed Destabilization of Central
Africa,” keith harmon snow, 12 December 2004:
http://traprockpeace.org/keith_snow_rwanda.html .

(28) “Proxy Wars in Central Africa: Profits, Propaganda, and Luxury
Goods for the White World – Pacification, Rape, and Slavery for the
Blacks,” keith harmon snow, World War 3 Report, Issue No. 100, 19 Jul. 2004: http://ww3report.com/proxy.html .

(29) “The U.S. (Under)mining Job of Africa,”
http://cryptome.org/us-africa.wm.htm .

(30) “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” United
States One Hundred Seventh Congress. Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. First Session. 17 May 2001. comp. Centre for Research on Globalization.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD111A.html .

(31) Private interview, keith harmon snow, eastern DRC, July 2005.

(32) “Corporate Soldiers: The U.S. Government Privatizes Force,” Daniel Burton and Wayne Madsen:
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/us_military/162741.html .

(33) Confidential report, received, February 2006.

(34) “The Controversial Commando,” Pratap Chatterjee, 14 Jun. 2004:
http://www.guerrillanews.com/human_rights/doc4644.html ;
”CSC/DynCorp.” Corporation Watch:
http://www.corpwatch.org/print_article.php?list=type&type=18 ;
”Crossing the Rubicon,” Michael Ruppert, 2004, New Society
Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: p. 79-80.

(35) “The Use of Rwanda’s External Debt (1990-1994): The
Responsibility of Donors and Creditors,” Michel Chossudovsky, Pierre
Galand, 30 March 2004:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=364 .

(36) “Rwanda’s Secret War: U.S.-Backed Destabilization of Central
Africa,” keith harmon snow, World War Four Report, 12 Dec. 2004:
www.WorldWar4Report.com .

(37) “Proxy Wars in Central Africa: Profits, Propaganda, and Luxury
Goods for the White World—Pacification, Rape, and Slavery for the
Blacks,” keith harmon snow, World War 3 Report, No. 100, 19 Jul. 2004:
http://ww3report.com/proxy.html .

(38) “Report on Events in Bukavu, South Kivu: May 26 to June 9, 2004,” Network of Women for the Defense of Rights and of Peace,

Ces tentacules aurifères sont partout sur la planète où l'or s'extrait du sol.

Plusieurs personnes me disent ou écrivent dans des forums de finance: "ha... Barrick Gold, ça ne fait que monter et descendre depuis quelques années et le prix de l'action n'a pas su suivre la tendance haussière du prix de l'or".  Les mêmes personnes ajoutent, "ha Barrick Gold ont eu trop de hedging et ça nuie au rendement de l'action".

C'est quand on analyse à long-terme qu'on constate des choses étonnantes. 

Le titre de ABX est passé de 15$ US à la fin 1998 à 37,20$ US vendredi.  Cela signifie une appréciation de 22,20$ US pendant cette période.   Soit un rendement de 248% en près de 9 ans. 

Pour la même période le prix de l'or affichait 288$ US l'once à la fin décembre 1988 pour un prix de 708.60$ US hier.  Une appréciation de 420.60$ l'once pour un rendement de 246%.

Tiens donc un rendement de 248% pour Barrick versus un rendement de 246% pour le prix de l'or et ce pour la même période. 

Que dire de plus maintenant après cette évidence de rendement similaire?

Voici les graphiques sur 10 ans (double-cliquer pour agrandir):

Hace años que las multinacionales rastrean la Cordillera de Los Andes. Con ojo milimétrico, sus satélites ya revelaron los rincones de mayor riqueza y, ni tontos ni perezosos, enviaron a un puñado de exploradores a taladrar hasta los sitios más recónditos de la majestuosa y blanca montaña. En 1994 la expedición encontró su mina de oro: Pascua Lama, justo debajo de tres glaciares: Toro I, Toro II y Esperanza, al interior del Valle del Huasco del lado chileno, en la región de Atacama y San Juan del lado argentino.