10. Mining Conflict

 

The previous chapter established the central role that support for corporate mining interests plays in Canadian policy towards Africa. This chapter details Canadian companies and public officials’ actions in specific locations and the reaction of local people.

What effects have Canadian mining companies had on ordinary Africans? When a mining company moves into a new area do the people living next door perceive it as a good neighbour, or their worst nightmare?

Many Canadian projects are bitterly resisted by local African communities. This shouldn’t be a surprise since around the world mining projects disrupt, and sometimes destroy, ecosystems and communities’ ways of life.

One reason why Canadian mining companies extract resources in Africa is they are able to operate in ways that would not be allowed in Canada. In a 2008 interview the president of one of Canada’s top mining corporations in Africa openly said a lack of regulations enticed the company. After boasting that First Quantum set up a mine in the Congo in less than a year, Clive Newall said: “We wouldn’t want to be in the U.S., for example, because the permitting requirements are so severe. It takes 10 to 20 years to take a mine into production. We just don’t operate like that.”1

In other words First Quantum and other Canadian companies often act like the sort of neighbour who doesn’t care about the people living next door. Their only concern is making as much profit as fast as possible. They do not intend to stay long and simply see the neighbourhood as a place to exploit.

The information that follows may be exhausting, but it is not exhaustive. It is meant to illustrate the scale of Canadian mining activity and its effects. The reader can judge if this behaviour is what they would like Africans to think is “typically Canadian”.

Burkina Faso

Canadian mining companies dominate this impoverished country’s main export industry. The first foreign miners in the country, in 2015 Canadian companies held nearly $2 billion in assets in the landlocked West African country.

In 2010 IAMGOLD opened a major open pit gold mine in northern Burkina Faso, which gobbles up the arid region’s water. To make way for the Toronto company’s Essakane project the government forced 13 villages to relocate.2 The government and IAMGOLD promised to provide new land, houses and jobs to the over 10,000 people displaced, a pledge that was only partially fulfilled.3 Before IAMGOLD began its operations most people in the area were small-scale miners who descended underground to hammer gold from rock. Miners had been living off of Essakane for over a quarter century, but when IAMGOLD is finished extracting gold sometime around 2025 the area is likely to become a ghost town.

Ottawa provided support for IAMGOLD’s operations in 2011. As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy for the Canadian International Extractive Sector, Ottawa financed “a job skills training project in 13 communities to meet labour market demands in a variety of sectors, including the mining sector and its sub-sectors.”4 The initiative was run by the Toronto company and Plan Canada. Ottawa put $5.6 million into the project while IAMGOLD invested $1 million and Plan Canada spent $900,000.5 The project was the signature initiative in a controversial effort to strengthen the bonds between mining companies and non-governmental organizations. The goal of the CIDA-funded project, the head of training programs at Burkina Faso’s education ministry told the Globe and Mail in 2012, was to “respond to the needs of the mining company.”6 Adama Traore added: “A number of graduates are expected to go directly into jobs at the mining company.”7

The Plan Canada-IAMGOLD training took place in a charged political context. To scare its workers, in May 2011 IAMGOLD closed the Essakane mine.8 The company’s CEO, Steve Letwin, warned the miners: “I have zero tolerance for strikes that are illegal. And, as they [the workers] will find out, will not tolerate anything that has a negative impact on our stakeholders.”9 In March 2012 Bloomberg reported that 100 people protesting the terms of their contract and a lack of local employment at the Essakane mine were scattered by police.10

These protests partially explain why the company saw the CIDA-funded job training as helpful. The day Bloomberg reported protests at the mine, the Globe and Mail quoted Letwin describing youth unemployment in the community as a major obstacle for the company, arguing that “over the course of time, they’re [youth] going to want more of a take”, which could mean “increased taxes and royalties” for IAMGOLD.11

The second largest mining company in Burkina Faso, SEMAFO is an outgrowth of Benoit La Salle’s work for Plan Canada, a subsidiary of Plan International, “one of the world’s largest development organizations.” La Salle told an interviewer that SEMAFO “was created in 1995 during my first visit to Burkina Faso as part of a mission with the NGO-Plan. I am the president of the administration council of Plan Canada and a director of Plan International. So, after the Plan organized visit to Burkina Faso provided me an opportunity to get close with national authorities, I decided to create SEMAFO to participate in the development of Burkina Faso’s mining industry.”12 As Plan Canada’s designated Francophone spokesperson La Salle got to know President Blaise Compaoré in the mid-1990s. “The president turned to me,” La Salle told another reporter, “and said that I should come back to his country with Canadian expertise to help his country develop its mining sector.”13

La Salle procured mining expertise while Compaoré granted the Canadian a massive stretch of land to prospect. “The land package we have is way beyond what you’d see anywhere else in the world,” La Salle boasted.14

While the president of the country backed Canadian mining companies they backed the Compaoré government. IAMGOLD CEO Steve Letvin, who’d previously been made Officer of the National Order of Burkina Faso, thanked the prime minister for expanding the company’s concession during a March 2014 visit.15 At a September 2014 Gold Forum in Australia SEMAFO lauded the government as “democratic and stable”. 16

A strong backer of the mining industry, Compaoré was ousted by popular protest in October 2014 after he attempted to amend the constitution to extend term limits. In 1987 Compaoré seized power by killing Thomas Ankara, “Africa’s Che Guevara”, who oversaw important social and political gains during four years in office. Two years after Ankara’s death, Compaoré, who was part of a triumvirate, claimed his co-rulers were plotting to overthrow the government and had them executed.17 He then won a largely uncontested presidential election in 1991.

After ending Compaoré’s 27-year rule community groups and mine workers launched a wave of protests against foreign-owned mining companies. Vancouver’s True Gold Mining shuttered its Karma gold project for five months after local residents damaged its equipment.18 Protesters also forced Ottawa’s Orezone Gold to close and targeted IAMGOLD’s Essakane mine.19 In a Bloomberg article titled “Revolt Rocks Burkina Faso’s Mines After President Flees”, SEMAFO’s director of corporate affairs Laurent Michel Dabire said, “the insurrection has really been a catalyst for serious social movements in the mining sector. … They think ‘if we can chase somebody who’s been in power for 27 years, we can chase the managing director’.”20 Dabire told Bloomberg that Québec’s leading miner was looking to fund a new police unit that would focus on protecting mining interests in the country.21

In the aftermath of Compaoré’s ouster Canadian companies relied on military and foreign influence to protect their mining licenses. A December 2014 Business Monitor Online analysis titled “Mining Audit Poses Little Risk to Established Players”, concluded: “Foreign pressure will also be brought to bear. Burkina Faso is heavily dependent on foreign aid, much of it from Canada, the home jurisdiction of most of the miners that would be hurt by significant review. The political influence of the military — which will likely continue under any future government — will prevent the introduction of aggressively populist legislation.”22

Four days after Compaoré was ousted Ottawa suspended development monies to the government until a “legitimate and accountable civil authority has been re-established.”23 But, three weeks later Ottawa restarted aid to Burkina Faso, which had been added to Canada’s list of priority aid recipients earlier that year. ‘‘We are satisfied that a legitimate and accountable civil authority is leading Burkina Faso toward what we hope will be peaceful and democratic elections in 2015,” said International Development Minister Christian Paradis when he announced the resumption of aid.24 Yet, the interim regime was little more than “a masked military junta”, according to Christopher Abbott, a junior research fellow at the NATO Council of Canada.25

Ottawa was little concerned with the constitution or democracy, but rather focused on the authorities’ mining policy. When the military killed at least 10 people protesting Compaoré just before he was overthrown, Foreign Minister John Baird called on “all sides to exercise restraint and avoid resorting to further violence” even though the violence was largely meted out by the Compaoré regime.26

Only four months before the popular revolt, Trade Minister Ed Fast visited Burkina Faso to open an office of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.27 During his visit Fast also concluded negotiations on a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.

