Posted
27th July 2001
Exporting Corporate Control
A gold company with ties to the Bush family tries to muzzle
a muckraking journalist. By Joe Conason Globalization's glad
prophets tell us that when the golden arches of McDonald's finally
encircle the world, liberty will flourish beneath them. But
so far, the evidence that open economies promote open societies
is hardly conclusive -- and today there is a case pending in
the courts of the United Kingdom that suggests a far less happy
prospect: that the suppression of free speech and independent
journalism suffered in other countries may someday cross international
borders as easily as a shipment of frozen hamburger.
The
plaintiffs in this case are Barrick Gold Mining, a huge firm
based in Canada, and Barrick's chairman, Peter Munk, a Toronto
multimillionaire with many powerful friends such as former Canadian
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former U.S. President George
Herbert Walker Bush. The defendants are Guardian Newspapers,
London-based publisher of the Guardian (which I have occasionally
written for), Britain's premier liberal daily and the Observer,
its Sunday paper. On Nov. 26, 2000, the Observer published "The
Best Democracy Money Can Buy," a column by investigative reporter
Gregory Palast (who has written for Salon) that outlined the
cozy relationship enjoyed by the Bush family and the Barrick
interests. Palast, who happens to be an American citizen, pointed
out that Barrick's U.S. subsidiary, Barrick Goldstrike, had
donated over $100,000 to Republican committees in recent years;
that Goldstrike had previously obtained a very sweet deal to
mine gold on public lands in Nevada, pushed through during the
final days of George H. W. Bush's presidency; and that the former
president had landed on Barrick's payroll after leaving office,
to peddle his influence with foreign leaders in exchange for
a salary and stock options.
Palast's
column went on to discuss other Barrick ventures in Indonesia,
Zaire and, most controversially, Tanzania, where he mentioned
a report by Amnesty International alleging that in 1996, a company
later bought by Barrick had participated in the "extrajudicial
killing" of dozens of small-scale artisanal miners, in order
to clear the Bulyanhulu gold pits, a rich site to which the
company claimed title. The story behind that alleged incident
is long and somewhat murky, but this much is clear: Several
independent newspapers in Tanzania reported in August 1996 that
as many as 52 miners were buried alive when bulldozers operated
by Kahama Mining Company Limited, a firm later acquired by Barrick,
filled in the pits, assisted by armed troops.
The miners had until then successfully resisted KMCL's attempt
to evict them from the land, a tract some 30 miles south of
Lake Victoria. Those appalling stories, since buttressed by
eyewitness accounts, were denied by the repressive Tanzanian
government, which had sided with the company against the local
miners in a legal dispute over the property, and later refused
to mount an official inquest into the charges. Survivors and
other volunteers were reportedly prevented by the government
from attempting to exhume bodies from the site.
While steadfastly repeating similar denials that anyone was
killed when the miners were removed from Bulyanhulu, Barrick
disowns any responsibility for the disputed events of 1996 because
the Canadian company didn't acquire KMCL until three years later
in 1999. The company's own documents indicate, however, that
its officials were well aware that its prospective subsidiary
was using aggressive methods to rid the site of thousands of
native miners. Those so-called artisanal prospectors had to
be removed, in order to facilitate extraction of what is now
conservatively estimated to be $3 billion worth of gold ore.
In a speech to shareholders last May, Barrick's president and
CEO boasted that "prior to our acquisition, we followed the
progress at Buly for five years, remaining in close contact
with the [KMCL] senior management team. We did our homework
-- and when the opportunity presented itself, we moved quickly
to acquire the property. But we did it with discipline: For
an attractive price, and only after we became comfortable with
Tanzania as a place to invest." A Barrick corporate spokesman
was unavailable for comment. In court filings, Barrick representatives
have suggested that the atrocity charges were fabricated by
local miners and political opponents of the multinational in
Tanzania. The explosive charges of mass murder reached Amnesty
International, which reported briefly on the incident in its
1997 report on world human rights and in its two subsequent
annual reports. Under pressure from Barrick and the Tanzanian
government, Amnesty revised its report on Bulyanhulu in its
2000 report. Because the Tanzanian authorities have persistently
stonewalled Amnesty's request to conduct an investigation, the
human rights organization's rules prevent them from saying that
the charges have been verified. But human rights lawyers and
parliamentary dissidents in Tanzania provided Palast with evidence
of the live burials that he found compelling. How many miners,
if any, may have died to make the Bulyanhulu mine safe for Western
exploitation remains unknown. But Palast was certainly accurate
in citing Amnesty's original reports.
