Canadian Mining Company Sues Indigenous Monitoring Agency

Canadian Mining Company Sues Indigenous Monitoring Agency

29 August 2004

AKD/Pacific Media Watch

Noumea - Raphael Mapou, chairman of the Kanak Indigenous People's Rheebu Nuu committee that monitors the Inco-Goro Nickel project, will face a Noumea court tomorrow (30 August 2004), sued by the Canadian mining company for a three-hour blockade of the site where Inco is building its mining and processing facility without any consideration for indigenous people's claims.

The Rheebu Nuu committee is composed of the traditional authorities of the Kanak communities concerned in the Inco project.

For the last two years the committee has been calling on Inco and its local subsidiary Goro-Nickel SA to enter into negotiation that would lead to a better involvement of the indigenous people and entrepreneurs in the project.

The committee is also calling on the promoter and on the French authorities to take another three years for further studies of the environmental, social and cultural impact of the project as new risks have been raised by the local scientists community and to allow the review by independent scientists of the Environmental Impact Assessment. The current review was paid for by the mining company.

Two years ago Raphael Mapou quit his position as member of the New Caledonian Territorial Government to protest against the granting for free to Inco of a huge nickel deposit of Prony adjacent to the Goro mining area.

Since then Mapou has been under attack from Jacques Lafleur, the French Pacific Territory's former political leader who dealt with all agreements with the Canadian mining company.

Mapou, one of the few Kanak entrepreneurs, is now barred access to any business contracts. And the provincial Education Board fired his wife Paulette, a school teacher.

Lafleur, then conservative RPCR president of the Southern Province, authorised the building of the processing plant using pressure-acid leaching and solvent extraction technologies, despite opposition from the heads of his public departments and critical advice from the commissioner that reviewed the mining company's environmental impact assessment.

To the Kanak Indigenous people's claim for recognition of their fundamental rights, the Canadian mining company responded saying that in the territory, as these rights were not being recognised constitutionally as in Canada, any act on their part in recognizing any indigenous people¹s rights would be "unlawful".

The company declined negotiations with the indigenous people on business opportunities and environment and employment issues, with the participation of Inco in a natural heritage fund representing the critical issue.

Inco has been accused of using doublespeak in its communication campaigns.

In New Caledonia local media, the company presents its intention to sign a "Good Neighbours Agreement" with the local communities - all ethnics included - led by the mayors of the concerned towns.

However, when addressing the company shareholders, Inco chief executive Scott Hand says that while dealing with the French Government, his company is working along with the indigenous Kanaks towards signing the "Good Neighbours Agreement".

Since Inco's best supporter, Jacques Lafleur, lost the Southern Province parliamentary elections last May, and following Raphael Mapou's campaign for his people's rights, Inco has understood that the new elected government might call for more serious studies of all impacts - including social and cultural - of the Inco project over the Kanak population.

Thus the promoter has extended and strengthened its communication campaign. This is a campaign in which Pierre Alla, chief executive of Goro-Nickel, spends his forces in denigrating the legitimacy of the Rheebu Nuu committee and Raphael Mapou's legitimacy, using an old French colonial trick that consists of creating false opportunities for pretenders to the indigenous community chieftains.

Today Inco is asking Raphael Mapou to pay XPF 1,000,000 Pacific francs (US$ 10,000) of compensation for the three-hour blockade that prevented workers to enter the Goro-Nickel site.

Tomorrow the Kanak people, along with Raphael Mapou and the Rheebu Nuu committee, will face the tribunal called by the Canadian mining giant Inco.

Sarimin J. Boengkih Agence Kanak de Developpement
Tel Int'l + 687 412 244
Fax Int'l + 687 412 294
E-mail: boengkih@canl.n

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