To protect Canadian mining companies from popular discontent Ottawa negotiated a FIPA with the Compaoré regime. Harper’s Conservatives then signed the deal with the unelected transition administration that took over after Compaoré was ousted. The West African nation was represented at the April 2015 FIPA signing ceremony in Ottawa by Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida, who was deputy commander of the presidential guard when Compaoré was ousted by popular protest. A US and Canadian trained Lieutenant Colonel, Zida was one of five military men in the cabinet overseeing the landlocked country’s transition towards elections after Compaoré’s 27 year rule.28

While the caretaker government was supposed to move aside after an election planned for the fall of 2015, the investment treaty will live on for at least 16 years. According to the FIPA, “the termination of this Agreement will be effective one year after notice of termination has been received by the other Party.” The subsequent line, however, reads that “in respect of investments or commitments to invest made prior to the date when the termination of this Agreement becomes effective, Articles 1 to 42 inclusive, as well as paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of this Article, shall remain in force for a period of 15 years.” In other words, any elected government will be effectively bound by the accord, which gives Canadian corporations the right to sue Burkina Faso internationally, for another decade and a half.

 

Congo

A dozen Canadian mining companies have more than $4 billion invested in the Congo. They extract gold, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum, niobium, and tungsten among other resources. As discussed in Chapters 12 and 15, during the wars from the mid-1990s to early 2000s Canadian companies stripped state mining company Gécamines of valuable assets and stoked a multi-country conflict in eastern Congo.

Illustrating corporate Canada’s proximity to violence in the Congo, Anvil Mining transported government troops who killed 100 people near its Dikulushi mine in the port town of Kilwa, Katanga, in October 2004.29 Most of the victims were unarmed civilians. Many more were tortured and beaten. A UN inquiry into the Kilwa Massacre found that Congo’s 62nd Brigade was ordered to “shoot anything that moved”.30

After a half-dozen members of the little-known Mouvement Revolutionnaire pour la Liberation du Katanga occupied the Canada-Australian company’s Kilwa concession, Anvil provided the trucks used to transport Congolese soldiers to the area and to dump the corpses of their victims into mass graves.31 A Congolese military commander told UN investigators that the military operation in Kilwa was “made possible thanks to the logistical efforts provided by Anvil mining.”32 “They requested assistance from Anvil for transportation,” admitted Bill Turner, head of the TSX-listed company, after Anvil’s involvement came to light. “We provided that transportation so that they could get their soldiers down to Kilwa.”33

Immediately after the massacre, an Anvil press release celebrated the return of law and order to its mining territory without reporting the use of Anvil planes and trucks to support the military intervention or the deaths near Kilwa.34 “Anvil began remobilizing personnel back to the mine yesterday (Oct. 17) via the airstrip at Kilwa and anticipates that operations will resume by tomorrow (Oct. 19). The company is in consultation with the government of the DRC to provide additional security for the mine so that, should such incidents occur again, the company would be able to continue operations.”35

A Congolese military judge recommended the prosecution of Pierre Mercier, the Canadian general manager of Anvil’s Congolese subsidiary, along with two other Anvil employees and nine military personnel. But they were cleared of all charges in a trial condemned by the UN.

The Canadian Association Against Impunity, representing survivors and families of victims, launched a legal challenge against Anvil, whose main shareholders were Vancouver’s First Quantum and the Canadian Pension Plan.36 Though the company was managed from Montréal, the Québec Court of Appeal refused to hear the case. The Supreme Court of Canada followed suit, arguing that the survivors had to pursue remedies in either the Congo or Australia.37

Canadian companies operated with virtual impunity in the Congo. Following the Kilwa Massacre, the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, with Canada as one of the administrators, awarded Anvil part of a $13.6 million US project in the country.38

In addition to its international backing, Anvil had powerful local allies. President Joseph Kabila’s assistant, Katumba Mwanke, sat on Anvil’s board. Mwanke received thousands of dollars in director’s fees. The company also paid him $50,000 a year to rent a compound he owned in Lubumbashi, Katanga’s capital.39

As part of the deal signed to acquire the Kilwa concession, Anvil was granted a two-decade-long tax holiday for its operations.40 A 2005 Congo parliamentary panel recommended the accord be renegotiated.41 A series of reports from the World Bank, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and Congolese Parliament have detailed the dismal return the people of Congo have received on their vast mineral wealth. Congo’s mining industry generated $41 billion between 2007 and 2012. Less than 3% of this sum flowed into the country’s budget.42

 

Côte d’Ivoire

A handful of Canadian miners operate in the country. In 2012 three villages near La Mancha Resources’ gold mine protested the TSX-listed company’s compensation for 300 hectares of plantations and forests it chopped down. The locals also wanted employment commitments from the company.43

In 2014 Côte d’Ivoire won an award for best improved mining code from Mines and Money, “Europe’s leading mining investment and capital raising conference and exhibition.”44 Sama Resources helped the government develop the new mining law.45 The Vancouver company’s well-connected director Benoit La Salle (formerly of SEMAFO and Plan Canada) met Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara in 2013.46 Additionally, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, invested in Sama, purchasing its first stake in the country’s minerals.

In late 2014 Ottawa signed a FIPA with Côte d’Ivoire. Earlier that year the Canadian ambassador inaugurated Vancouver-based Endeavor Mining’s project in the south of the country.47

 

Eritrea

This small coastal nation, which gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, has been a source of interest for several Canadian extraction companies. In 2011 Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources opened the first industrial mine in Eritrea. But Human Rights Watch and a UN Commission of Inquiry accused the company of failing to ensure that Nevsun’s state-owned partner didn’t conscript those who built its Bisha mine.48 Three Eritrean refugees in Canada sued Nevsun, alleging that they were forced to stay on the mine site and work under threat of torture. The three individuals said that the living and work conditions were miserable and they received a total of $30 US a month in compensation.

Canadian Business acquired 700 pages of government documents on Nevsun’s Eritrea operations through access to information legislation. Reporter Matthew McClearn wrote: “One internal DFAIT briefing about Nevsun noted that while the allegations [of forced labour] could not be substantiated … The low level of respect for human rights in Eritrea means that the allegations should not be dismissed lightly.” The files show that DFAIT officials kept in close email contact with the company and that dozens of federal government officials spent time coordinating Foreign Affairs’ response to the accusations. This caused the reporter to ask: “How is it, then, that when allegations arose that a Canadian mine may have been built with forced labour, the government’s response was largely confined to drawing up ‘media lines’ and ‘talking points?’”49

 

Ghana

Canadian companies dominate formal mining in the Gold Coast. With some $3 billion invested, about 20 Canadian mining companies operated in Ghana when this book went to print.50

Under World Bank and IMF pressure, the West African nation began to liberalize its mining policy and privatize state-owned mines in the mid-1980s. Years later the country was prodded to open its forest reserves to surface mining and a handful of Canadian companies led the way into Ghana’s ecologically sensitive forests.51 “Canadian mining companies are in the forefront of the destruction of some of Ghana’s rich forest reserves,” explained Abdulai Darimani in the 2005 report “Impacts of Activities of Canadian Mining Companies in Africa”.52

Canadian companies have been accused of various abuses in Ghana. In March 2004 Bonte Gold Mines closed without paying its 400 workers or the farmers affected by its operations in southern Ghana. The Toronto-based company also left an $18 million debt to state institutions and private companies and failed to reclaim the land it destroyed.53 An editorial in the country’s biggest private newspaper, the Ghanaian Chronicle, noted that “while the workers, farmers and the community at large lament over their future livelihood, the management of the company have long left for Canada.”54

In another part of the country Golden Star’s mine leaked toxins into the communities in which it operated. Ghana’s Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis concluded that arsenic, mercury and lead levels were above World Health Organization guidelines near the Toronto-based company’s mine in Prestea and Bogoso.55 Many of the two towns’ inhabitants were angry with Golden Star for polluting their community and refusing to compensate those affected by its operations. The company was accused of failing to fulfill commitments to relocate and house people that were a precondition for acquiring its concessions.56

In June 2005 the military opened fire on a 5,000-person demonstration in Prestea and seven mine opponents were hit by bullets.57 Backing a hardline approach to the local community, a Golden Star official called for greater repression to change the “mindset” of small-scale unlicensed miners, who are disparagingly referred to as “Galamsey”. “The main issue is … the mindset of those people — the Galamsey people — whatever the government has to do to change their mindsets ... unless that is really done, and like I said, there should be some radical way of doing it … Prestea people think they are unique, they are in a different state, and they can make their own constitution.”58

