4 July 2001: Add mine disaster witness statements.
4 July 2001
Source:
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=86&row=1
Alert:
British paper faces suit over Palast investigation
Friday, June 29, 2001
In
retaliation for the investigative story about the finances of the George
W. Bush campaign, Barrick Gold Mining of Canada has sued my paper, the Observer
of London, for libel. The company, which hired the elder Bush after his leaving
the White House, is charging the newspaper with libel for quoting an Amnesty
International report, which alleged that 50 miners might have been buried
alive in Tanzania by a company now owned by Barrick.
The company has also demanded the Observer and its parent, Guardian Newspapers,
force me to remove the article from my US website, a frightening extension
of Britain’s punitive libel laws into the World Wide Web. The company
has also issued legal threats against Tanzanian human rights lawyer Tundu
Lissu, one of the Observer’s independent sources and an investigator
of the mine-site allegations.
The attack by Barrick and its controversial Chairman, Peter Munk, one of
the wealthiest men in Canada, who boasts of his propensity to sue, also aims
to gag my reporting on his company’s purchase of rights to a gold mine
in Nevada - containing $10 billion in gold - for a payment of under $10,000
to the US Treasury.
My Observer story, Best Democracy Money Can Buy, looked
into the activities of several corporations linked to the Bushes. It was
in that article I first disclosed that over 50,000 Florida voters, most of
them Black, were wrongly tagged as ‘felons,’ and targeted for removal
from the voter rolls. My follow-up reports in Salon.com, The Nation, and
the Washington Post as well as on BBC-TV’s Newsnight provided the basis
for the US Civil Rights Commission finding of massive, wrongful voter
disenfranchisement in Florida.
My entire continuing investigation is in jeopardy. It is difficult to imagine
how my paper, owned by the non-profit Scott Trust, myself and human rights
lawyer Lissu can withstand the financial punishment of litigation by the
centi-millionaire Munk and his corporation.
In its latest Annual report, Amnesty says it cannot verify the allegations
of the mine killings because the government continues to resist an independent
investigation. Yet Barrick wants our paper to state what we know to be untrue:
that independent investigation found the charges completely baseless. Yet
our quoting Amnesty is no defense. Americans cannot conceive of the medieval
operation of British libel law. It does not permit the defense of
“repetition” - straightforward reporting on the statements of human
rights groups are banned, a gag nearly as effective as Burmese law.
Independently of Amnesty, attorney Lissu went to the mine site and provided
our paper with witness statements. Tanzanians have offered their services
to help defend against censorship in Britain, a poignant reversal for our
paper which, with imperial pomp, has launched a ‘Press Freedom
Campaign’ to excoriate developing nations over gagging journalists.
‘10 Little Piggies,’ Adnan Khashoggi, and The Greatest Gold
Heist Since Butch Cassidy
Peter Munk’s reputation precedes him. Last year, Mother Jones named
him one of America’s ‘Ten Little Piggies’ for his US gold
mine’s literally ‘poisoning the water’ through what
environmentalists consider polluting extraction practices.
How Barrick got the gold mine is something they would rather we not report.
First, Munk was set up in the gold business by funds from Saudi arms dealer
Adnan Khashoggi. We are being sued for discussing this connection although
the information comes from Peter Munk himself, quoted in his biography.
Second, Barrick struck it rich when the company used (or misused, say many)
an old Gold Rush law to claim rights on a Nevada mine containing $10 billion
in gold by paying the US Treasury less than $10,000. They are suing my paper
for publicizing this extraordinary transaction, which US Interior Secretary
of the Interior Bruce Babbitt called, “the biggest gold heist since
the days of Butch Cassidy,” and “a form of legalized extortion.”
Barrick’s suit claims the Observer libeled them by failing to state
that Barrick had to spend money to buy other rights and equipment to dig
the gold out of the ground. What an odd misreading of our words. We never
said the US government mailed the gold bars to Barrick in Canada. We only
said that Barrick got the gold mine and the public got the shaft.
The company’s CEO has also demanded his lawyers slice a pound of our
journalistic flesh for mentioning that he, “made his name in Canada
in the 1960s as the figure in an infamous insider stock-trading scandal.”
Yet, we read this in the Canadian magazine Macleans: “The failure of
[Clairetone Corporation] cost Munk his business and his reputation. Most
damning were allegations of insider trading that were made after it was
discovered that he and [his partner] had sold shares in 1967 just before
some of Clairetone’s most serious problems became known.”
