Barrick Gold blocks booklaunch: Noir Canada

[seemslikeadream]

The book launch for Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d'Afrique out of Montréal, was a cancelled yesterday when the authors and publishers (Édition Écosociété) received letters from a law firm representing Barrick Gold.

The letters alledgedly refer to apparent inaccuracies in the book, more particularly around the representation of Barrick's role at Bulyanhulu, in Tanzania, where more than 50 small scale miners were buried alive in 1996.

Barrick has also sued The Guardian and The Observer over articles that they published about the Bulyanhulu massacre.

Noir Canada is about the role of Canadian companies in Africa, which operate with the "unfailing help of the Canadian government."

The list of corporate abuses is long: advantageous mining contracts in the DRC, partnerships with arms dealers and mercenaries in the Great Lakes region, miners buried alive in Tanzania, an "involuntary genocide" by poisoning in Mali, brutal expropriations in Ghana, using people from the Ivory Coast for pharmaceutical testing, devastating hydroelectric projects in Senegal, the savage privatization of the railway system in West Africa...




http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0619-12.htm

The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney



Did I mention to you that (ex-)Congresswoman McKinney is black? And not just any kind of black. She’s the uppity kind of black. What I mean by uppity is this:

After George Bush Senior left the White House, he became an advisor and lobbyist for a Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. Hey, a guy’s got to work. But there were a couple of questions about Barrick, to say the least. For example, was Barrick’s Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter.

You’ve guessed: Cynthia McKinney.

That was covered in the . . . well, it wasn’t covered at all in the U.S. press.

McKinney contacted me at the BBC. She asked if I’d heard of Barrick. Indeed, I had. Top human rights investigators had evidence that a mine that Barrick bought in 1999 had, in clearing their Tanzanian properties three years earlier, bulldozed mine shafts . . . burying about 50 miners alive.

I certainly knew Barrick: They’d sued the Guardian for daring to run a story I’d written about the allegations of the killings. Barrick never sued an American paper for daring to run the story, because no American paper dared.

The primary source for my story, an internationally famous lawyer named Tundu Lissu, was charged by the Tanzanian police with sedition, and arrested, for calling for an investigation. McKinney has been trying to save his life with an international campaign aimed at Barrick.

That was another of her mistakes.

The New York Times wrote about McKinney that Atlanta’s “prominent Black leaders – including Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP and former Mayor Maynard Jackson – who had supported Ms. McKinney in the past – distanced themselves from her this time.”



http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

War is Golden for the Bush Administration

Which brings us to the judicial appointment. One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. Last week, said factotum was nominated by the current warmer of the Oval Office seat, George W. Bush, to a place on the federal appeals court--a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

[Jeff]

Thanks for posting this. Interesting timing: there's an outrageous puff piece in today's Globe and Mail about Barrick founder and chair Peter Munk. His main fault would seem to be he cares too damn much:

Mr. Munk is intent on paying back the enormous debt he feels he owes to the city and the country that welcomed him with such unexpected generosity six decades ago. Acutely patriotic, he carries an almost fundamentalist appreciation for the opportunity and support afforded to him. He hopes his philanthropy can somehow return the favour.

His aim is to improve the lives of as many as possible through better health care, education and an enriched public discourse. Each target has special meaning to Mr. Munk.


protestbarrick.net

Barrick's dirty secrets

[chiggerbit]

with arms dealers and mercenaries in the Great Lakes region

Which Great Lakes region? Surely not Eric Prince's Holland, Michigan?

[chiggerbit]

http://tinyurl.com/4n626n

".....Throughout the wars and for years before that, multinational corporations sought to exploit the same gold mining areas in Ituri that the militias did. The mines are primarily concentrated around the towns of Mongbwalu, Watsa, Durba, Kilo, and Moto in very remote areas. Today, with some likeness of peace, the fight for control of the concessions will begin anew. The Deputy Minister of Mines, Victor Kasongo, has begun a review of the mining contracts for the newly elected Congolese Government and he said 50% of the contracts may be voided.2 All official negotiations for mining rights have ended until all the contracts have been reviewed. This could prove to be troublesome for both the Congolese Government and the mining companies.