In northern Ghana Cardero Resource was accused of acquiring the Sheini Hills iron ore concession illicitly. Another company, Inland Mining Ghana, accused the Vancouver firm of having “pirated” its work to gain its license in 2012, prompting an investigation by the RCMP’s anti-corruption unit.59

At the behest of Cardero police arrested and detained a journalist in 2012. Ghanabusinessnews.com reporter Pascal Kudiabor set up an interview through the company’s public relations department and showed up to meet the managing director. While Kudiabor waited at Cardero’s office in Accra, the police were called. A policeman said Cardero complained that Kudiabor was “prying into their privacy”.60

While setting up its gold mine, the Vancouver company took over vast tracts of farmland in northern Ghana without adequately compensating the local owners. The company leaked chemicals into the community’s main drinking water stream and its noise scared away the area’s antelopes, grass cutters, monkeys and wild birds. Cardero’s vehicles also killed hundreds of domestic animals, including fowls, goats, dogs, sheep and cattle.61 Angry at the company’s disregard for the Sheini community and refusal to dialogue with the area’s chief, Obore Chamaya Poadi, local youth threatened to take up arms against Cardero in 2014.62

 

Guinea

A handful of Canadian mining companies operate in the small West African nation. Those living near SEMAFO’s Kiniero mine, reported Guinée News in 2014, felt “the Canadian company brought more misfortune than benefits.”63

In 2008 the military killed three in a bid to drive away small-scale miners from the mine in the southeast of the country. BBC Monitoring Africa reported that “the soldiers shot a woman at close range, burned a baby and in the panic another woman and her baby fell into a gold mining pit and a man fell fatally from his motor while running away from the rangers.” 64 Blaming the Montréal-based company for the killings, locals damaged its equipment.65

In September 2011 protests flared again over the company’s failure to hire local young people and the dissolution of a committee that spent community development monies. Demonstrators attacked SEMAFO’s facilities, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.66 Some also targeted a bus carrying company employees, prompting the authorities to evacuate all expatriate staff to Bamako in neighbouring Mali.67

In 2014 the Guinean government’s Comité Technique de Revue des Titres et Conventions Miniers concluded that the Montréal firm evaded $9.6 million in tax.68 The Comité Technique also found that the company failed “to produce detailed feasibility studies” and was not “in compliance with new measures in the 2011 mining code.”69 The Comité Technique recommended that SEMAFO be fined and stripped of its mining rights in the country.

Ottawa backed the mining sector by signing a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with Guinea in the spring of 2015.

 

Kenya

Tiomin Resources’ bid to extract titanium on the Kenyan coast sparked a major conflict at the start of the century, when the Toronto-based firm signed the country’s largest-ever mining deal.70 The company’s concession occupied an area of significant biodiversity, home to Kenya’s last remaining herds of Sable antelope as well as the only bands of Colobus monkeys on the East African coast.71 In addition to endangering wildlife, the mine and accompanying development also threatened Digo and Kamba farmers’ means of subsistence, notably coconut, cashew nut and mango groves.72 Environmental groups, farmers and even the Mombasa branch of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry described Tiomin’s project as an environmental hazard.73

While the debate was still raging about the viability of the project, the Canadian International Development Agency gave Tiomin $391,000 for an environmental impact study on the planned mine.74 Tiomin set the terms of this study. They hired a South African consulting company to administer the assessment and submitted it to the National Environmental Management Authority.75 Researchers at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, as well as several Kenyan environmental groups, rejected the company-backed study. They criticized the assessment for underestimating the mine’s environmental impacts, notably the quantity of sulphur dioxide emissions and exposure to radioactive elements in the earth. The UN Environment Program also voiced criticism of the project.76

But Ottawa continued to throw its diplomatic weight behind the company. Canadian High Commissioner to Kenya Jim Wall called for the project’s approval and suggested that failing to proceed would send a negative message to international investors. The East African Standard reported that “the Government of Canada yesterday cautioned that delays in entering into contracts with international investors was likely to scare away potential investors to the country.”77 The paper continued, “speaking after paying a courtesy call on Environment Minister Dr Newton Kulundu, the [Canadian] envoy regretted that the Government had called Tiomin Inc, to re-negotiate an already sealed deal. He urged Dr Kulundu to meet his Cabinet colleagues and discuss what the Tiomin deal would mean to the reputation of Kenya internationally.”78

In 2014 High Commissioner David Angell announced that Canada was working with the County of Siaya’s mineral sector, which had already drawn several Canadian prospectors.79 While announcing negotiations for a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, Angell said: “there is a lot of interest by Canadian investors in Kenya’s fast growing oil and mineral sector.”80

In fact, two Canadian oil companies clashed with the Kenyan government. In 2014, Toronto-based Africa Oil criticized the reintroduction of a capital gains tax on oil companies and announced it would push the Kenya Oil and Gas Association to lobby against the move. Concurrently, Vanoil sued Kenya for $150 million at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes after the government refused to extend a seven-year-old exploration license.81 Arguing that Vanoil failed to carry out exploratory work or fulfill investment obligations, the Kenyan government refused to extend the Vancouver company’s exploration license. To prepare for an extended legal battle Vanoil all but transformed itself into a law firm. The company replaced its president with an individual experienced in investment disputes and slashed its operation costs by 75 per cent. Vanoil stated: “The board of directors has instructed management to conduct an immediate review of all company operations. The priority goal is to eliminate non-essential costs, dispose of non-productive assets and secure sufficient funding to enable Vanoil to aggressively pursue its legal arbitration against the Republic of Kenya.”82

 

Madagascar

Sherritt operates one of the world’s largest nickel and cobalt mines on the island nation 300 km off the coast from Mozambique. The Toronto-based company owns 40% of the $5.5 billion Ambatovy project in partnership with Japan’s Sumitomo, Korea Resources and SNC-Lavalin. Export Development Canada put up $400 million in risk insurance for the gigantic open pit mine.83

The Ambatovy project tore up 1,300 acres of biologically rich rain forest that was home to a thousand species of flowering plants, fourteen species of lemurs and a hundred types of frogs. The CEO of Sherritt acknowledged the sensitivity of the site. Ian Delaney told The Walrus that the Ambatovy mine “is smack in the middle of one of the most endangered rainforests in the world. There’s nothing I can do about that; it’s where nature put the nickel.”84 But Delaney, of course, justified any harm done to the area as contributing to Madagascar’s “development”. “There are 20 million people there, living on the edge. So what do you do? Develop or not develop?”85

But even among those who would be considered the primary Malagasy beneficiaries of Ambatovy there was discontent. Local employees complained that management mistreated them and failed to respect the country’s labour code. A 2013 hydrogen sulphide gas leak killed one and made two other employees seriously ill, while during the first five months of 2015 two more workers died in separate incidents.86 In response to mistreatment and safety concerns, workers downed their tools on two different occasions during the spring of 2015.87

Toxins from the mine also harm the health of those living nearby. Locals said a handful of sulphur dioxide leaks in 2012 left four dead and 50 others ill.88

The Canadian-led conglomerate was accused of making loads of money, but providing little to the treasury. In 2013 President Andry Rajoelina said: “Ambatovy pays only 1% royalty to the state. Now, Madagascar is the second largest exporter of nickel and cobalt in the world. In other countries such as Canada, Russia, South Africa, this fee is more than 10%. We can no longer accept being exploited in this way.”89

Rajoelina’s reservations towards a deal Sherritt signed with his predecessor shaped Canadian policy towards Madagascar. In 2013 Globe and Mail Africa correspondent Geoffrey York reported: “Diplomats from other countries have been fighting hard to restore democracy to the politically turbulent country, which was rocked by a coup in 2009. But for Canada, the battle for democracy has taken a back seat to the business interests of the Toronto-based mining company. In visits to Madagascar since the coup, Canada’s diplomats have spent much of their time lobbying the government to ensure that Sherritt secures an operating license for its mine. The post-coup government had hinted that it could reconsider its approval for the project, and the company wanted Ottawa’s help, which it got.”90

Sherritt had strong ties to Canadian diplomacy. Canada’s honorary consul in Madagascar, Yves Froumanoit, managed the Ambatovy mine during its initial stages.91

 

Mauritania

Canadian mining companies have been the lead foreign operators in the sparsely populated West African nation. In 2010 Kinross Gold acquired the Tasiast mine from Vancouver’s Red Back Mining for the princely sum of $7.1 billion.