Lynching by Libel Law
The clear purpose of the suit is, as Barrick says, to force the Observer
to say the investigation “should never have been published” –
an inquiry into those who purchase the favor and influence of the Bush family,
not just Barrick. The article was about the blizzard of money whirling around
a family of Presidents and their associations. Among other paid favors for
Barrick, the former President wrote the dictator Suharto to convince him,
successfully, to grant another gold concession to Barrick.
And more than Barrick came into our investigative cross hairs. There was
Chevron Corporation, and ChoicePoint, the firm at the center of the racially
charged voter purge in Florida. This suit with malicious tone attempts to
besmirch our entire investigation and to undermine ours and others further
investigations into Bush and Barrick.
The Observer’s official history quotes a media critic’s statement
that the papers new editor, “... is expected to continue the paper’s
tradition of crusading reporting as in the Lobbygate investigate
investigation.”
In that ‘Lobbygate’ story, well known in the UK, I went undercover
with my partner Antony Barnett to expose corruption at the heart of the Blair
cabinet.
But the wrath of a Prime Minister is easy to dismiss - and our awards were
a pleasant salve. The withering, costly pounding of an enraged corporate
power with too much money to spend has chilled reporters’ and British
newspapers’ will to take on the tougher investigative matters. Amnesty
is, “silent on the advice of lawyers.” And so, the witness statements
of those who watched the bodies exhumed, and one who dug his way from the
mass grave, will now also remain entombed in legal silence.
How much longer I can hold the line if abandoned by the Guardian’s Scott
Trust - which is cracking under the weight of legal bills - I cannot say.
And the consequences of capitulation to our source and defender, Tundu Lissu
and his Tanzanian human rights organization, we cannot imagine.
Source: http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=15&row=1
Bush family
finances: Best democracy money can buy
The London Observer, Sunday, November 26, 2000
Gregory
Palast
Last week, I mailed my overseas ballot for the US presidency - and you can
wipe that smug little grin off your face. I won't put up with condescending
comments about America's democratic rituals from a nation with an unelected
House of Lords occupied by genetic fossils and, soon, Chris Woodhead.
In fact, you could think of the $3 billion spent in the US campaign in positive,
New Labour terms. Call it 'the efficient privatisation of the democracy'
- though an outright auction for the presidency would be more efficient
still.
If the guy who lost the vote, George W Bush, nevertheless wins the White
House, he'll have surfed in on a crushing wave of nearly half a billion dollars
($447 million), my calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from
corporate America, a good 25 per cent more than Al Gore's take.
George W could not have amassed this pile if his surname were Jones or Smith.
The key to Dubya's money empire is Daddy Bush's post-White House work which,
incidentally, raised the family's net worth by several hundred per cent.
Take two packets of payments to the Republican Party, totalling $148,000,
from an outfit called Barrick Goldstrike. That's quite a patriotic contribution
from a Canadian company. They can afford it. In 1992, in the final hours
of the Bush presidency, Barrick took control of US government-owned property
containing an estimated $10bn in gold. For the whole shooting match, Barrick
paid the US Treasury only $10,000.
Barrick made deft use of an 1872 gold rush law meant to allow pan-and-bucket
prospectors to gain title to their tiny claims. In 1992, Clinton's newly
elected administration was ready to prevent Barrick's stunning grab. But
Barrick is a lucky outfit. Bush's Interior Department expedited procedures
to ram through Barrick's claim stake before Clinton's inauguration.
Ex-Pres George Bush was lucky, too. When the electorate booted him from the
White House, he landed softly - on the Barrick Goldstrike payroll, where
he comfortably nested until last year.
Who is Barrick? Its founder, Peter Munk, made his name in Canada in the 1950s
as the figure in an infamous insider stock-trading scandal. Munk headed a
small speaker manufacturer that went belly-up, just after he sold his stock.
This is not quite the expected pedigree for an international minerals
mogul.
If we look in the shadows behind Munk we can see the more accomplished player
who provided the capital to set up Barrick - Saudi arms dealer Adnan
Khashoggi.
During Bush's presidency, Khashoggi was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra
conspiracy. He had already run into trouble with US lawmen when, in 1986,
he was arrested and charged - but not convicted - of fraud. He was bailed
out of the New York prison by Munk, who provided the $4m bond. Bush performed
an even bigger favour for Khashoggi: as his last act in office, the president
pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators, key members of Bush's own cabinet.