The mining concession that includes the Watsa/Durba area (OKIMO Concession #38) was obtained by the Canadian gold-mining firm Barrick Gold from the Office of Kilo-Moto (OKIMO) on 3rd August, 1996 before the fall of President Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko. OKIMO, the state-owned gold mining company, became a joint partner in Barrick’s project. Barrick initially became interested in the concession after the U.S.-based consulting firm Davy McKee Corporation completed a feasibility study of the area in 1991. Between October and December of 1996, while the war was raging in the area southwest of the concession, Barrick completed several of their own exploratory drills, but the results were less promising than the reports OKIMO gave the company. In 1996, Barrick also made a side deal with General Kpama Baramoto, head of President Mobutu’s Guarde Civile. General Baramoto allowed Barrick to mine gold around his base in Bunia in exchange for funds to rebuild Bunia’s airport.3

Barrick restructured their mining contract after the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL-CZ) headed by Laurent Kabila took power in 1997, but they retained the mining rights to Concession #38. They reportedly began these negotiations before L. Kabila reached the capital city of Kinshasa.4 Barrick was allowed to keep the contract President Mobutu Sese Seko signed after Laurent Kabila took power because L. Kabila’s Finance Minister Mawampanga Mwana Nanga (who later became Minister of Agriculture) insisted he honor “good faith” contracts between President Mobutu and certain foreign mining firms. This was an unusual move because Minister Nanga was known to be a staunch critic of foreign mining firms. He had already canceled the mining contracts of Belgium’s Union Minère (now Umicore) and DeBeers/Anglo-American despite strong protests from Nelson Mandela. However, Minister Nanga apparently had a soft spot for American-connected firms, perhaps because he graduated from Pennsylvania State University and taught at Kentucky University.5

Minister Nanga urged AFDL-CZ’s Mining Minister Kambale Kabila Mututulo to sign off a one billion dollar (U.S.) deal to Jean-Raymond Boulle’s Hope, Arkansas-based (at the time) American Mineral Fields Incorporated (AMF) (now Adastra), one of Barrick’s business partners. The deal was for two huge mining concessions in Kipushi and Kolwezi, located in the Katanga Province (then Shaba Province). Mr. Boulle desperately needed access to the minerals because he was bidding to acquire the contract to build a new space station to replace Mir, a $60 billion dollar (U.S.) endeavor. His acquisition of the Mir contract is remarkable when considering AMF was only incorporated in 1995.6

A major competitor of Anglo-American with several former Anglo-American/DeBeers directors on its executive team, AMF already had the deal lined up in April 1997 after Mr. Boulle (a Briton born in Mauritius) visited L. Kabila in Goma after the AFDL-CZ/RPA captured Lubumbashi (Katanga Province) and put Katangan Governor Kyungu ku Mwanza under house arrest.7 Mr. Boulle reportedly fronted $50 million dollars (U.S.) to L. Kabila for the deal and he likely used some of it to buy arms and equipment.8 However, AMF did eventually partner with Anglo-American.

American Diamond Buyers, another company owned by Mr. Boulle and Joseph Martin (and a competitor of DeBeers), reportedly paid L. Kabila $25,000 (U.S.) to buy a diamond mining license from the AFDL-CZ.9 When the company opened for business in Kisangani before the 1st Congo War was even over (but after the ADFL-CZ controlled the town), Zairians literally broke the door down to sell their diamonds. Several people could even be seen around town wearing tee-shirts given out for free by the company.10

Mr. Boulle (a former Anglo-American executive who also acted as an advisor to Guinea’s Mining Minister) also allowed L. Kabila and Minister Nanga to use his personal corporate Lear jet for transportation around the country. In return, besides the mining contracts, L. Kabila allowed Mr. Boulle to set up a trading post in Mbuji-Mayi immediately after the AFDL-CZ captured the city during the same month Lubumbashi fell. He also greatly reduced the price of AMF’s annual mining license fees.11 Mr. Boulle and two other connections to AMF at the time, Chairman Michael McMurrough and business associate Jackson Stephens, were reported to be friends of Bill Clinton since his days as Arkansas’ governor.12...."




(Consider the source re the following, and with regards to the aove link)
http://tinyurl.com/5m9jpg

[seemslikeadream]

with arms dealers and mercenaries in the Great Lakes region

Which Great Lakes region? Surely not Eric Prince's Holland, Michigan?

I don't know about Blackwater but probably Executive Outcomes


http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 102x528992


A look back - they were 64 "heavily built men"
Posted by seemslikeadream on Tue May-04-04 10:52 AM

Where was flight N4610 heading?