That same year two Tasiast employees were arrested after dumping toxic waste in an inhabited area near a mine set to become the largest gold project in Africa and possibly the world.92 There was no independent environmental assessment of the mine and the Toronto-based company also failed to certify Tasiast under the International Cyanide Management Code, a voluntary code that allows companies to demonstrate their commitment to properly manage the poisonous substance.93

In a move destined to offend its Mauritanian staff, Kinross housed its ex-pat managers outside the country, in the Canary Islands.94 The local workforce was also angered by the company’s refusal to transfer seriously ill employees to the capital Nouakchott. In 2013 the mineworkers withdrew their labour in a bid to force Kinross to respect previous commitments to improve their pay and conditions.95

At the end of 2013 Kinross laid off 300 workers. The union claimed it was done in violation of the country’s labour law and that one of those dismissed was still receiving medical treatment for a workplace injury.96 Demanding government action, the laid-off workers protested outside the presidential palace in Nouakchott. After a multi-day sit-in the police raided their makeshift camp, arresting a dozen and injuring a similar number.97

As with many other Canadian mining companies in Africa, Kinross paid the country little and was accused of evading taxes.98 After President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz criticized the company’s meagre payments to the treasury, Kinross reportedly hired a couple of his cousins to important positions.99 An Africa Mining Intelligence article detailed the close familial and political ties between Kinross and Aziz, who came to power by overthrowing the country’s first elected president in 2008.100 (The brigadier general won an election the next year that most political parties boycotted.)

The company also received international backing. In 2011 US Ambassador Jo Ellen Powell visited the Tasiast gold mine and met the Americans working on site.101

First Quantum operated an open pit copper and gold mine near the Tasiast mine. Like Kinross, the Vancouver-based mining company was accused of mistreating its workers, including an incident where managers told a worker, Mohamed Ould Khatari, to take some painkillers after he was exposed to a powdered chemical and developed painful skin lesions.102 At the end of 2011 the workers at Guelb Moghrein went on strike, demanding the removal of three foreign managers and the reinstatement of a half-dozen colleagues. They also called on the company to “respect the labour legislation of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and the human values of its people.”103

During a follow-up strike in July 2012 the national guard raided a peaceful protest, killing Mohamed Ould Machdhoufi and wounding several others.104 A First Quantum release afterwards called the strike illegal, but failed to mention the death or injuries.105 In a subsequent protest, a regional director for the Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs de Mauritanie, Ethmane Ould Kreivit, was attacked and jailed for several days along with 30 others.106 On his release, the labour leader was dismissed from his job along with a number of others who were reportedly put on a company blacklist.107

The Aziz government employed state power to protect First Quantum from their workforce as well as from international media scrutiny. Al Jazeera, Radio France International and Reuters were all reported to have been denied permission to visit either Guelb Moghrein or the Kinross Tasiast mine.108

Residents near First Quantum’s mine accused the company of polluting their community. Those living close to the open pit mine were found to have elevated incidence of miscarriages, infant deaths and other illnesses.109 Additionally, a large number of their camels died from unknown diseases.110 Decrying First Quantum’s environmental and labour abuses, the local community launched a complaint with the CSR Counsellor set up by the Canadian government in 2009. Under pressure to restrict government support to companies found responsible for abuses abroad, the Harper Conservatives’ instead established an Extractive Sector Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor to probe complaints of abuses committed by Canadian companies abroad. Touted as a way to provide remedy for those harmed by Canadian extractive operations, the Counsellor could not intervene — let alone take any remedial action — without agreement from the company accused of abuse.

In 2012 CSR Counsellor Marketa Evans dismissed the Guelb Moghrein complaint, claiming First Quantum had “site level community relations representatives currently engaging with the community” and that the company was “implementing a stakeholder engagement plan which includes newsletters and meetings and other outreach activities.”111 Evans called on the Mauritanian complainants to follow First Quantum’s local grievance mechanism.112

Mining Watch criticized the CSR Counsellor’s decision. It “found that no effective local mechanisms existed” for Mauritanians to hold First Quantum accountable. The mining watchdog group added: “fruitless participation in the CSR Counsellor’s process further harms the weakest parties … Not only do they waste their time and limited resources but expose themselves to further harm at home for sticking their necks out.”113

After failing to mediate any of the six cases brought before her, Evans quietly resigned her post as CSR Counsellor in 2013.114 A new CSR Counsellor was appointed in March 2015 but he had yet to announce any decisions when this book went to print.

 

Niger

A handful of Canadian mining companies have operated in the landlocked West African nation. In 2000 Montréal-based SEMAFO opened the first industrial scale gold mine in Niger. A 2007 Montréal Gazette business article headlined “Local Miner a Major Force in Niger: It’s not every day we receive a press release from a gold mining company that includes a warm personal message from the prime minister”, reported on the close ties between SEMAFO and Hama Amadou, then prime minister of Niger. “We work very closely with him,” said Benoit La Salle, SEMAFO chief executive and chairman. “We’re part of his budget every year.”115

La Salle described how the prime minister helped his company break a strike at the Samira Hill mine in the west of the country. “He gave us all the right direction to solve this legally,” La Salle said. ‘We went to court, we had the strike declared illegal and that allowed us to let go of some of the employees and rehire some of them based upon a new work contract. It allowed us to let go of some undesirable employees because they had been on strike a few times.”116

The bitter strike led to a parliamentary inquiry regarding environmental damage caused by the mine, lack of benefits for local communities and treatment of miners. Opposition politicians accused SEMAFO of paying “slave wages”.117 “The wages are very low,” explained Mohammed Bazoum, deputy chairman of Niger’s main opposition party in 2009. “The population is not benefiting at all from this gold.”118

SEMAFO was accused of failing to pay both taxes and dividends to the government. Despite owning a 20% share in the Samira Hill mine, the government received no direct payments from the Montréal-based majority owner between 2004 and 2010.119 In a report headlined “Scandal of Mineral Wealth: Niger cries with famine while Semafo celebrates its ‘millionth’ ounce of gold”, Ouestafnews contrasted the widespread impoverishment in that country with the millions of dollars Québec’s leading mining company made from its operations in West Africa. By 2010 SEMAFO had extracted 350,000 ounces of gold from Niger (and similar amounts from Burkina Faso and Guinea) worth about $350 million yet many in the country went hungry.120

In 2008 long time Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, who was then the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Niger, and his aide, Foreign Affairs official Louis Guay, were abducted. They were kidnapped after visiting the Samira Hill mine. “Louis [Guay] called me and said he was going down there on a UN mission and that he heard the mine was a Canadian success and he wanted to report this back to Canada,” La Salle told the National Post.121

Why was a UN envoy, sent to a country to deal with a conflict largely over natural resources, visiting a Canadian-operated mine? Was the visit a message to Niger’s government? The rebels? The UN? Was Fowler in covert discussions with the mining company regarding the ongoing conflict between the Tuareg and the region’s mining companies?

In A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda Fowler ignores these questions. He says the visit was simply an attempt to investigate a “Canadian success”, which still begs the question of whether it is common, or acceptable, for Canadian UN representatives to bestow diplomatic backing to corporate Canada?