As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi.
In 1996, a geologist prospecting in Indonesia, Mike de Guzman, announced
his discovery of the world's richest gold field. Munk rapidly deployed his
president. Bush, on behalf of Barrick, contacted officials of the former
dictator Suharto who were in control of mining concessions. Thereafter, De
Guzman's company was told it would have to turn over 68 per cent of its claim
to Barrick.
Barrick didn't have long to gloat. Jim-Bob Moffett, the tough, old, Louisiana
swamp dog who heads Freeport-McMoRan Mining, had a private meeting with his
old benefactor Suharto. At the end of the meeting, Jim-Bob and the dictator
stood on the steps of the presidential palace to announce that Freeport-McMoRan
would replace Barrick. (Ironically, Barrick lucked it again. The gold find
was a hoax. After Jim-Bob learnt he'd been suckered, his company invited
geologist De Guzman to talk it over. Sadly, on way to the meeting, De Guzman
fell out of a helicopter.)
While Mr Munk's president did not pay the cost of his rental in Indonesia,
Bush could redeem himself in Africa. In 1996, as genocide in Rwanda fomented
civil war in Zaire, Barrick smelt opportunity. We have learnt that, at that
time, Bush spoke with his old golfing buddy, Mobutu Sese Seko (then dictator
of Zaire) about diamond concessions.
I don't know what ex-CIA director Bush told the panicked dictator, but we
do know that Mobutu granted Barrick exclusive rights to mine diamonds in
north-west Zaire.
Maybe Bush talked about Barrick's mining experience in neighbouring Tanzania
where, according to Amnesty International, Barrick's subsidiary carried out
'extra-judicial killings'. Amnesty reports that 50 independent miners who
refused to move off the Barrick unit's concession were buried alive in the
pits by company bulldozers. Barrick denies the allegations.
Beyond Barrick, Daddy Bush has many other friends who filled up his sonny-boy's
campaign kitty while Bush performed certain lucrative favours for them. In
1998, Bush père created a storm in Argentina when he lobbied his close
political ally President Carlos Menem to grant a gambling licence to Mirage
Casino corporation.
Bush wrote that he had no personal interest in the deal. That's true. But
Bush fils did not do badly. After the casino flap, Mirage dropped $449,000
into the Republican Party war chest.
The ex-president and famed Desert Strormtrooper-in-Chief, also wrote to the
oil minister of Kuwait on behalf of Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush says honestly
that he, 'had no stake in the Chevron operation'.
Following this selfless use of his influence, the oil company put $657,000
into Republican Party coffers. Most of that loot, reports the Center for
Responsive Politics, came in the form of 'soft money' That's the squishy
stuff corporations use to ooze around US law which, you may be surprised
to learn, prohibits any donations to presidential campaigns in the general
election.
Not all of the elder Bush's work is voluntary. His single talk to the board
of Global Crossing, the telecoms start-up, earned him $13m in stock. The
company also kicked in another million for his kid's run.
And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not
have the right to vote for president, they have no objection to ex-cons putting
presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas of US church leaders,
Daddy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $100,000 per talk) sponsored
by organisations run by Rev Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat - and
formerly, the guest of the US federal prison system.
There are so many more tales of the Bush family daisy chain of favours,
friendship and campaign funding. None of it is illegal - which I find troubling.
But I don't want to seem ungrateful. After all, the Bushes helped make America
the best democracy money can buy.
Blackout in Florida
Vice-President Al Gore would have strolled to victory in Florida if the state
hadn't kicked up to 56,000 citizens off the voters' registers five month
ago as former felons.
In fact, only a fraction were ex-cons. Most were simply guilty of being
African-American.
A top-placed election official (not a Democrat) told me that the government
had conducted a quiet review and found - surprise! - that the listing included
far more African-Americans than would statistically have been expected, even
accounting for the grievous gap between the conviction rates of blacks and
whites in the US.
The source of this poisonous blacklist: Database Technologies, a division
of ChoicePoint, and under the direction of Governor Jeb Bush's frothingly
partisan Secretary of State, Katherine Harris. My thanks to investigator
Solomon Hughes for informing me that DBT, a division of ChoicePoint, is under
fire for mis-use of personal data in state computers. ChoicePoint's board
is loaded with Republican sugar daddies, including Ken Langone, finance chief
for Rudy Giuliani's aborted Senate run against Hillary
Clinton.
