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NORDIS WEEKLY
June 12, 2005

 

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Lepanto investor holds notorious record — STARM

BAGUIO CITY (June 9) — Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMCo) investor Ivanhoe Corporation in Canada was reported to be a “notorious environment polluter and human rights violator by the Save the Abra River Movement, a broad alliance of organizations and individuals to save the said river.

STARM Spokesperson Dr. Ana Marie Leung warns that company workers and communities living along the Abra River must be made aware of this.

Leung cites that last January 2005, most of the major dailies reported in their Business Pages that: Pacific Mining sold all their Lepanto B1 shares amounting to a 12.5% (some say 12.3% or 12.7%) share in Lepanto.2 The shares were worth $21,400. 3 It was speculated that the shares had been bought by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. At the same time, Ivanhoe Mines had extended a $3 million loan to Lepanto, to be paid within six months at 3 percent annual interest, in exchange for priority negotiation rights to the projects of Lepanto.

Leung explains that Robert Friedland of Ivanhoe is not new to the Philippines.

In 1981, Friedland entered into a joint venture with Lepanto through Far SouthEast Gold Resources.4 STARM reports that it was at this time that Lepanto ventured into its Far SouthEast Porphyry Project. This was also the period when there were strong protests from surrounding communities who complained of air pollution and negative health effects from Lepanto’s operation of a copper ore dryer. Friedland later sold his 30%5 share of the project to CRA (Rio Tinto Zinc’s Australian associate) in 1990 as he started getting into trouble with his other ventures.

“Toxic Bob, Midas Man”

Robert Friedland has earned the nickname Toxic Bob during his Friedland’s early ventures at a gold mine in Summitville, Colorado6 where they used a heap-leach system (the cheapest and fastest way to extract gold from ore) over 50 acres of land.7 Within days, the cyanide solution began leaking out from the liner. Cyanide and acid mine drainage flowed into the Alamosa River, killing aquatic life for 17 miles. Summitville has been coined “the Exxon Valdez of the American mining industry”8 Friedland escaped all liabilities by moving all his assets to Canada.

Because of this, Friedland has also been called “The Man with the Golden Arm” or “The Midas Man”. In 1990, Friedland made money by brokering a deal with the Guyana government, the World Bank, the Canadian Export Development Corporation and a Quebecois company Cambior over the biggest gold deposit of Venezuela (in Omai, Guyana). In 1994, he sold all his shares and by mid-1995, the tailings dam at the Omai mine collapsed completely, poisoning the Essequibo River (Venezuela’s main river and source of freshwater).

A year later, Friedland, through the Diamond Fields Resources, discovered a huge base metals deposit in Labrador, Canada. He gained $5 million from a subsequent takeover by a Canadian company (the world’s largest nickel miner) called Inco. Inco was later left to deal with protests from the Inuit and Innu over the encroachment on their ancestral lands.

Friedland has also been called the “Mercenary Miner”.

In 1996, the private army called Executive Outcomes helped to recapture the Koidu diamond fields in Sierra Leone (South Africa) which had been overrun by anti-government forces in 1994. With the help of another company called Branch Energy, they relinquished control of the diamond fields back to DiamondWorks, another Friedland-created company.

STARM reports that Ivanhoe’d dealings with the Burmese government to develop a copper mine and split the profits is most objectionable. Many groups, including the Canadian Labour Congress, BC Federation of Labour and Amnesty International, have been denouncing this partnership with Burma’s military government.

The SLORC has been cited internationally for gross human rights violations, its refusal to recognize the results of Burma’s 1990 democratic elections and the persecution of ethnic and pro-democracy groups. The protesters cited that “Seven villages were forcibly relocated and 1000 hectares of land was confiscated for (Ivanhoe’s) Letpataung expansion.”

The Pakkoku-Monywa railway which services the mine was built with the forced labor of over 921,000 villagers. The Thazi dam which provides power to the mine was constructed with the forced labour of another 3-5,000 people. Worse, relocated communities draw their water supply from sources contaminated by chemicals and tailings from the mine site.9

Under Indochina Goldfields, Friedland has also penetrated the Emperor Gold Mines of Fiji. Emperor Gold Mines is said to have “the longest record of willful exploitation of indigenous labor of any mine in the South Pacific”.10 Friedland also has close ties with one of Indonesia’s richest exploiters, Johannes Kotjo.

Based on STARM’s research, Friedland’s interest in the Philippine mining industry is not something to be happy about.

“Lepanto’s expansion continues inspite of protests from the communities living along the Abra River and inspite of the workers’ strike against Lepanto’s refusal to raise wages. . Ivanhoe Mines will certainly play a big role in financing Lepanto’s continuing expansion”, Leung said.

With the entry of Ivanhoe and similar investors, Leung said that greater environmental destruction and exploitation of mineworkers can be expected. # via NORDIS

(Endnotes)
1 Lepanto A shares are limited to local investors while Lepanto B shares may be bought by foreign investors.
2 Philippine Star, 4 January 2005, Business page
3 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3MKT/is_0-3_113/ai_n8681353
4 Roger Moody in “The Man With The Golden Arm”, Nortomo Research/ MineWatch Asia Pacific
5 Roger Moody in “The Mercenary Miner (Robert Friedland Goes to Asia)”, Multinational Monitor, vol. 18, no. 6, June 1997
6 Roger Moody in “The Ugly Canadian (Robert Friedland and the Poisoning of the Americas)”
7 “In heap-leach mining, ore is crushed and stacked on huge liners. Cyanide is then dumped on the heap and the liners are supposed to collect the cyanide, gold and other metals which leach out.”
8 Exxon Valdez is an oil tanker that burst and released its ________________
9 “Demonstration at AGM (Annual General Meeting) of Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe against support for Burma’s misery”, press release, 16 June 2001.
10 Roger Moody in “The Mercenary Miner (Robert Friedland Goes to Asia)”, Multinational Monitor, vol. 18, no. 6, June 1997.


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