 

Nigeria

Ottawa has sought to develop the nascent mineral sector in Africa’s most populous state. In 2013 Canada put $950,000 into a World Bank led initiative to identify mineral resource corridors, update Nigeria’s tax regime and design a strategy for the country’s small-scale miners.122

Canadian diplomats promoted a variety of other mining initiatives in the West African nation. In 2012 the Abuja Leadership reported: “The High Commissioner expressed his willingness to link the state with Mine Africa or any other interested Canadian mining interest for the development of solid Minerals and made reference to the existence of Mining Institutes in Canada that could help in capacity building.”123

In introducing Canadian companies to local officials Ottawa sought to shape Nigeria’s mining legislation. In 2011 ThisDay reported that “the regulatory frameworks, which were being operated in the nation’s mining industry were Canadian-based, adding that draft copies of the mining regulations were circulated to prospective mining investors at the last Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, (PDAC) Forum in Canada. This is to enable them to get additional inputs in order to have regulatory frameworks that conform to international best practices.”124 The high commissioner in Abuja helped bring Nigerian officials to the annual PDAC conference in Toronto.125

Canadian officials helped the country develop its large bitumen belt. ThisDay reported in 2011 that the chairman of Nigeria’s Committee on Bitumen was “to liaise with the Canadian Embassy on the way forward for the exploration of the bitumen resources.”126

To protect Canadian companies operating in the country’s traditional oil sector and to prepare for an expansion in mining investment, Ottawa signed a FIPA with Nigeria in 2014.

 

Senegal

In 2015 Canadian mining assets in Senegal were worth more than half a billion dollars, with Teranga Gold operating the only industrial scale gold mine in the country.127 Taking its name from the Wolof word for “hospitality”, Teranga markets itself well. A search online generated a series of short videos and CSR reports detailing the Toronto company’s purported good deeds and local support. But reality is more complicated.

In 2010 a hundred soldiers were deployed to Teranga’s mine site to drive off long-standing artisanal miners whose digging helped the company determine where to prospect. One small-scale miner told Allo Dakar that “we prefer to die here rather than give the land to the company.”128 Despite the security presence, many continued to dig with the police periodically tear-gassing and arresting the artisanal miners.129

According to Amnesty International’s “Mining and Human Rights in Senegal: Closing the Gaps in Protection”, a half-dozen families were displaced to make way for a Teranga waste disposal pond. They were given new homes a few kilometres away but felt their situation had significantly deteriorated.130 Amnesty documented another small community unhappy with Teranga and worried they would also be displaced as the mine expanded.

The mayor of a larger town, Sabadola, claimed the company misled the community. “At first we thought that we’d benefit from many things: electricity, housing and infrastructure,” said Mamadou Cissokho. “But we received none of that.”131 Instead, Cissokho decried the pulmonary infections caused by dust from the mine and the company’s encroachment on their land. “Even our fields, they took them. We do not know where to go. Certainly, they do this to suffocate us and to clear us off.”132

In 2014 the director of Teranga’s Senegalese subsidiary, Macoumba Diop, was fired. His supporters told the press that Diop was let go because he protected Senegalese workers, largely confined to subordinate positions, from mistreatment by the foreign managers who were described as “colonialist”.133 After his dismissal Diop sued Teranga, but the case had yet to be heard when this book went to press.

The controversy surrounding Teranga failed to deter Canadian officials from backing the company. In early 2014 Canadian Ambassador Philippe Beaulne visited its mine with Senegalese president Macky Sall and Beaulne spoke during the public release of Teranga’s 2013 CSR policy.134 In 2012 Prime Minister Stephen Harper met Teranga CEO Alan R. Hill and some other Canadian mining officials in Dakar. During the part of the meeting open to reporters the prime minister suggested, reported Canada.com, that Canadian companies’ “ethical practices gave them an edge over the competition.”135 Harper also told the press that Senegal “really has the opportunity to become the hub for Canadian investment in this entire region of Africa.”136 To prepare for an expansion in Canadian mining, Ottawa signed a FIPA with Senegal in late 2014.

 

Sierra Leone

In the late 1990s diamonds fuelled a vicious civil war that left 50,000 dead and many more injured.137 During the conflict Canadian mining companies employed private military to grab the coastal state’s gems.

Rex Diamond Mining had links to both the Sierra Leone government and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. The Toronto company delivered $3.8 million US worth of military equipment to the government in 1998.138

Acting more like a military organization than a mining company, Amcan Minerals purchased a South African security firm and appointed a former Canadian soldier to lead its Sierra Leone operations. The Toronto company purchased ArmSec International while the individual responsible for its diamond properties in Sierra Leone was a 35-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.139 Edwin D. Sanford, Amcan reported, “specialized in security at every level including the most top secret areas as an advisor to both the Canadian Armed Forces and the Government of Canada.”140

To help the government regain control of the country’s biggest mine DiamondWorks made a deal with notorious mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes, which was run by former members of apartheid South Africa’s top counterinsurgency units. One commentator described Executive Outcomes as an “advance guard for major business interests engaged in a latter-day scramble for the mineral wealth of Africa.”141 In 1996 infamous Vancouver miner Robert Friedland launched DiamondWorks, which became Canada’s biggest diamond miner. Two of the Vancouver-based company’s directors, Tony Buckingham, a former officer in Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS), and Michael Grunberg, were senior managers of the Executive Outcomes group of companies. In 1997 the Globe and Mail reported that “Canadian mining company DiamondWorks Ltd. has publicly acknowledged for the first time that its largest shareholder acts as an intermediary for a group of South African mercenaries that sell their services to troubled governments in Africa.”142 Two hundred Executive Outcomes troops helped take control of the valuable Koidu mines from the RUF rebels for DiamondWorks’ benefit. The mercenaries used helicopter gunships and airburst explosives, which destroy all life within a 1.6-kilometre radius.143

Canadian resource firms employed security forces across the continent. In fact, the large number of mining companies based in Toronto and Vancouver attracted Africa-focused security companies. A 1998 Vancouver Sun article headlined “Gunning for Business: Private armies, coups, bribery” reported on military contractors meeting the city’s mining financiers. Ian Mulgrew wrote, “a key organizer for Executive Outcomes was in Vancouver pitching another military operation to subdue rebel activity in Sierra Leone and so facilitate bauxite mining.”144

Mulgrew also interviewed Alan Bell, a 12-year veteran of the British Special Forces, who crossed the pond to establish Globe Risk Holdings in Toronto. Mulgrew reported that “Bell provides advice as well as military training for companies investing in the nations plagued by political instability but blessed with a treasure trove of natural resources.”145 As discussed in Chapter 14 Globe Risk Holdings supplied security support to businesses in more than a half-dozen African states. After a decade and a half overseeing a private military corporation, military planners viewed Bell as an expert on the question of security forces’ relations to natural resources. In 2013 Bell “shared his experiences working in the PMC industry” at a Canadian Special Operations Forces Command and US Joint Special Operations University symposium on “The Role of the Global SOF [Special Operations Forces] Network in a Resource Constrained Environment”.146

South Africa

As this book went to print about 15 Canadian mining companies extracted various resources in South Africa. In the years after apartheid ended they also upheld white supremacy in the racially fraught country. 

To redress the inequities left by the apartheid system the African National Congress promoted black economic empowerment policies in the country’s vast mining industry. At the end of the 1990s the ANC-led government proposed a “mining charter” that included a 40% quota for blacks in management, skills training for black employees and the privileging of “historically disadvantaged” suppliers of mining services and equipment.147 (The mining charter also included a 10% quota for women in management.) It gave companies seeking government exploration licenses five years to ensure that “historically disadvantaged South Africans” owned 15% of the equity or shares.148 After a decade that number would rise to 26%.149

Canadian companies and officials worked against this effort to rebalance relations that saw 85% of South Africa’s population legally excluded from economic opportunities. Or, in the words of Paula Butler, to transform South Africa from a “racist state to an anti-racist state.”150

In March 2001 the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) produced a 25-page critique of the draft bill and followed that up by criticizing a second draft of the bill. In a bout of hyperbole, the PDAC claimed that Canadian companies would be “effectively barred by the proposed restrictions.”151 The PDAC commentary stated: “There is nothing in the Draft Bill that prevents the Minister from prohibiting all transfers except to historically disadvantaged persons, who might offer just a fraction of the value of the rights. Indeed, nothing prohibits the Minister from prohibiting all transfers in order to force the prospecting right to lapse so the Minister could subsequently grant the right to historically disadvantaged persons.”152