Unfortunately
for him, though, there is no right under British libel law to
repeat previously published material, as there is in most instances
under American law. Almost immediately after Palast's column
appeared, Barrick's litigious chairman, Munk, filed a libel
action in the British courts, where the laws are notoriously
restrictive of press freedom, and where truth alone is not a
defense. His legal advantage is amplified by the mismatch in
resources between Barrick -- one of the five largest firms on
the Toronto stock exchange -- and the trust that publishes the
Guardian. Under the circumstances, both Palast and the Observer
have little choice but to try to settle the case, as investigative
journalists in Britain are so often forced to do. But the Barrick
attorneys, who have denounced the Observer column as "false
and defamatory," are demanding much more than a mere retraction
or correction.
They
are making another, much more ominous demand. As a condition
of settling the case, Barrick also insists that Palast must
remove the offending column from his U.S.-registered Web site,
http://www.gregpalast.com In other words, Barrick is cleverly
using the libel statutes of a nation without a Bill of Rights
to suppress an unfavorable article in the United States, where
Palast (and his Web site) would be protected by the First Amendment.
And Barrick has gone still further, by threatening litigation
against both Palast and a courageous Tanzanian human rights
lawyer named Tundu Lissu, who has dared to gather evidence of
the Bulynahulu atrocity -- including witness statements and
names of the deceased -- on behalf of a Tanzanian environmental
and human rights group. Even more outrageously, Barrick is attempting
to force Palast and the Observer to acknowledge publicly that
an "independent investigation" by Amnesty International established
that the horrific burial never happened.
Yet what Amnesty actually said in its last report on Bulyanhulu
was that the government had rejected Amnesty's call to "open
an independent judicial inquiry," and that the organization
thus "was unable to substantiate the allegations of deaths."
On the advice of their British lawyers, Amnesty officials will
no longer comment on this matter. Their prudent silence is abetting
Barrick's libel suit, and jeopardizing the ability of journalists
and human rights monitors to report on corporate malfeasance.
Barrick's lawyers have various other quibbles with Palast's
column, few of which would be entertained by a fair-minded judge
in the United States. Their chief concern involves Bulyanhulu,
perhaps because their client's venture is financially supported
by the World Bank, whose regulations prohibit lending to projects
tainted by armed violence. And the embarrassment caused by further
circulation of the Bulyanhulu story might frighten away such
figures as Bush, Barrick board member Vernon Jordan and other
international eminences who have promoted the company's fortunes
abroad. So far, Barrick has avoided any such consequences.
The official opening of its huge mine at Bulyanhulu, attended
by Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa and other dignitaries,
proceeded as scheduled on July 18, regardless of local protests
and some unfavorable coverage in the Tanzanian media. Aside
from the Observer column, Western news outlets have taken little
notice of the controversy. According to Palast, he remains perfectly
willing to publish Barrick's side of the story. "If there's
an error, I'll correct it; a misinterpretation, I'll clarify
it. I'm a reporter, I'm not the pope, I'm not infallible. What
I can't do is cover up evidence or say a lie is the truth. If
Barrick has a case to make, evidence to present, I'll print
it." What Greg Palast dared to expose were a few of the most
unappetizing aspects of globalization, from the employment of
former heads of state as corporate fixers to the dispossession
(or worse) of native populations when they pose an obstacle
to corporate profit.
What
the award-winning journalist didn't anticipate, however, was
that he and his writing would provoke a dangerous experiment
in the globalizing of corporate "information management." ...
.
|