Fear and Mining in the South Pacific

Gallic colonialism is alive and well. In the nineteenth century French power expanded in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, spreading economic exploitation with a civilized veneer. As they herded Vietnamese into industrial plantations and subjected them to massive taxation the French called it their ‘civilizing mission.’ It was, in theory, a temporary exercise in noble subjugation. In practice, it was one that allowed them to get rich off the backs of those whom they were ‘civilizing.’

In the South Pacific France maintains a very real colony in New Caledonia, or Kanaky as it is known to its oldest inhabitants. Since the assumption of French control 150 years ago, time and emigration have converted the indigenous people, the Kanaks, into a minority at 44 percent of the population. The corporate friendly French administration has also marginalized the Kanaks and virtually guaranteed them persistent poverty as they have watched much of their land transformed through mining into a polluted and denuded wasteland. However, the past twenty five years have seen the Kanaks moblilizing to push for independence. Their fortunes have waxed and waned, through strikes and protests and disappointing agreements with the French, such as the 1998 Noumea accord which was signed in the New Caledonian capital. That agreement designated a twenty year period before true independence could be considered, yet this period is now turning into a nightmare and is leaving Kanaks questioning exactly what sort of nation they will be left to enjoy.

The motivation for French control is very simple. Grand Terre, the main island of New Caledonia has what are probably the largest deposits of nickel on the planet. Nickel is an essential component of stainless steel and steel is a key component of the Chinese economic boom. Demand for nickel is through the roof, and supplies are tight. Hence, New Caledonia has become an immensely important strategic resource, and one with a huge cash value waiting to be realized.

In addition, global nickel may well be approaching a ‘peak’ scenario. Minerals analysts Roskill have released a report this year that “expects the average nickel price to fall to around US$12,000/t in 2006 from almost US$15,000/t in 2005.” $12,000 per tonne is still historically a very high price but, “After this point, Roskill expects there to be a balance between nickel supply and demand but, with continuing growth in both the world economy and steel markets, a steady increase in nickel prices in line with economic growth is forecast.” With the expected continuing expansion of Chinese industry, “Roskill is forecasting the nickel price to end 2010 at approximately US$16,500/t,” an industry record.

Corporations are scrambling to meet this growing demand. In New Caledonia, the government has bent over backwards to make sure that they can extract what they need as profitably as possible. In effect, an alliance of a colonial elite and corporate capital is enriching itself at the cost of indigenous rights and the local environment.

In steps Inco

Canadian mining giant Inco has been in New Caledonia since 1992, with the formation of Goro Nickel S.A. Goro itself is an enormous undertaking. As Inco’s own website states, it is “not only the largest development in New Caledonia’s history, it is perhaps the largest single mining project ever constructed in the world.” Because of its size, the mine at Goro remains under construction and has encountered many financial difficulties along the way, although it is now slated for an imminent opening.

It is also a project that carries with it a huge environmental risk. Goro is very close to the largest lagoon in the world and the second largest reef system. The waters around New Caledonia are a treasure trove for marine biologists. According to a 2004 report by NGO ECA Watch “Recently, marine researchers discovered over 2,700 species of marine molluscs at one Kanaky site alone – several times the number of species than those recorded from any other comparable area in the world.” The biodiversity of the area was such that in 2002 a group of marine scientists working for the UN requested that it be designated “top priority for World Heritage designation in the Pacific.” For reasons of state described below, that request was conveniently consigned to the trash.

Moreover, owing to its unusual soils, on the landmass of Kanaky “over 75% of the country’s plant species are endemic and are found nowhere else on earth. Some of New Caledonia’s terrestrial ecosystems have rates of endemism as high as 91%. Kanaky is home to extraordinary “living fossils” including 18 species of the Winteraceae family of plants which date back 120 million years, to the age of dinosaurs.”

Goro is not exempt from official criticism either. An environmental report from 2002 published by the French government agency INERIS listed a number of serious problems with the initial Environmental Impact Assessment that had allowed the project to proceed. The most serious charge was that Inco had not addressed the problem of effluent discharge from the mine. It detailed a “lack of adequate information regarding sea current patterns in the dumping site… lack of adequate data to interpret the potential impacts on the marine environment of suspended particles (turbidity) and nutrients from the mine effluent [and] imprecision in the data regarding possible chemical contamination of the marine environment preventing, among others, conclusions on the behavior of some hazardous metallic elements.” In other words, plenty to be getting worried about.