The Canadian High Commission delivered the PDAC submissions to the South African government and Canadian officials participated in an “international reference group” set up by the ANC to comment on the proposed legislation.153 South Africa’s Mining Weekly reported that “Canadian enterprises were probably the foreign mining companies most consulted by the South African government ...The South African government received a lot of input from the whole spectrum of the Canadian mining industry, from prospecting companies through mining houses all the way to analysts at the Toronto Stock Exchange.”154

Canadian companies threatened to sue South Africa. Placer Dome and SouthernEra, as well as a UK and Australian company, said they would take legal action if the new legislation infringed on their mineral rights. SouthernEra CEO Patrick Evans said: “The South African government could be faced with billions of dollars of potential liabilities. But we had to act. We cannot be seen to be contracting our shareholders out of our rights.”155

In response to pressure from international firms and white-owned local mines, the South African government softened its black economic empowerment policies in mining.156

In the final days of apartheid mining company executive Robert Friedland quietly began laying the groundwork for a massive platinum mine in the northeast of the country. At the start of 2015 the Globe and Mail’s Geoffrey York reported on Ivanhoe’s use of “court injunctions, ultimatums to government, and digging up dirt on opponents” during a two-decade long effort to establish its Platreef mine.157

The newspaper detailed how Friedland’s company coerced a villager into surrendering her farm and spent years wooing the chief of the Mokopane traditional council, which holds most of the area’s land in trust on behalf of the community. The company began making donations to the council in 2001 and in 2010 Ivanhoe signed an agreement with Chief Kekana for “all reasonable access” to test drill on the community’s land for a “monthly stipend” of 30,000 rand (about $4,000 US). The deal also included a laptop, use of a farm, an annual “gratuity” and a lump-sum payment to a “trust” of the chief’s choice as well as 3,000 rand monthly payments to the chief’s adviser and five village headmen. Ivanhoe also paid 10,000 to 30,000 rand a month, as well as computers and cell phones, to the “community mining committee” in a number of villages near its mine.158

At the national level Ivanhoe forged close ties to the former secretary general of the African National Congress, the ruling party. Cyril Ramaphosa resigned from the Ivanhoe board of directors to become South Africa’s deputy president in 2014, but for a decade he sat on the ANC’s national executive and Ivanhoe’s board. Ramaphosa owned about 1.2 million Ivanhoe common shares.159

The Vancouver company’s high-level political connections helped it secure permission for Platreef. It may also have protected local partners, reported the Daily Maverick. The South African news agency suggested that Ivanhoe’s support for the local Mogalakwena government led the provincial and national governments to turn a blind eye to their “serious corruption and mismanagement”.160

Many of those living nearby opposed the Platreef mine. A number of protests in 2011 and 2012 blocked or damaged Platreef drilling rigs and when the Department of Mineral Resources gave the company final approval in November 2014, protesters blocked a highway near the project with rocks and tires. The police fired rubber bullets at the demonstrators and arrested three protesters.161

Community members were angry at losing their ability to visit their ancestors’ gravesites, the mine’s preferential access to water and the company’s influence over local politics. A 72-year-old farmer told the Globe and Mail he spends an extra $100 a month on food due to the mine. “Platreef put their machines in our yards,” Daniel Nong said. “There were so many machines. They’ve killed our crops. We can’t grow anything now.”162

 

Tanzania

Canadian mining companies dominated the East African country’s resource sector with some $2 billion in assets in 2015. As the top gold producer in Tanzania, Barrick Gold (now Acacia Mining) led the way with four mines. At the start of the 21st century Barrick’s North Mara mine displaced thousands of artisanal miners and farmers. Then the company polluted the area with arsenic, according to a Norwegian University of Life Sciences report, which can cause a variety of cancers, skin problems and birth defects.163

In May 2009 a tailing dam at the mine spilled sulphuric acid into the Tigithe River, leaving the area’s water source toxic for human and animal consumption. The spill killed over 40 people and 1,000 livestock.164 “We have no problem with investors,” local villager Esther Mugusuhi told Tanzania’s ThisDay newspaper after the spill. “But the investors must respect and treat us like human beings. These Canadians are killing us.”165

The death wasn’t always accidental. Between 2005 and 2015 Barrick-paid security operatives killed dozens of villagers at, or in close proximity, to its North Mara mine.166 Hundreds more were severely injured by the security and police Barrick paid to patrol the perimeter of its mine and regularly called on site. Most of the victims were impoverished villagers who scratch rocks for tiny bits of gold.

With the help of London law firm Leigh Day, nine local villagers pursued African Barrick in the High Court of England for deaths and injuries they claim were a result of an excessive use of force by mine security and police. At the beginning of 2015 Acacia settled the case out of court without disclosing the terms of the agreement.167

The Barrick security forces also raped many women. After an international campaign Barrick agreed to compensate 14 women who were sexually assaulted by police and security guards at the mine. But the company forced the women to waive their right to bring forward “any other claim” or “assist other complainants” in potential suits against Barrick. Some saw this as a way to restrict the rape victims from acting as witnesses in civil litigation or criminal proceedings.168

Barrick operates another mine in Tanzania with an equally appalling human rights record. Between 2006 and 2014 at least five employees died on the job in three separate incidents at its Bulyanhulu mine near Lake Victoria in the north of the country.169

After a multi-year courtship process, in 1999 Barrick bought the Bulyanhulu mine from Vancouver-based Sutton Resources. The mine displaced tens of thousands — estimates range wildly from 20,000 to 400,000 — of small-scale miners.170 When the army carried out the evictions 52 miners were allegedly buried alive in the mine holes.171 An attorney with the Dar es Salaam-based Lawyers’ Environmental Action Team, Tundu Lissu, described the lead-up to the evictions: “In late July 1996, the government ordered the artisanal miners to vacate the area. The following day, paramilitary security forces of the government moved against the miners’ communities and commenced forcible evictions. A High Court ordered the government and the company to stop the removals, but even this did not save the artisanals from eviction and the destruction of their settlements.”172

Denied by the mining sector and Tanzania’s government, the deaths were reported by Amnesty International (annual reports from 1997 to 1999).173 A mission to Tanzania in 2001 by the Council of Canadians, Mining Watch Canada and Amnesty International found: “The intensity and seriousness in the telling of the stories of the alleged evictions, violence and brutality of the police and mining officials, the level of detail, as well as the willingness of the Bulyanhulu residents to take significant risks to their own personal safety to come and speak with us, impressed the members of the mission, as did the willingness of apparently 250 others who waited several hours for us to arrive in Bulyanhulu. The members thought that these factors lent weight to the credibility of the allegations.”174 Mission members called for an independent international investigation into the allegations of mass murder in the Bulyanhulu pit.

Through Access to Information laws Probe International obtained boxes of heavily censored correspondence from the Canadian High Commissioner in Tanzania concerning the evictions. The documents detail a Canadian diplomat actively pressuring Tanzanian officials to clear Sutton’s concession of small-scale miners. “Sutton [censored words] is ready to go to stock market [censored words] but cannot / not do so in absence of Tanz govt action to remove 7,000/10,000/ illegal miners” said a report to Foreign Affairs in December 1995.175

Later, the High Commission reported to Ottawa that Sutton had gone to court to secure an eviction order to remove small-scale miners from its concession and to obtain a permanent injunction to “restrain respondants from interfering with the mining operations in the area.” But the judge refused, concluding that a special three-judge panel needed to decide the case. “I found no provision made for compensation and/or resettlement of the indigenous people,” read the Tanzanian judge’s ruling.

Despite the court ruling, Canadian officials continued to press Sutton’s case. Incredibly, the Canadian high commissioner told Ottawa the Tanzanian government ought to disregard the judge’s decision. “High Court Judge ruled that issue cld [could] involve constitutional rights and should be heard by a panel of three High Court judges. … Sutton has appealed to High Court for panel hearing. We do not/not believe that judicial action on injunction need impede action by govt to resolve situ[ation].”176 (italics added)

For a time, the court ruling (as well as an upcoming election) stopped the Tanzanian government from removing the miners. But Canadian pressure grew as the estimated size of the Bulyanhulu mine’s deposits increased. The high commissioner discussed the issue directly with the Tanzanian prime minister and president. In a memo to the president of Tanzania, the high commissioner noted that the “Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto stock exchanges have become the leading sources of exploration capital in the resource sector. … It will be important, therefore, that outstanding problems relating to title and to illegal activities be quickly removed.”177 The “illegal activities” that concerned the high commissioner were, of course, the small-scale miners who lived in Bulyanhulu and had dug for gold since it was discovered in 1976.

