Mining and Social Justice

In 1966, the United States supported the overthrow of Indonesian President Sukarto in favor of army general Suharto, mainly due to Suharto’s cooperation with multinational corporations.  Suharto’s bloody campaign left a trail of nearly 500,000 dead.  Forty years later, Indonesians are still paying the price.  Due to the United States support, multinationals in Indonesia were able to write their own contracts along with Indonesia’s investment and industry laws, guaranteeing them absolute access to Indonesia’s natural resources.

American mining company Freeport was one of these companies.  Under the industry and investment laws, Freeport had the right to claim any resources free of charge, and displace and resettle indigenous populations in order to gain access to the gold and copper hidden in Papua, Indonesia, and it did so, for thirty years.  Resistance from indigenous groups resulted in a combined government-corporation reign of terror.  Between 1994 and 1995, frequent village raids, intense torture, disappearances, indiscriminate killings and unlawful arrests occurred as a result of the Indonesian military acting as protection for the Freeport mining corporation.

Globalization has eliminated the boundaries for multinational corporations, allowing them to reach far into foreign countries to satisfy their demands.  It allows capitalism to run unchecked, without consequences.  It has enabled multinationals to view countries and their people as commodities, disposable materials to be used and discarded.  And it’s not just happening overseas.

In the United States, the government is giving mining corporations precedence over citizens.  In Bristol Bay, Alaska, the largest open pit copper mine in America has been proposed (to see what an open pit mine looks like, see my post “Mining: In Pictures”).  The community of Bristol Bay relies exclusively on salmon fishing, as it has for hundreds of years.  A copper mine would seriously damage the bay’s ecosystem, making it doubtful that salmon could return to the bay, obliterating the traditional way of life.

In West Virginia, where coal mining has carried on for generations, so-called “hillbilly activists” are fighting against the disastrous environmental effects and mono-economy created by coal mining, in which residents have no other choice but to enter into mining, with its dangers and health risks.

Globalization has allowed business to boom, and has spread capitalism to the far reaches of the world.  This often comes at the cost of the loss of the community’s way of life.  When a company enters a country like Indonesia, or even a small community like Bristol Bay, Alaska, it imposes its global system, and forces the people to become dependent on the company for their way of life.  It eliminates self-sufficiency.  Globalization has also allowed these people to become by-products in its wake, used up by a system that relies on disposability.  How can this be stopped?

The answer lies in social justice.  As opposed to the temporary band-aid of charity or the smug imposition of development, social justice empowers the people victimized by the system of globalization.  Change can occur from the bottom up, as citizens push for justice in their government and secure their idependence and self-sufficiency.

We see an example of this in the Bla’an people of the Philippines.  When Australian-based Western Mining Company pushed for the Bla’an to give up their land to make room for a mine, the Bla’an refused to move.  In this video, you’ll see that the Bla’an stood strong after numerous beatings and raids of their village.

Although the Bla’an were not ultimately successful, others have fought back and won.  In 2006, Papua New Guinea residents won a huge settlement when the sued the Rio Tinto mining company, which had conspired with the government to force islanders off of their land.  Many other victims of mining corporations are fighting back.  We can help by spreading awareness and avoiding purchasing dirty gold and blood diamonds.  We can advocate that corporations be held responsible for human rights, and support organizations that serve as human rights watchdogs.  We can fight to make sure that corporations stop paying local governments and are not allowed to use the government as protection.  We can demand that governments adopt the human rights conventions to ensure that their citizens are treated fairly by multinationals.   And we can start locally, by supporting the efforts against the proposed mine in Bristol Bay and other places like it, demanding that our government listen to its people instead of just seeing dollar signs.

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