March 10 2004 at 08:11AM



They were 64 "heavily built men", mostly white. No, they were all black. No, only 40 of them were black.

The plane left South Africa illegally from Wonderboom airport, strayed into Zimbabwe airspace and was ordered down. No, the plane left the country legally, having filed a flight plan to Harare and then on to Burundi. No, the plane was headed for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The men on board were suspected of being mercenaries hired to overthrow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. No, they were on their way to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. No, they were going to the eastern DRC to carry out security duties.

These are just some of the stories surrounding the flight of N4610, a Boeing 727-100 cargo plane that has been impounded in Harare.

And 64 - though some reports say there are 67 - of those who were aboard, whether they were white, black or a mixture, and whether they were mercenaries or honest men, are in Harare cells facing intense interrogation.

On Tuesday, a company named in connection with the flight disputed all the speculation, saying the "mercenaries" were in fact security people "going to eastern DRC".

They were stopping in Zimbabwe to pick up mining equipment, "Zimbabwe being a vastly cheaper place for such".

Charles Burrow, a senior executive of Logo Logistics which had chartered the Boeing 727 freighter, said via telephone from London that most of the people on board were South African and had military experience, but were on contract to four mining companies in the DRC. He declined to name the companies.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id ... 081125342C ...

Plane Did Stop At Grantley Adams - Thursday 11, March-2004

A UNITED STATES registered plane at the centre of controversy after being detained on Monday with 64 suspected mercenaries aboard by the Zimbabwean government did stop at Grantley Adams International Airport last Saturday morning.
Informed sources told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the aircraft, a Boeing 727 (100 series), with registration number N4610, landed in Barbados shortly after midnight for refuelling before leaving around 6:30 a.m.

Sources also indicated that the aircraft, which Zimbabwean officials alleged also carried military equipment, had arrived from the Hope Air Force Base in North Carolina, United States, before its stop-over in Barbados.

Further reports stated that the plane, originally a commercial PanAm Airways aircraft up until a week ago, was being operated by the American Air Force, but international Press reports stated it had been sold to a South African company.

http://www.nationnews.com/StoryView.cfm ... =Local&Cur ...


Corporate Mercenaries - Executive Outcomes Leads to Bush


Executive Outcomes is the most infamous mercenary company in operation today. Unlike traditional mercenary companies, it operates as the heavy partner in a web of related companies. Sandline international is such a sister company: 170 elite South African dogs of war were hired to crush the Bougainville freedom Fighters for $22m. Just another job for the likes of Sandline international? Paul Vernon investigates...

Set up in 1993 by Tony Buckingham and Simon Mannl <1>, Executive outcomes (EO) has worked in Asia, Africa and South America. Most of it's personnel are hired from South Africa.

Buckingham is the chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which is now registered in the (tax-free) Bahamas. When EO was hired by the Sierra Leone government to crush people's revolt, Heritage received much of the payment in the form of mining rights. Sir David Steel MP happens to be a director of Heritage as well as a close friend of Buckingham. Recently Sierra Leone was thrown back into chaos with another military coup.

Eeben Barlow, the present CEO of Executive Outcomes, is a veteran of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, which allegedly assassinated antiapartheid activists. Barlow is the frontman for the group he told Newsweek (2) in February: "I'm a professional soldier. It's not about politics. I have a job to do. I do it." EO is thought to have a annual turnover of more that £20 million.

The South African government, with help from officials from the United Nations, has begun to draft proposals of legislation aimed to counter what officials called "the increasing frequency with which our soldiers-of-fortune are operating overseas".(7)

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazi ... cw4f8.html

Executive Outcomes ties lead to London and Bush
Executive Intelligence Review January 31, 1997, pp. 42-43
by Roger Moore and Linda de Hoyos