To advance Sutton’s interests, the High Commission published a special supplement in the Tanzanian press and the high commissioner appeared in a half-hour TV interview.178 With this effort, the High Commission wrote to Ottawa, “the decision makers will be fully aware of how important this mining sector, Cdn participation, and rule of law is to their economy.”179 The high commissioner even dangled the possibility of resuming Canadian aid to encourage the government to drive the artisanal miners from Bulyanhulu. The high commissioner said that he “advised Pres Mwinyi that Tanzania has been reinstated as Cdn development assistance partner, and mentioned a few projects whose further development cld now be pursued, including perhaps, development of mining training centre in mining belt in conjunction with Sutton and other mining coys, assuming current problems cld be and wld be resolved?”180

After the artisanal miners were displaced the Canadian High Commission sought to muzzle an opposition political party and shape its report into the issue.181 The high commissioner arranged a private meeting with the Tanzanian Labour Party to encourage it to tell the “truth or at least moderation” in its investigation into the evictions at Bulyanhulu.182

For its part, the Tanzanian government harassed the Tanzania Labour Party and the Lawyers Environmental Action Team (LEAT). It charged Labour Party leader Augustine Mrema and LEAT representatives Rugemeleza Nshala and Tundu Lissu with sedition for publicizing allegations of abuses in Bulyanhulu.183

Later the Tanzanian government prevented two different international groups from inquiring into the alleged massacre. The authorities refused to let officials from the World Bank’s Compliance Adviser Ombudsman visit Bulyanhulu because they held “business visas”, which didn’t entitle them to investigate the matter.184

Since lobbying on behalf of Sutton, Canadian officials have repeatedly intervened to shape Tanzanian mining policy. Tanzanian activist Evans Rubara and Canadian academic Paula Butler describe the “aggressive role played by Canadian mining companies, Canadian lawyers and Canadian diplomats to establish the pro-foreign-investor content of Tanzanian mining codes since the mid-1990s.”185

In 1998 the High Commission lobbied the Tanzanian government and World Bank to invite Canadian companies to a forum on drafting new mining legislation.186 At the start of the century Canadian diplomats sought to influence the country’s tax policy. In a letter to the chairman of the Mineral Sector Regulatory System Review Committee, Tanzania’s Industry and Trade Minister Basil Mramba recounted how foreign diplomats — Canadian, South African, Norwegian and British — interfered in the country’s tax law reforms. Mramba stated that “during the preparations (for enacting the 2004 act) several foreign diplomats based in the country formed a committee to examine the proposals for the (Income) Tax Bill, which is rather unusual. Being the then Finance minister, I met twice with them to hear and respond to their objections — especially to the manner in which mines were to be made to pay income tax as had then been proposed by an expert from Oxford University in England. Eventually, the Cabinet decided to postpone the incorporation into the new law of the entire section of that Bill which dealt with minerals so that it would be re-examined when the time was right.”187

During a November 2007 visit to Tanzania Stephen Harper met representatives from nearly a dozen Canadian resource firms operating in the country.188 According to Harper, the meeting was to discuss “the general business climate [and] what the government of Canada can do to assist in building our investments here.”189

In the months after Harper’s visit, reported ThisDay, the High Commission launched an “intense” lobbying effort to convince Tanzania’s Parliament to reject the Mineral Sector Review Committee’s recommendation that a larger proportion of profits from higher mineral prices be retained by the government.190 In 2014 the two countries signed a FIPA.

 

Western Sahara

Saskatoon’s PotashCorp and Calgary’s Agrium partnered with Morocco’s state owned OCP to export phosphate mined in Africa’s last colony. The UN calls Western Sahara “occupied” by Morocco and international law prohibits an occupying power from exploiting the resources of territories they control unless it’s in the interest of, and according to, the wishes of the local population. In Western Sahara Moroccan tanks and troops protect phosphate shipments from Sahrawi independence forces.191

The world’s top exporter of the mineral, phosphate mining represents over a quarter of Morocco’s total exports and OCP is the country’s largest industrial company. King Mohammed VI oversees it.192

PotashCorp is the biggest customer of Western Sahara phosphates, buying 750,000 tonnes of rock annually.193 To deflect from its complicity in violating international law, the company said OCP’s operations benefit the Saharawi people. A 2014 PotashCorp statement claimed: “OCP has established a proactive affirmative action campaign to the benefit of the local people and, importantly, is making significant economic and social contributions to the entire region. As a result, we believe those who choose to make a political statement about OCP are effectively penalizing Saharawi workers, their families and communities.”194

For its part, the POLISARIO Front national liberation movement claims that PotashCorp and Agrium’s deals with OCP contravene international law and prop up Morocco’s control of the region.195 So does the African Union. A mid-2015 AU Summit resolution called on the UN Security Council to assume its responsibilities with regards to Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara, specifically highlighting its “illegal exploitation of the Territory’s natural resources.”196 Agreeing with this view, several European pension funds and banks have divested all PotashCorp stock.197

 

Zambia

A half-dozen Canadian companies, with $6 billion invested, operate in the copper rich central African nation. The Canadian mining presence in Zambia dates to the late 1990s privatization of the Zambian Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), which once produced 700,000 tonnes of copper per year. In a report on the sale, John Lungu and Alastair Fraser explain that “the division of ZCCM into several smaller companies and their sale to private investors between 1997 and 2000 marked the completion of one of the most comprehensive and rapid privatisation processes seen anywhere in the world.”198

The highly indebted country was under immense pressure to sell its copper and public mining company. Zambia’s former Finance Minister Edith Nawakwi said, “we were told by advisers, who included the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that … for the next 20 years, Zambian copper would not make a profit. [But, if we privatised] we would be able to access debt relief, and this was a huge carrot in front of us — like waving medicine in front of a dying woman. We had no option” but to privatize.199

Ottawa played a part in the privatization push. A proponent of neoliberal reform in Zambia since the late 1980s, Canada was part of the World Bank led Consultative Group of donors that promoted the copper selloff. With the sale moving too slowly for the donors, a May 1998 Consultative Group meeting in Paris made $530 US million in balance of payments support dependent on privatizing the rest of ZCCM.200

But the hasty sale of the public behemoth was highly unfavourable to Zambians. The price of copper was at a historic low and the individual leading the negotiations, Francis Kaunda, was later jailed for defrauding the public company.201 “ZCCM’s privatization was carried out with a complete lack of transparency, no debate in parliament, and with one-sided contracts which few of us have ever seen,” said James Lungu, a professor at Zambia’s Copperbelt University.202

Taking advantage of the government’s weak bargaining position, First Quantum and other foreign companies picked up the valuable assets for rock bottom prices and left the government with ZCCM’s liabilities, including pensions.203 The foreign mining companies also negotiated ultralow royalty rates and the right to take the government to international arbitration if tax exemptions were withdrawn for 15 years or more.204 Many of the multinationals made their money back in a year or two and when the price of copper rose five fold in the mid-2000s they made bundles.

