IN THE STEPS OF COLUMBUS: CORPORATE LAND THEFT
By David Webster
The ACTivist
A lot has been written about the continuing destruction of native
cultures, 500 years after Christopher Columbus launched the European
invasion of the Americas. None of it, though, goes straight to the heart
of the matter as quickly as Survival International's "top ten" list of
companies that are destroying native lands today.
Ten European, Japanese and American companies are threatening
the existence of over a quarter of a million indigenous people by
devastating their land base, Survival says. The destruction spans
two continents, from Alaska to Amazonia.
"You simply can't walk onto someone else's land, destroy their food
supply, dig up their ancestors' graves, infect them with new diseases,
and hope that no one will notice. These companies have got to be
brought to book," said Jonathon Mazower, Americas campaign officer
for the London-based Survival International, which acts as a sort of
an Amnesty International for "tribal peoples" around the world.
"By exposing these ten companies we want to drive it home to the
international community that the destruction that tribal people faced
when the Europeans first arrived in the Americas is not over. The
invasion is still continuing. Tribal peoples are losing the lands they
have lived on for thousands of years."
Half of the ten operate in Canada, including the number one offender,
British multinational mining giant RTZ. RTZ forerunner Rio Tinto and
subsidiary Tinto Holdings Canada Ltd. are blamed for the poisoning
of the Serpent River with uranium tailings from the Rio Algom mine
in Elliot Lake, Ont.
The Elliot Lake mine was opened in 1956 and kept open for years
by a special contract with Ontario Hydro to supply uranium for the
province's nuclear reactors at well over market price. By the late
seventies, the Serpent River Ojibwa band downstream from Elliot
Lake, traditionally dependent on fishing, was unable to drink the
contaminated water or eat fish from the river.
RTZ sold its 51.5 per cent interest in Rio Algom in June, but the
effects of its mismanagement linger.
Holding down number five on the list is Japanese multinational
Daishowa, subject of a mass boycott because of its refusal to stop
logging the lands of the Lubicon Lake Cree of northern Alberta.
Daishowa logging concessions cover almost all of the Lubicon land
claim.
Next up, Survival lists Britain's Royal Air Force, which along with the
German Luftwaffe and the Royal Netherlands Air Force is engaged in
what amounts to a virtual war on the hunting culture of the 10,000
Innu natives of Labrador and Quebec. Low-level military training
flights by pilots from the three NATO countries are making it impossible
for the Innu to live off the land.
"Put bluntly, the military presence is destroying Innu culture,"
Survival declares. "Morale amongst the Innu is extremely low.
Alcoholism and suicide levels are extrememly high as the people lose
contact with the land that informs their whole spiritual life and
culture."
Exxon, the third-largest corporation in the world, is ranked ninth
in Survival's list. Oil drilling along in Alaska, near the Canadian border,
has put the Porcupine caribou herd -- and the Inuit people who
depend on it for food -- at risk. US lawmakers, however, have refused
to rein in the exploration, arguing that "Canadian caribou" take a back
seat to Exxon's financial good health. Exxon has also been criticized for
inadequate training of Dene workers on its rigs in the Mackenzie
River valley, Northwest Territories.
Number ten on the list is Uranerz of Germany, operator of the Key
Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan -- the world's largest and
richest uranium source, according to industry watchers. Key Lake's
leaks of radioactive water on to surrounding lands occupied by
Dene and Cree peoples have become notorious since the mine opened
in the eighties.
The top ten list:
1. RTZ (UK). Also cited for plans to open a copper mine that would
endanger 100,000 Gnaymi people in Panama, and for the construction
of another copper mine in Wisconsin, on lands where the Lac Courte
Oreilles Chippewa hold hunting and fishing rights.
2. Hanson (UK). Thousands of Navajo have been forcibly displaced to
make way for a coal mine operated by hanson subsidiary Peabody
in Arizona.
3. Newmont Gold (UK). Over the protests of the Western Shoshone
National Council (who are particularly concerned about cyanide
heap-leaching), Newmont is mining gold on unceded Western Shoshone
land in Nevada.
4. Maxus (USA). Dallas-based Maxus is building a road and oil pipeline
into the heartland of the Waorani of Ecuador, a move that will bring
pollution and European colonization to the previously-untouched
lands of the 10,000 Waorani -- repeating the mistakes of Columbus
500 years later.
5. Daishowa (Japan).
6. Royal Air Force (UK).
7. Energy Fuels Nuclear (USA). Radiation from EFN's two-year old
uranium mine near the Grand Canyon in Arizona is contaminating
the water supply of the Havusupai people.
8. Shell (Netherlands/UK). Fifteen thousand previously-uncontacted
Kugapakori natives in southeastern Peru (who have little or no
immunity to European diseases) will be introduced to modern
"civilization" by a Shell natural gas exporation project that fails to
take into account any of their needs.
9. Exxon (USA). Also cited for massive coal dust pollution from its
open pit mine on the land of the Wayuu Indians of northern Colombia
and oil exploration activities in Ecuador.
10. Uranerz (Germany).