Exposes appearing on both sides of the Atlantic on the mercenary group Executive Outcomes, threaten to blow the lid off the British intelligence nexus already identified as responsible for the February 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and for the current cataclysmic destabilization of Africa on behalf of circles associated with the Queen of England's Privy Council and Sir George Bush.
The exposes appeared in the French daily {Le Figaro} on Jan. 16, the {London Observer} on Jan. 17, and the February issue of the American magazine {Harper's.}
Executive Outcomes is the mercenary arm of a vast
network of British-South African corporations dealing in gold, diamonds, and oil, primarily, but not exclusively, in Africa, that come under the umbrella of Strategic Resources Corporation, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa. Described universally as an ``advance guard of a corporate network that includes mining, oil, and construction companies,'' Executive Outcomes is active in 13 African countries, including Uganda. For its services, it demands a lien or franchise on the exportable raw resources, particularly mineral wealth, of the client country--in the same fashion as the British East India Company of the 18th and 19th centuries, which in turn functioned as the ``advance guard'' of the British monarchy.
Executive Outcomes was incorporated offshore, on the Isle of Man, in 1993, by Anthony Buckingham, a British businessman, and Simon Mann, a former British officer, the {Observer} reported, based on a leak to it from British intelligence. Buckingham is also chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which in turn is linked to the Canadian firm Ranger Oil. Other firms operating out of the same headquarters in Chelsea Plaza 107, London, include Branch International Ltd. and Branch Mining Ltd.
Preliminary investigation by {EIR} has further determined that Executive Outcomes lies at the heart of the British monarch's raw materials cartels and secret intelligence operations, in conjunction with Bush's rogue apparat:
Through Sir David Steel, a former leader of the Liberal Party, Executive Outcomes and, presumably, its deployment, is a subsumed operation of the Queen's Privy Council. Steel is a close friend of EO's Buckingham, and is on the board of directors of EO's sister firm, Heritage Oil and Gas, according to {Le Figaro.} In 1977, Steel was inducted into the Privy Council, making him the youngest member of Britain's highest-level policy-making body.
The links between Executive Outcomes and Ranger Oil point to operational ties with the Bronfman family of Canada, whose scion, Edgar Bronfman of Toronto Broncorp, sits on the board of directors of Ranger. Recently, the Bronfman family merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold, whose senior advisory board includes Sir George Bush. Barrick Gold is deeply involved in northeastern Zaire, where it has purchased 83,000 square kilometers of land. Zairean sources report that the so-called Zairean rebel Laurent Kabila is no more than a mercenary for Barrick and Anglo American Corp., sponsored by the British Crown-backed Ugandan and Rwandan militaries. Executive Outcomes, {Le Figaro} and other sources further verify, is deeply entrenched in Uganda, the key British marcher-lord state in the region.

http://www.aboutsudan.com/action/geopol ... tcomes.htm

Mercenaries aimed to topple oil-rich despot

The inside story of the ties that bind President Obiang and powerful American interests

By Paul Lashmar
14 March 2004

The tale of the 67 men of assorted nationalities now in a Zimbabwe jail accused of being mercenaries continued to unfurl yesterday like the plot of a lurid airport novel.

A bit too much like fiction, in fact, involving as it does a cast that includes the despotic leader of a little-known West African state, the Eton-educated son of an English cricket captain, fake passports, and a shadowy company registered in the Channel Islands that is linked to SAS old boys. All this, plus talk of CIA, MI6 and Spanish secret service activity, and a plane now impounded at Harare airport that contained equipment more suited to burglary than seizures of power.

SNIP...

But if who paid whom for what services has not yet been revealed, the intended target is not in doubt: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, leader of a country whose lack of renown belies its strategic significance. And for "strategic" read oil. Not for nothing is this land known in US government circles as the "Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea". Not without reason has President Bush welcomed President Obiang, a confirmed if not convicted corrupt despot, to the White House. He may be a despot, but as presider over an oil-rich state, he is their despot.

The sight and smell of oil is everywhere palpable in the port of Malabo. From here you can see the flames shooting into the night sky from the offshore oilrigs. Every day tens of thousands of barrels are extracted from huge crude oil reserves underneath the seabed off Equatorial Guinea.It is one of the oil-rich sub-Saharan countries that now supplies 15 per cent of American oil. Experts predict that the amount of oil the US receives from the prolific fields of Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola will double in the next five years. Hence the succour that American companies - and, since 9/11, the American government - have given to Obiang. Vice President Dick Cheney has said: "Along with Latin America, West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and gas for the American market."

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/s ... &host=3&di ...