To see Greg Palast's follow-up of the investigation of the Theft of the
Presidency, printed in The Nation, The Washington Post, The Observer, Salon.com
and broadcast on PBS Television, go to
GregPalast.Com
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 3:56 AM
To: Anonymous
Subject: Barrick: unpublished witness statements
WITNESS STATEMENTS OF DEATHS AT BULYANHULU
First, 'How the Government Conducted the Exhumation Exercise,' by Ayoub Mabula Salum, sworn on August 28, 1996:
Second, by Hamis Mayunga Mrisho, survival of burial.
___________________________
From Personal Testimony on the Bulyanhulu Incident and Allegations That 52 People Were Buried and How the Government Conducted the Exhumation Exercise, by Ayoub Mabula Salum, sworn before Mr. Hamid Nassoro, Advocate and Commissioner for Oaths on August 28, 1996:
"My name is Ayoub Mabula Salum of the Sukuma ethnic group. I am a Moslem and I am 36 years old. I am a peasant farmer from Kakola village, Bugarama Ward, Kahama District of Shinyanga Region. I am also the Village Government Chairman and the Bugarama Ward Councillor. Kakola Village surrounds the Bulyanhulu mines. I have been living in Kakola with my parents since 1966. Kakola is a legally recognized village having been registered as such by the Registrar of Villages in November 1993 and was given registration No. SHY/KHM/K/715. The present boundaries of Kakola village were set under Operation Vijiji in 1977 people who were living in different areas were forcibly moved to Kakola by the government.
"On the Alleged Incident of 52 People Being Buried: The government announced through the media, an operation to remove small-scale miners from the Bulyanhulu mines on 30th July 1996. This announcement was made by Hon. Minister for Minerals and Energy. On July 30, 1996 the (Shinyanga) Regional Commissioner General Kiwelu arrived at Kakola village at around 5 o'clock and issued a 7 day notice for miners who had heavy equipment to remove the equipment and that from the next day July 31, 1996 mining should stop and further that no one should be seen in the mining area digging.
"This act of removing people who had invested heavily in mining and over a long period time under such a short notice led to a sharp increase in armed robbery and violent crimes as people who did not have the means to leave the area resorted to crime. There are so many cases of violent crime that were reported at the Kahama police station immediately after this exercise started. The position taken by the regional administration was not in line with that of the Ministry (of Minerals and Energy) as the Minster for Minerals Hon. Shija in his announcement had given a 30 days notice. That time would have been sufficient for people to get fares and return where they came from.
"The police continued to implement the removals of the miners as directed by the Regional Commissioner. On August 3, 1996 at 8 o'clock in the evening, Radio Tanzania announced through its news program that Mr. Justice Mchome of the High Court of Tanzania at Tabora had issued an order for the government to stop the exercise because the suit between the small scale miners and Kahama Mining Corporation Ltd. was still pending in the court. Following news that the High Court had allowed them to continue their mining operations, on August 4, 1996, the miners returned to the mine pits they had been working.
"On August 5, 1996, around 9 o'clock in the morning, the Regional Police Commander for Shinyanga Region found me at a coffee bar and asked to leave with him in his car. I did so and when we reached their (police) camp he told me had unsuccessfully looked for the Justices of the Peace (Ward and Village Executive Officers), so he wanted me as the Village Government Chairman to accompany him to the mining areas to tell the miners to vacate the mine pits because the police had not yet received notification that there was a suit in court, and that the police do not operate by radio or newspaper edicts but need documentary proof. He showed me a notice signed by (then) Chief Justice Nyalali which stated that the appeal filed by KMCL had been withdrawn.
"I went with him up to Reef #1 and Reef #2 and I asked people to stop their operations until a copy of the High Court ruling is delivered to the regional leaders. Some agreed by others refused. I was surprised to see that even after the copy of the ruling was delivered to the leaders of that operation (to evict the miners), the evictions continued. It is thought that this is what caused people to be buried alive. People believed the court but the government maintained its position.
"On August 7, 1996, the filling in of the mine pits started at around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Two persons came to my home and told me that two of their colleagues had been buried in the pits, but they did not tell me their names or the names of those buried. We made an appointment to meet at the village office around 4 o'clock for them to report the incident officially. When I came near the village office I found it filled with a crowd of angry people so I did not go inside. They started looking for me all over Kakola and, out of fear, I escaped to Kahama where I stayed until August 14, 1996.