The mining process to be used in the open cast mine there will also be an experimental system involving a chemical treatment based on the use of massive amounts of sulfuric acid. This ‘acid-leach’ technique will be powered by a coal-fired power station and, says NGO Environmental Defense, will “seriously threaten the marine life and traditional subsistence fishing in [the] incredible underwater ecosystem.”

Corporate-colonial coziness

In response to the official environmental report, in September 2002, Kanak activists organized a blockade of the site. Within days the site had been evacuated and operations were shut down. That same week, the French government decided to kill the proposal to declare Kanaky a World Heritage site, a proposal that they had been encouraging for public relations reasons throughout the year. Now, however, with such high stakes, things had changed. Then Minister for the Environment, Rosaline Bachelot was blunt, describing the UNESCO designation as “a measure that is uninteresting because it has no binding impact” while “France would protect the fragile and unique ecosystem by working with international mining companies.” Moreover, the Inco concessions have received generous “fiscal incentives” consisting of huge tax breaks to entice investment. As Inco’s Scott Hand put it in 2002, skilful lobbying had realised $350 million of “very favourable tax assisted financing.” These incentives have been spearheaded by the French-New Caledonian elite via the local strongman Pierre Frogier. Speaking to the French National Assembly in November 2005, Frogier said, “tax breaks [defiscalisation] constitute a powerful lever for the economic development of overseas territory. It is essential for the realization of large projects that will ensure the growth of New Caledonia and the diversification of its economy.”

The major Kanak resistance organization are known as Rheebu Nuu. They charge that the ‘defiscalisation’ enjoyed by Inco was granted on the spurious ground that Inco’s mining activities would have minimal effects on the local environment. Yet Goro could never have got off the ground in France as, according to activists it violates many European norms. What environmental oversight there was on the Goro project was initially contained in the very document by which Inco applied for a mining permit in New Caledonia. Moreover, according to Miningwatch’s Catherine Coumans, the INERIS report which was set up to rectify this problem, was largely funded by Inco and got predictably Inco-friendly results. Apparently, on a mission to present their case in Paris, a Kanaky delegation met with the head scientist of the INERIS project, J.P. Pineau, who told them bluntly of Inco’s involvement.

The entire project is shot through with the cooperation of the French government, the colonial elite and the Canadian mining giant.

The scale of this cooperation was never hidden from Kanak activists, however. In July 2002, as they were speaking of protecting the reefs, the French government granted a neighboring site called Prony to INCO for virtually nothing. At the time this was described by Kanak spokesman Gerard Jodar as “totally unacceptable and unjustifiable. This deprives New Caledonia of its mining resources,” where by New Caledonia he meant its people and not its governing elite. The response of Kanaks to the Prony concession was immediate – to begin construction of traditional houses and the planting of trees on the land. Inco had a problem on their hands.

Fortunately for the Kanaks, Inco had also brought upon themselves a financial problem. Throughout 2002, the estimated construction costs for the Goro site ballooned. According to the NGO Mines and Communities, in the first half of the year, Inco signed a contract with engineering consortium BTH (Bechtel, Technip and Hatch) worth $1.45 billion. In September that leapt to $1.7 billion and by December it had reached $2.1 billion. In February 2003, Inco decided to launch a financial review and stopped work on the Goro site for six months.

By 2004 the work was on again and so was the resistance. In February and March, activists from Rheebu Nuu blockaded the Goro site. Inco took a Kanak leader Raphael Mapou to court for orchestrating the protests, yet in November 2004 a French court reinforced the Rheebu Nuu resistance. The Kanaks were, decided Justice Dominique Gilles, “conducting legal and recognized activities consistent with its constitution, activities which are obviously inscribed in setting up the political and cultural rights and the freedom to speak of the indigenous populations, rights which are legally protected as well.” This was a small victory, as construction continued and no further environmental studies were arranged.