America's secret armies
A swarm of private contractors bedevils the U.S. military

BY LINDA ROBINSON
Those who recall the awful sight of the corpse of Sgt. 1st Class Randy Shughart being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993 also recall the American reaction–the prompt withdrawal of troops. Yet when four retired Special Forces operators were taken hostage and one of them tortured three years later in Liberia, no one knew. Brian Boquist, a former Special Forces officer and founder of International Charter Inc. of Oregon, told U.S. News how he and his small aviation company wound up on the firing line. ICI was hired by the State Department in December 1995 to provide air and logistics support to the regional peacekeeping group of West African states known as ECOMOG. As Liberia spiraled into bloody chaos, about two dozen ICI staffers snatched weapons off dead locals and defended the U.S. Embassy until U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces arrived on April 9, 1996. ICI stayed on to airlift about 40 tons of food for some 40,000 refugees and won the State Department's Contractor of the Year award for their actions.

There's much to investigate. For starters, the Pentagon does not even know how many contractors it uses. Last spring, Army Secretary Thomas E. White revived an effort to count all contractors under his purview. A preliminary report to Congress in April guessed that the Army contracted out the equivalent of between 124,000 and 605,000 person-work-years in 2001. Nor is there a reliable count of the contractors who provide "emergency essential" services on the battlefront and elsewhere, despite the urging of the Department of Defense (DOD) inspector general a decade ago. In an internal E-mail last fall, one colonel urged that the Army logistics chief review all field systems to see what contractor support they entail. It reads: "At the very least, he could count these little beggars in some fashion before they show up on the battlefield and surprise some poor commander with horrific support, real estate and security requirements."

http://www.sandline.com/hotlinks/4contractors.htm

Eeben Barlow, or
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=16671
Simon Mann, or
http://www.lam-online.com/news/africa/s ... ory=500325
Nick du Toit (whose name always put me in mind of female circumcision.)
http://www.africaonline.co.zw/mirror/st ... tional2898 ...

In comparison to these three and their associates, Hannibal appears to be merely a galloping gourmet.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@k ... 12192.html

The mercenaries from Zimbabwe. Were they going to grab Taylor, execute a coup or guard a gold mine for Barrick? So many projects so little time!



Mercenaries were after Taylor: report
Alleged mercenaries facing charges of trying to topple the president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea were actually on a mission to abduct former Liberian president Charles Taylor from Nigeria, a newspaper has reported.

This Day, quoting sources close to some of the South African nationals among the 70 presumed soldiers of fortune detained in Zimbabwe, said their objective was not to topple Equatorial Guinea's long-serving President Teodoro Obiang Nguema but to deliver Taylor to a special war crimes court in Sierra Leone.

Fifteen other presumed soldiers of fortune have been detained in Equatorial Guinea on charges of trying to oust Mr Nguema. One of the men has since died of cerebral malaria.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/ ... 16746.html

is this Nic?



and another mercenarie Hendrik Hamman

ONE of the pilots of a plane seized in Zimbabwe on Sunday with suspected mercenaries aboard is said to be a Namibian who farms near the Windhoek International Airport.


Hendrik Hamman has been identified so far as the only Namibian among the pilots, though pilots in Windhoek yesterday said they knew no person of that name among their ranks.

The Zimbabwean government said 18 Namibians were among the 64 suspected mercenaries believed to have been on their way to Equatorial Guinea to overthrow the government there.

http://www.namibian.com.na/2004/march/n ... 44CE1.html

[chiggerbit]

Probably not the same Great Lakes, but re Erik Prince, native of Holland, Michigan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince

With regards to Erik Prince, see also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_E._Schmitz

[chiggerbit]

http://tinyurl.com/5hrb7t

"....Several multinational mining companies have rarely if ever been mentioned in any human rights report. One is Barrick Gold, which operates in the town of Watsa, northwest of the town of Bunia, located in the most violent corner of the Congo. The Ugandan People?s Defense Force (UPDF) controlled the mines intermittently during the war. Officials in Bunia claim that Barrick executives flew into the region with UPDF and RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) escorts to survey and inspect their mining interests.

George H.W. Bush served as a paid advisor for Barrick Gold. Barrick directors include: Brian Mulroney, former PM of Canada; Edward Neys, former U.S. ambassador to Canada and chair of the private PR firm Burston-Marsteller [Mark Penn is CEO of Burston-Marsteller and was, until this month, chief strategist for Hillary Clinton--chigger]; former U.S. Senator Howard Baker; J. Trevor Eyton, a member of the Canadian Senate; and Vernon Jordan, one of Bill Clinton?s lawyers...."