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Impacted Communities Confront Barrick Gold at Annual General Meeting

Indigenous representatives from Papua New Guinea and Chile traveled to Canada this week to speak at Barrick Gold’s annual shareholders meeting.

Representatives of the Diaguita...

Representatives of the Diaguita Huascoaltinos, from Chile, and from Porgera, Papua New Guinea, lead a march of about a hundred people to the headquarters of Barrick Gold, after raising their complaints to shareholders inside the annual general meeting in Toronto.

At Barrick’s Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea, complaints include house burnings, forced displacement, and a food security crisis caused by the mine’s expanding waste dumps. At Barrick’s Pascua Lama project on the border of Chile and Argentina, Barrick failed to consult the Diaguita Huascoaltinos Indigenous community, who hold title to the land of the proposed mine, as well as other areas that Barrick is exploring.

“Barrick has made it impossible for us to live on our traditional land. It is contaminated, unhealthy, we have no land left to grow our food and we are constantly targeted by the mine security,” explained Mark Ekepa, the chairman of the Porgera Landowners Association. “We want to be resettled as a community, but Barrick refuses to negotiate with us.”

Jeffrey, from Porgera, Papua New Guinea, addresses the crowd gathered outside Barrick' headquarters.

Jeffrey, from Porgera, Papua New Guinea, addresses the crowd gathered outside Barrick' headquarters.

The Diaguita Huascoaltinos have two lawsuits against Barrick within Chile, and a lawsuit against the Chilean state within the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Within the IACHR, their claim states that the government violated the Diaguita’s Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) and did not consider comments submitted by their community in the Environmental Assessment Process of the mine. The claim also states that Barrick’s claim to land on and near the Pascua Lama project on the border of Chile and Argentina relies on a series of fraudulent land claims to collectively held-Diaguita Huascoaltinos land.

Idolia, from the Huasco Valley in Chile, joins the protests outside Barrick's AGM after addressing the shareholders directly inside the meeting.

The delegation from Papua New Guinea, which includes the Chairman and the Secretary of the Porgera Landowners Association and two representatives from the Akali Tange Association, comes to Canada on the heels of the release of an Amnesty International report detailing forced evictions and house burnings near Barrick’s Porgera Mine.

See Amnesty Report: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA34/001/2010/en/2a498f9d-39f7-47df-b5eb-5eaf586fc472/asa340012010eng.pdf

"Support for Barrick is Support for Rape, Murder and Violence" - Strong messages from the hundred protesters gathered outside the Barrick AGM, showing their support for indigenous representatives speaking inside the meeting.

See Full Statements of Impacted Community leaders: http://www.protestbarrick.net/article.php?id=591

More info on Barrick Gold: http://www.protestbarrick.net/article.php?id=590

To speak to Indigenous representatives contact Sakura Saunders: 647-838-8455, sakura.saunders@gmail.com

Jethro Tulin, Executive Officer, Akali Tange Association: jctulin@gmail.com
Daniela Guzmán, Technical Advisor, Diaguita Huascoaltinos: daniela.guzman@gmail.com

ProtestBarrick

ProtestBarrick

Protesters hold up a banner with Barrick Gold's corporate logo, altered slightly to resemble a pile of coffins.

Agua Si, Oro No!

Agua Si, Oro No!

Barrick Destroys. About a hundred protesters gathered outside Barrick Gold's AGM showing their support for indigenous representatives speaking inside.

Barrick Destroys. About a hundred protesters gathered outside Barrick Gold's AGM showing their support for indigenous representatives speaking inside.

Zafar Baluch, from the Baloch Human Rights Council joined protesters as they marched towards Barrick's headquarters to raise concerns regarding the proposed Reko Diq Project in Baluchistan, Pakistan.

Mining is Killig the Earth!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 15:52 and is filed under Picture of the Day and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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