Having conceded tax exemptions and ultralow royalty rates, the government captured little from the surge in global copper prices. In 2006 Zambian royalties from copper represented about $24 million on $4 billion worth of copper extracted.205 The 0.6% royalty rate was thought to be the lowest in the world. The government take from taxing the mining companies wasn’t a whole lot better. Between 2000 and 2007 Zambia exported US $12.24 billion in copper but the government only collected $246 million in tax.206

Since 2008 Zambia has wrestled more from the companies, but they’ve had to overcome stiff corporate resistance. When the government suggested an increased royalty in 2005 First Quantum’s commercial manager Andrew Hickman complained that it “would probably make any new mining ventures in Zambia uneconomical” while three years later First Quantum said it would have “no choice” but to take legal action if a new tax regime breached the agreement it signed during the privatization process.207

First Quantum had good reason to campaign aggressively to maintain the country’s generous mining policy. It had become Zambia’s largest foreign investor, purchasing the Bwana Mkubwa copper mine in 1996 as well as the Kansanshi and Mopani Copper Mine (with Glencore) at the start of the 2000s.208 As discussed further in Chapter 15, Mopani Copper Mine (MCM), which is now only a sixth owned by First Quantum, cheated Zambia out of tens of millions of dollars. An audit found that between 2006 and 2008 MCM underreported cobalt extracts and manipulated internal prices to shift profits to First Quantum and Glencore subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, allowing it to evade millions of tax in Zambia.

In a bid to cut down on tax evasion and transfer pricing, the Zambian government sought to simplify the mining fee structure. In 2013 Lusaka proposed eliminating income tax on mining companies and substantially increasing royalty rates (up to 20% for open-pit mines and 8% on underground operations). In February 2015 Minister of Finance Alexander B. Chikwanda told Parliament: “The tax system was vulnerable to all forms of tax planning schemes such as transfer pricing, hedging and trading through ‘shell’ companies which are not directly linked to the core business. Sir, it has been a challenge for the revenue administration to detect and abate such practices. Further, provisions on capital allowances and carry forward of losses eliminated potential taxable profits. Mr Speaker, the tax structure was simply illusory as only two mining companies were paying Company Income Tax under the previous tax regime as most of them claimed that they were not in tax-paying positions.”209

First Quantum, Barrick Gold and a number of other foreign mining companies screamed murder and worked to derail the Zambian government. First Quantum government affairs manager John Gladston said “the new system doesn’t incentivise investment in new capital projects which in turn, will inevitably be translated into fewer new jobs and less opportunities for wealth creation for Zambians.”210 To spur a backlash in the job-hungry country, First Quantum laid off 350 workers at its Kansanshi mine. The government responded by saying First Quantum wasn’t adhering to the country’s labour laws. Government spokesperson Chishimba Kambwili told Xinhua that “all mining companies are aware of the standing order, which obliges them to consult the government through the Ministry of Labour before any decision to sack any worker becomes effective.”211

Barrick Gold also threatened to lay off workers if the government increased royalty rates. The Toronto company said it would shutter its Lumwana Mine, which prompted 2,000 workers, fearing for their jobs, to hold a one-day strike.212 The foreign-run Chamber of Mines of Zambia claimed 12,000 jobs would be lost if the royalty changes went through and the International Monetary Fund added its voice to those opposing the royalty hike. The mining corporations’ strong-arm tactics succeeded. After a six-month standoff, the government backed off.

First Quantum, Barrick and the other foreign mining companies exploited the immense power ZCCM’s privatization gave them over Zambian economic life. By shuttering their mines they could produce economic hardship for thousands of people. (With an 80% unemployment rate and most Zambians living on less than a dollar a day, each formally employed individual provides for many others.)213 Some suggested the foreign mining companies were even “powerful enough to manipulate the exchange rate” of the country.214

Despite working diligently to minimize their payments, First Quantum touted their tax contributions when it served to undercut social demands. In 2014 First Quantum Community Engagement Manager Garth Lappeman complained to Africa Report that there “is constant reference to what used to happen in the past, of what ZCCM used to do, and a complete misunderstanding because of low literacy levels. I think mainly, that the mining sector has been privatized and it’s a different context now. We pay tax.”215

In 2011 First Quantum initiated a mammoth project a few hours outside Zambia’s historic copperbelt. At its peak the $2 billion US Kalumbila Trident Project is expected to produce 300,000 tonnes of low grade copper a year. To reach this output level the firm will extract, process and separate 55 million tonnes of ore annually.216 The chemically intensive process demands massive tracts of land for storage, waste rock and tailing pipelines, which led the Vancouver firm to clear cut 5,000 hectares of woodlands.217 First Quantum acquired the right to mine 50,000 hectares (518 square km) of the Lunda people’s customary land in a controversial manner. It bypassed Zambia’s central government and signed a deal with the Musele Chiefdom, even though traditional leaders are only allowed to alienate 250 hectares by law.218 Chief Felex Muzeya later claimed the company deceived him and a ministerial task force found serious irregularities in the way First Quantum acquired the land.219

Despite not controlling surface rights to the land, First Quantum pushed forward with the project.220 First Quantum began cutting trees in one of Zambia’s last indigenous forests and the Vancouver firm dammed two rivers, undermining locals’ access to water and fish. In one instance, a woman frightened by company guard dogs fled into a river and drowned.221 Chief Chisele told University of the Western Cape researchers that “they are chasing people away from the dam where they fish; from the forest where they get mushrooms. The mine people said the river will be free to the people but they are chasing people away and using police dogs.  … They are cheats! Land for homes and land for fields belongs to the Chief in as far as he holds the land for the villagers. But this land was for the community because it was an inheritance from the ancestors.”222

Some direct beneficiaries of the Kalumbila mine also found themselves aggrieved. After the January 2015 death of mineworker Greyan Taimo 3,000 Kalumbila employees went on strike. They claimed the mine hospital failed to treat Taimo or send him for care in Solwezi and criticized the company’s failure to provide his family with a funeral grant. In response, First Quantum fired 11 individuals it claimed instigated the job action even though it told the government no one would be targeted for the work stoppage.223

In March 2015 another Kalumbila worker, Evans Lombe, died on the job.224

To the east of Kalumbila, First Quantum’s Bwana Mkubwa mine polluted the Mukulungwe River. Grist reported that “the stream has literally been turned into a tailings dam — all aquatic life-forms have perished, farm animals have been dying, and farmers cannot use the stream water for farming or for domestic use.”225 Yet a 2006 European Parliament development committee report published pictures of children bathing in the Mukulungwe River.226

In January 2008 Mopani Copper Mine discharged polluted water into a community drinking source in southern Zambia. The company then failed to purify the water, which led nearly 1,000 people to visit health clinics with abdominal pain, severe diarrhoea and vomiting. “The failure of the company’s underground pump to purify the acidic water should have been avoidable by simply ensuring there was a standby alternative at all times,” said Bob Sichinga, a former parliamentarian who once served on the parliamentary mining committee.227 “But even after it happened, the water utility should have been able to detect the impurities in the water — it didn’t have to take the people to complain for the two companies to realise the pumped water was polluted.”228 Sichinga described the pollution discharge as “an act of total disregard for the rights of the people and the law of the land; it seems to suggest that the rights of the people are dispensable, while investment is indispensable.”

Sulphur dioxide emissions at MCM were 70 times the limit set by the World Health Organization, causing respiratory problems, killing plant life and damaging houses.229 In August 2014 protests erupted at the mine after local residents said seven people were hospitalized due to sulphur dioxide emissions. The demonstrators broke through a security fence and tried to damage MCM facilities, but were eventually pushed back by company security and police tear gas.230

Canadian officials actively backed the mining companies in Zambia. At the 2013 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention Ottawa announced the start of negotiations on a FIPA with Zambia and the next year the head of office at the Canadian High Commission, Sharad Kumar Gupta said, “the Canadian government is trying to encourage the private sector to explore … opportunities in Zambia’s mining sector,” reported a Zambian news site.231

After the leftist Patriotic Front opposition party accused First Quantum of blocking workers from voting in a 2005 parliamentary by-election, the Canadian high commissioner defended the Vancouver company. John Deyell, who previously worked at Inco and Falconbridge in Sudbury, claimed First Quantum wasn’t responsible for day-to-day operations despite owning a sixth of MCM stock and controlling two seats on MCM’s executive board.232 In response the Patriotic Front sought to take their protest against MCM’s violation of workers’ rights to the Canadian High Commission, but the police denied them a permit.233

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While not an exhaustive reckoning, this overview illustrates the breadth and depth of mineral extraction in Canadian foreign policy and how ordinary Africans experience Canada as a neighbour. Readers should make up their own minds as to whether or not Canadian mining corporations and the government that supports them have been a “force for good” in Africa.