Kanak resistance redux

2006 has seen a spectacular resurgence in the Rheebu Nuu struggle. In February, a New Caledonia court rejected a Kanak application that work be stopped owing to environmental concerns. The court was satisfied, in the spirit of the French government’s partnership with the mining corporations, that Goro Nickel were intent on protecting the environment. Activists disagreed, and continued to call for an independent assessment. On March 29, activists once more blockaded the Goro site and sparked a panicked exodus of mine staff.

The occupation lasted for two weeks, with no violence. INCO said at the time, however, that the Kanaks were responsible for some $10 million worth of damage to mine equipment during their stay. What actually happened is unclear. On 25 April, Rob Renton of Inco said that the costs were incurred not through direct monkey-wrenching, saying that “The cost is more associated with interruption to the project than direct damages.” At the time however, the company appealed for French intervention on the basis that activists were causing huge criminal damage and threatening lives. Intervention was what they got. Rheebu Nuu document French police firing shots at the demonstrators to remove them from the site.

When the blockade was eventually lifted on the 16 April (with the assistance of French gendarmes and helicopters), sixteen activists were arrested. Sources coming out of the island have differed as to the situation since then. According to some, the blockade was the action of a rabble or as Rob Renton put it to Dow Jones Newswires, “people who threatened staff with machetes and axes and burnt equipment.” Other reports have described serious ‘riots’ and demonstrations involving thousands of Kanaks while Kanaks themselves say that the blockade has sparked a wave of sympathy actions across the island. Those arrested have had their trial delayed until June after the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense.

Until last week, leaders of Rheebu Nuu were in hiding after warrants for their arrest were issued by the New Caledonia government. For two weeks, Raphael Mapou and Andre Vama were sought for arrest, a status that was subsequently downgraded to being sought only for ‘questioning.’ However, Rheebu Nuu activists say that they are subject to continuing harassment, with routine computer seizures and surveillance. They have told me via e-mail that the atmosphere is tense and that the authorities are waging a campaign of intimidation against them to repress their resistance to the Goro project.

The Kanak campaign has also been the target of counter-publicity from Inco and the French colonial government. Company spokesman Ron Renton has characterized the protesters as a violent minority while Inco have made plain their determination not to delay, far less abandon Goro. On 21 April, for example, as if to reassert their authority over the population, Inco made a statement at a shareholders meeting that “it expects to be active in New Caledonia for at least 100 years” as reported by Radio New Zealand. The colonial government has provided a dragnet to catch the Kanak leaders and placed sixteen activists on trial (a trial that has subsequently been delayed until June). They have covered up their violence and raided the homes of their opponents. In other words, they have worked hand in hand with Inco to smooth this blip in the development of Goro.

Other signs are not so encouraging for the multinational. One indication that things are not as they seem may be that on 23 April, the FTSE index in London took the step of removing Inco from its index of ‘socially responsible’ companies to invest in citing human rights as the reason. They may well know the way the wind is blowing as it is not an easy thing to achieve. Only Inco across the world was delisted last year on ‘human rights grounds.’

Courting catastrophe?

On the 24 April, Inco spokesperson Katherine Guillame admitted on Radio New Zealand that Rheebu Nuu claims were correct. Goro is an environmental catastrophe in the making. She “acknowledged a landslide that led to a failure of the company’s erosion control management. The incident impacted the Kie River that flows directly into the lagoon facing the Merlet Reserve, the oldest and largest marine protected area in New Caledonia.”

Moreover according to the Australian Mineral Policy Institute, meetings with Goro managers revealed that “sediment control measures” had failed a few weeks earlier as well, “polluting the marine environment.” Reports on French television from locals that the ocean had “turned red” were immediately confirmed and the culprit named. “Management stated that, aside from breaches of sediment capture mechanisms on the site, ‘silt curtains,’ sediment control measures that should have operational on the ocean foreshore were not in place.” This is the exact failing that the INERIS report from 2002 stated had not been addressed and against which the Kanaks have been campaigning ever since.

