Mana | Movement of the People

Ae Marika! 28 May 2013

The Tai Tokerau iwi Chairs have established a technical working group to look into the pros & cons of mining. I raise a couple of concerns here.

Mining companies’ treatment of indigenous people around the world is incredibly poor, and the actions of British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto bring that mistreatment right into our own backyard pool here in the Pacific.

Rio Tinto wants to re-open its Bougainville copper and gold mine after the mine was closed down by indigenous landowners in 1988 following their long-standing objections to the mine’s environmental and social effects. Rio Tinto is now facing charges that they supplied government security forces with trucks, fuel, accommodation, storage facilities, communications equipment and support services in a long-running and bloody civil war that has taken nearly 20,000 lives on an island of 175,000 people.

Iwi leaders brave enough to look at the dark side of the actions of mining companies might want to read “Bougainville: Rio Tinto faces war crimes allegations in bid to reopen mine: by Kristian Lasslett” on the net. There are plenty of other articles worth reading, but this is a good starting point.

And while it might be a little difficult to grasp the reality of such a high body count, you won’t have to look too far to see just how seriously governments take their deals with mining companies. In fact you only have to take a look down to the East Cape where the New Zealand government called out the full forces of the state including the police, the army, the navy and the air force against New Zealand citizens, to protect a deal done behind closed doors between the government and Petrobras, an overseas mining company.

Government doesn’t need the sanction of iwi to approve deep sea mining, and they were quite scathing in their dismissal of full and proper consultation with iwi over the Petrobras affair. Anyone who thinks they’re going to be any more accommodating to us in the north is kidding themselves.

And neither does government give a damn about kaitiakitanga, or conservation values, or the environment either. The Petrobras deal in the Raukumara Basin included drilling in depths greater than those anywhere else in the world, on an earthquake fault line, and without any guarantees from Petrobras that they would accept full responsibility for any damage caused.

And one other point … I wonder whether the Iwi Chairs are bold enough to include Mike Smith on their Technical Working Group? Mike works for Greenpeace, but he probably has a greater global perspective of the impact of mining companies around the world than anybody else in Tai Tokerau, and an excellent working knowledge of the impact of mining companies in Aotearoa as well.

Mind you, having that much knowledge about global mining is likely to disqualify you from any role in a working group if the goal is to set up a deal with mining companies. Appointing Mike would be a good start in showing how seriously the Iwi Chairs are about being open in their actions.

AE MARIKA is an article written every week by Hone Harawira, leader of the MANA Movement and Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau. You are welcome to use any of the comments and to ascribe them to Mr Harawira. The full range of Hone’s articles can be found on the MANA website at www.mana.net.nz.