Aimes Press Release - Resist pressure from mining industry and their home governments

Aimes Press Release - Resist pressure from mining industry and their home governments

February 2005

Members of the African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) are calling on African governments to resist pressure from the mining industry and their home governments. This is contained in a policy brief issued by AIMES to African Ministers of Mines who are meeting from February 7-10th, 2005 in the luxurious Cape Town International Conference Centre, Cape Town, South Africa.

AIMES is a grouping of individuals and organisations involved in and or concerned with issues of the economic, environmental, social, community livelihood, and human rights implications and impacts of foreign direct investment in the extractive sector (including mining, petroleum, forestry and fisheries) in Africa.

"African governments should respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of their citizens, recognise civil society as partners and therefore cease any further state repression against local communities; resist any pressure to commit the extractive sector in the General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS), and also policy prescription by the World Bank Group and the IMF; and also resist pressure from industry and their home governments to lower standards in the form of incentives for FDI".

As February 8th draws near, African Mining Ministers are preparing for a great feast under the sponsorship of the Mining Industry and their financiers. This great feast dubbed Mining Indaba is scheduled to take place February 8-10th, 2005 in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa.

The four days of pleasure will be marked by gala nights, golf course tours, table mountain tours and all the pleasures suitable for people who continue to exploit Africa's minerals resources at the least cost. What is going to happen shows how the mineral wealth can be used to influence decision-makers in return for more liberal terms for deeper exploitation of extractive resources with impunity? As they wine and dine one would be wondering what is happening to the people who are affected by mineral production, many of whom have become beggars from displacement and petite handouts given to them by mining companies under the supervision of these same Ministers.

The annual mining indaba is not only one of the strategies for exclusion but also part of industry tactics to gain more grounds in Africa's minerals sector. At the end of it all, liberal mining laws will be adopted, horrendous stability clauses will be adopted to the disadvantage of the larger population and worst of all environmental degradation and disrespect for community rights will continue.

'Many African governments have declared their intention to use mineral revenue for diversifying their economies from dependence on mining and for national development generally. There are however few examples of successful diversification on the continent. This is because the supportive structures and mechanisms in terms of quality policies and institutional capacity are lacking.
The situation is compounded by intense aggressive lobby by industry backed by their home governments. Transnational business lobby has been quite desperate to evade regulation because they claim regulation will not allow them to operate as they have been used to. At the same time they engage governments on bilateral investment agreements some of which they lobby to be codified as law. This double twist alone would suggest that regulation is indeed necessary in order to prevent further environmental and human costs.

Therefore, the extractive sector reforms and activity continue to have inherent bias towards the reinforcement of corporate power and interest rather than acting as catalyst for self-sustaining, self-reliant national economic recovery and development in a sustained environment and human rights framework. The result has been a consolidation of a peripheral status on mineral endowed African countries, entrenched poverty, and marginalisation of large populations living on the fringes of these resources.'

The AIMES policy briefs seeks to remind the Ministers that as they dine and wine with industry the must remember the social contract with their respective citizens and to resist any pressure that would put the state and its citizens as losers.

For further information: Third World Network-Africa
Fax : 233-21-511188
E-mail : twnafrica@ghana.com or environment@twnafrica.org.

List of Organisations

1. Third World Network-Africa
2. Environmental Rights Action/Oilwatch Africa, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
3. Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD), Freetown, Sierra Leone
4. CECIDE, Conakry, Guinea
5. Livaningo, Maputo, Mozambique
6. Institute of Human Rights & Humanitarian Law (IHRHL)
7. Citizens for a Better Environment, Kitwe, Zambia
8. Environmental Justice Networking Forum, (EJNF), Johannesburg, South Africa
10. Civic Response, Accra, Ghana