A new environmental mission has been sent in past weeks from CEREGE (the European Centre for Geosciences and the Environment) whose remit is mainly to study the effects of marine effluent on animal health. Contrary to the requests of Rheebu Nuu, the CEREGE team will not look at the integrity of inland storage systems or their vulnerability to earthquake damage. In a sign of their concern for the Kanaky environment, the research team also made it clear at an opening press conference that they would not investigate the toxic effects of Manganese effluent in the lagoon or local watercourses. The European Union itself recognizes the dangers of Manganese exposure. A report from 2000 detailed the major human side-effect of Manganese exposure, a “syndrome known as “manganism” [that] is characterized by weakness, anorexia, muscle pain, apathy, slow speech without inflection, emotionless “mask-like” facial expression, and slow clumsy movement of the limbs.” As yet, there is no evidence that the dangers of manganism are going to be addressed.

Inco remains determined that the truth about Goro does not leak out, unlike the sediments that are poisoning one of the most precious biological resources on the planet. Reuters reported on 28 April that construction at Goro was “ramping up” and that Inco was “bringing more people to site during the week.”

Unfortunately for local Kanaks, these people are either low-wage Phillipino construction workers – another key grievance against the massive mine – or French gendarmes. Katherine Guillaume has recently defended the importation of cheap labor. “A government decree makes it possible to work on the building site of construction of Goro Nickel for up to sixty hours per week…ten hours per day six days per week,” she said, “the Filipinos are accustomed to this rate/rhythm which is perfectly appropriate for their choice: to come on a building site for one short period, to work intensively, earn money and to return…home.” That it is perfectly appropriate for Inco to exploit migrant labor at the expense of the environment and the local community is beside the point.

Spinning around the problem

Inco’s Guillaume told me that the concerns of the Kanaks were misplaced. Firstly, she said that the environmental concerns were not born out by two third party studies, while the Goro project qualified under “the French financial help structure and laws, and the local environmental law which issued a complete permit for the operation.”

Miningwatch however say that those studies both criticized the initial terms of the agreement between Inco and the New Caledonian government. As Coumans says, the Environmental Impact Assessment submitted by INCO was flawed from the outset and studies since then have only reiterated that. “There is no confidence,” she told me, “in the local population (particularly environmentalists and Kanaks), nor among independent scientists that have looked at Inco’s EIA that all is in order.” There seems to be a good case for a reassessment.

Secondly, Guillaume said to me that the “population nearby the project have participated [in] a high number of meetings with Goro Nickel teams for a certain number of years.” Those calling for a royalty system of payment for local people are out of luck, she says, for “the French law is not adapted [for it] and [it is] generally banned by all the political parties and institutions in New Caledonia.”

Miningwatch says that if these meetings have happened, then they have not ensured local support. Having visited the mining area, they say that “We met with villagers in Goro who were categorical in their opposition to the mine.” Even for the small number of locals who have jobs at the mine, “it is more an indication of economic need than a sign of support for the mine…the families that have young people signed up for work at the mine are deeply divided.”

There is a fundamental disconnect here. Inco is advising us not to worry about the lagoon, safe water supplies and the reefs while all Kanak affairs will be seen to through the combination of government and corporation. Kanaks and NGOs like Miningwatch do not see things this way.

In Inco’s version of events, the Kanak protests have been localized, minority actions with little public support. Catherine Coumans refuted this in a May 1 press release. “Demonstrations in Noumea, solidarity blockades throughout the country and positions expressed by the Customary Senate of the land provide evidence that in fact Kanaks from all three provinces of New Caledonia support the fundamental indigenous rights issues at the root of the conflict,” she wrote while “Rheebu Nuu has called over many years for a halt to the ongoing construction of the Goro mine in order to engage with Inco in structured negotiations about all aspects of the proposed project,” calls that have been consistently marginalized and ignored.

Miningwatch and Rheebu Nuu continue to call for a new Environmental Assessment to renegotiate the terms of the mining contract and also to establish a royalties system for local people.

Publicly, Inco remains confident about the project, and refuse to engage with criticism from Rheebu Nuu. As Inco’s Rob Renton himself put it to Dow Jones Newswires, “I certainly wouldn’t want to go down in history as the guy who stuffed up the canal’s coral reef and I’m sure Inco wouldn’t want to be in that position either.” Well, if he and the French government can bury the story coming out of New Caledonia, they might just prevent that happening.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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