"On August 13, 1996 newspapers published reports citing the miners' spokesman, Maalim Mmanga Kadau, that 52 people had been buried in the pits. To dispel doubts, the government brought officials from the headquarters of the Ministry of Home Affairs and it was decided that the pits alleged to contain those buried should excavated and bodies exhumed. That exercise started on August 17, 1996, but shortly afterwards it was stopped without it ever being completed. The exercise was stopped on August 20, 1996. I personally am not sure that there are 52 dead bodies inside the pits that were filled in but in order to remove suspicions, the exercise to exhume the bodies would have dispelled all doubts. Now what does the government mean by objecting to it!
"So, as a representative from that area, I am totally opposed to the government action to stop the exhumation exercise! It does not do justice for those who believe that people have been buried nor for those who deny (the government). To chase people away from an area the government claims was invaded by the miners is one thing, killing them brutally is a completely different thing altogether! So my recommendation is that an independent commission should be formed and not just people from the Ministry of Home Affairs which supervised the operation in the first place. Covering and even detaining those who have been providing information (of the killings) is amounts to a violation of rights.
"The commission most appropriate to establish the truth is a commission consisting of political leaders and independent lawyers. Therefore, all Members of Parliament from Shinyanga region should be in that commission. Exhumation should start anew so that we all see where the truth is instead of the government trying to silence the miners' spokesmen through intimidation and threats of arrest. This is my own personal and voluntary testimony and I believe that if the recommendations are implemented they will settle the present controversy."
______________________________
From the Personal Testimony of Hamis Mayunga Mrisho, undated (but most likely taken before Ayoub's testimony) .
"I am Hamis Mayunga Mrisho and I'm a resident of Kakola village in Kahama District, Shinyanga Region. As a miner at the mine pits of Bulyanhulu area, I and my fellow miners were notified on 30.9.96 (he probably means July 30 as all the following testimony refers to this date) that the government had announced that we were required to leave the mine pits at the expiry of thirty days from the day of the notice. We started preparing plans to do so. However, on that same day the Regional Commissioner for Shinyanga Region General Tumainieli Kiwelu announced at a public meeting at Kakola that we had twelve hours from the evening of July 30, 1996, within which to leave the area.
"So we stopped what we were doing and I personally started preparations to crush the ores in order to leave. On August 3, 1996 I heard Radio Tanzania that the High Court of Tanzania had overturned the government decision to evict the miners from the Bulyanhulu mines and that the miners should continue with their activities without harassment. So on August 4, 1996, I and my people went to the pits in order to continue with the mining work. Notwithstanding threats from the Shinyanga Regional Police Commander I continued working in compliance with the order of the High Court. The police continued to harass us and sometimes they would ask for money from us to let us continue with our work.
"On August 7, 1996, I was supervising work in pit #86C at Reef #1 which I owned with one Nyembe Msobi. I descended into the pit with four other colleagues namely Ntemi Nyanda, Turo Masanja, Abdu Mussa and Juma Shabani and we started breaking the rock containing gold ores. At around 9 o'clock from the watch I had with me, I started noticing a cloud of dust and lots of sand descending into the pit. Things got difficult but with God's help we started digging our way out from one opening in our pit.
"This went on very slowly and by August 8, 1996, two of my colleagues (Ntemi Nyanda and Juma Shabani) were unable to continue digging and they died right there., thus leaving me together with Turo Masanja and Abdu Mussa. At around 10 o'clock on the night of August 9, 1996, I managed to get an opening which had wood poles tied on the sides of the hole and I clambered on the poles and started ascending. At the same time my other colleagues were following behind and sand and dust continued to come in from high above. Unfortunately my two colleagues died after Turo Masanja slipped and tumbled down taking Abdu Mussa with him.
"I continued to climb up until I managed to get out, only to find that a bulldozer had levelled the entire area. With much difficulty and with help from other miners I managed to reach Kakola village. On August 16, 1996 police commissioners came to visit the area and asked us to go and make statements in their camp, which we did, and after we went to show them the pits where people were buried. They asked us to return the following day August 17, 1996 in order to begin the exercise to exhume the bodies which they directed should start at Reef #2. This is what I know from what I saw."