ENVIRONMENT: Protests at Mining Meeting Rankle Men in Suit

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

LONDON, May 11 1996 (IPS) - The shareholder protests which disrupted the annual meeting here this week of Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ), the world’s largest mining firm, could be one of the last occasions this device is used — if the big companies have their way.

Protestors at the RTZ meeting were angry over the environmental impacts of company activities in Colombia, Indonesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and the United States.

Their action comes at a time when Shell, the multinational petroleum company, is leading lobbying efforts by companies in this country to restrict attendance at annual general meetings and thus reduce the chances of protests that generate bad publicity.

One shareholder was dragged out of the RTZ meeting after he jumped on to the stage where the directors were assembled. Thiw as after the chairman announced that he would not allow any more questions.

Also at the meeting were over 30 representatives of indigenous peoples from Namibia to Norway who joined the 1200 shareholders that attended the meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, a stone’s throw from the British houses of parliament.

The indigenous peoples are in town for an international meeting on the impact on mining organised by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches.

Most of them had bought one share in the company valued at 16.17 dollars, which allowed them to ask questions of Sir Derek Barkin, the outgoing chairman of the British mining company, about the activities of the company.

Questions dealt with RTZ as well as CRA, an Australian company which recently merged with RTZ. The two companies generated 2.85 billion dollars in pre-tax profits in 1995 from 9.3 billion dollars in sales.

RTZ operations range from iron ore in China, uranium in Ontario, Canada, nickel in Zimababwe and extracting gold from a volcano on the island of Lihir in the South Pacific.

The merged companies also own substantial chunks of shares in other large mines such as Escondida in Chile and Grasberg in Indonesia, the first and third largest copper mines in the world.

Drawing the most attention was Pieter Magal, an Amungme native from the western half of the island of New Guinea, which is called Irian Jaya by the Indonesian government which took control of the island in 1963.

“We ask you to stop the destruction of the environment and clean up our rivers immediately,” said Magal, who is an employee of Freeport McMoRan, the operator of the Grasberg mine which is the world’s largest gold mine. RTZ owns 12 percent of the shares of the Grasberg operations.

“Murder is what the company is up to,” said another shareholder who did not identify himself, referring to widespread reports of massacres by army officers at the Grasberg mine site over the last two decades.

Barkin referred all these questions to Bob Wilson, the chief executive of the company, who glanced occasionally at a sheaf of papers that had been prepared to help him answer.

“Some of these allegations are pretty far-fetched. Others have been dealt with by Dames and Moore, an international consultant, which has conducted an independent audit of the mine. This report is critical of Freeport’s reactive attitude to environmental problems in the past but says that the matters are now being taken care of,” said Wilson.

But Wilson was then questioned about similar problems elsewhere. “I want to ask if genocide is the price for saying no to the CRA mine in Bougainville,” asked John Kawowa of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The Bougainville mine which was run by CRA on a small island in the South Pacific off the coast of PNG was shut down by local people several years ago after local rivers were destroyed by pollution from the operation. The PNG government responded by sending in naval vessels and the situation remains tense.

Leon Davis, another director of RTZ, told Kawowa that the situation in Bougainville was primarily a fight over the share in the profits of the copper mine on the island.

“Yes, deaths have occurred. This is legitimate debate that happens in all societies. Since 1991 the company has provided one million dollars in medical aid for Bougainville,” he said.

These issues also troubled others at the meeting whose lands have recently become the subject of RTZ’s interest such as Amando Perez Arayjo of Colombia who wanted to know what RTZ was planning to do with its newly acquired stake in the Orgenal coal mine in his country. The orginal mine has been heavily criticised for displacing local families.

“We are contemplating an expansion of these mines to something considerably larger but rest assured that we will undertake studies on all environmental and community affairs,” said Wilson in reply.

Also present in the audience were a number of activists from Friends of the Earth and Survival International, a group that focusses on indigenous peoples, who wanted to know what RTZ was planning to do in the forests of Madagascar, where it is holding talks about a possible titanium dioxide mine.

“Friends of the Earth is suffering from a misunderstanding. There is no mine and there is no agreement with the government. We may have something in the future but not before the end of this decade,” replied Wilson.

“You are talking about one of the poorest countries in the world. People are desperately eking out a living by destroying the very forests of which you are so concerned. Mining will bring export implications, development implications and tax implications for the counry,” he added.

Other shareholders stood up to tell the directors their opinion of the company. “I am here to tell you that your are removing people from their land just to take gold. I don’t want any answers because I already know what you have to say,” said Heidi Blackeye of the Western Shoshone of Nevada in the United States.

One indigenous person wanted to know what the RTZ environmental policies meant for the cultural survival of the peoples of the Americas. “Are you saying to the peoples of my continent that you are not going to destroy our way of life?,” asked Robert van Zila, a Chippewa native from Wisconsin in the United States.

Wilson explained that RTZ’s policies were designed to ensure “mutual respect” between indigneous peoples and the company, “active partnership” in the local community and “long term sustainability.”

Most of these answers were jeered by the protestors in the audience although the majority of the audience, who were dressed in business suits, remained silent or clapped vigorously after Wilson spoke.

Meanwhile Shell, which expect to face similar questions from protestors at its annual general meeting next Wenesday (May 15), has spent months preparing answers and security measures to deal with possible protests. The company expects to face fierce criticism over its role in supplying the Nigerian military with the arms used to rout protestors in Ogoniland.

Jyoti Munsiff, Shell’s company secretary, has asked the Department of Trade to restrict entry to meetings to “serious” shareholders with over 1,500 dollars in shares or to have held shares for a minimum of one year.

Other companies have faced a lot of embarassment recently. Protesting shareholders attempted to make a citizen arrest of the board of British Aerospace earlier this month while others ran naked through a Lloyds bank annual general meeting last month to convince the company to invest ethically.