Media Watch
Published by MAC on 2004-08-04Media Watch
The Saga Continues
Since the publication of the last edition of The Network in April, there has been no ease up in the raging debate over activities of the South African mining outfit, Koidu Holdings SA Limited. This debate continues to occupy pages of the nation’s leading tabloids. The Network monitors this development with keen interest. Reproduced in the following pages are random samplings of such articles.
Concord Times
August 4, 2004
Over Koidu Holdings ……
Kabbah to Sue NGO for Subversion
President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has threatened to sue a local NGO for subversion. The president made this threat in Kono recently when he was in the district to inaugurate councilors of the District and Town Councils.
In the president’s address at the Faachima Hall in Koidu, he reiterated that Koidu Holdings SA Limited (KHL) were very good business partners of the government and people of Sierra Leone, but that a local NGO, which he did not name, has been painting a very bad image about the company abroad.
“They have their selfish interests that is why they want to paint a bad picture about Koidu Holdings so that the latter would be discouraged and leave. In the end, the same people want their own business partners to take over after KHL would have left. They will be sued for subversion,” the president bellowed.
The issue of KHL has been a flash point in Kono recently and many people are of the belief that the president was referring to the Network Movement for Justice and Development, which has been championing humanitarian campaigns against the kimberlite mining company.
Concord Times
6th August 2004
KABBAH CANNOT SUE NMJD
…says Abu Brima
National Coordinator of the Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD), Abu Brima, has charged that President Kabbah cannot sue his local NGO for subversion because he is not the owner of the mining outfit, Koidu Holdings SA Limited (KHL).
Brima was reacting Thursday to claims made by the president recently in Kono that he intends dragging to court a local NGO for painting a bad image about KHL abroad.
“We are not violating any law nor subverting anything”. Brima said.
The NMJD Coordinator noted that his organization is working within the framework of the law and they are a legal NGO. According to him, NMJD, through the Campaign for Just Mining, will continue to raise public awareness about the dangers of Kimberlitic mining and urged government to take the necessary action.
“How can a cooperate company come here and start dictating the pace of things and control people?” Brima asked.
“KHL has built and handed over only ten houses for affected people of the community who number over two thousand, what about the others? They have been left in misery.” He said it has taken Koidu Holdings a long time for them to construct these ten houses and noted that they are not even up to standard.
For di PEOPLE
Friday July 2 2004
BEREWA COERCE KONO TO BACK THE MERCENARIES!
Vice President Solomon Ekuma Berewa is reported to have coerced a group of local authorities from Kono, among them, local chiefs and affected property owners to sign a prepared joint statement by government and KHL, legalizing the operations of the company in Kono, despite the fact that the World Bank, its principal financier, have recently discredited KHL by withholding its insurance guarantee.
The signing, which took place at the Vice President’s Spur Road residence on Tuesday, had representatives from the host mining chiefdom of Tankoro, Kono Council of Chiefs, chairman of the Affected Property Owners, KHL Manager, Jaan Joubert, Mines Minister Alhaji Mohamed Swaray Deen and other government ministers.
According to a representative of the Affected Property Owners, Mines Minister Deen could not allow them to comment on some of the anomalies contained in the prepared document, which he said, was not in fact made adequately available to them, but to just a selected few.
Amendments made in the contents of the statements served earlier on did not go down well with the requisitions of the affected property owners.
“Having gone through the content of the document, it was the same as what was on the ground in Kono with regards the Kimberlitic mining in Kono”.
“The manager of Koidu Holdings SA Ltd, Jaan Joubert, argued against most points in the document that if the Vice President allowed such a document to be signed and published locally and internationally, the content and wording of the document will not give credibility to the Koidu Holdings mining project”.
“Joubert was strongly supported by VP Berewa, Mines Minister Swarray Deen, parliamentary and political affairs minister, Eya E Mbayo,” he said.
He said although efforts were made by both the chairman of the Affected Property Owners, Kai David Mboma, and Secretary, Tamba G. Mboma, to draw the attention of the Vice President and ministers present about the non-adherence of the Environmental Impact Assessment Report by KHL, it was condemned by KHL manager, Joubert, and he was supported by the Vice president.
“In the light of the above, we the representatives of the affected property owners deem it expedient that we have not been treated fairly at all”.
“We had no opportunity to study the document properly and we were forced to sign the document against our own free-will,” he stated.
It could be recalled that the affected property owners on whose land KHL is carrying out its Kimberlite blasting, have on several occasions protested against the blatant disregard in observing the Environmental Impact Assessment recommendations by KHL, vis-à-vis the non relocation of residents seriously affected by the company’s uncountable blasting.
The above issue was ingloriously criticized by a section of the independent press, human rights and environmental groups resulting to the World Bank’s recent decision to withdraw its insurance scheme from KHL. This action (of coercing key stakeholders to sign a prepared document to which they made no input) could be viewed as a last desperate attempt by government to legitimize KHL.
PEEP MAGAINE
Friday July 2 2004
The President Blunders Once Again
What is his interest in the mercenary ‘slash-and-burn’ mining company? First it was Vice President Berewa, now the Pa himself; government officials are leaping to the defence of Koidu Holdings, the Kimberlite mining company and damning the coalition of civil right groups, NGOs and community organizations that have been opposing them.
In an interview quoted in the Awoko Newspaper (June 25, 2004), President Kabbah is very frank about the Campaign for Just Mining which has raised concerns about Koidu Holdings’ environmental track record and its apparent failure to resettle in decent houses communities displaced by its blasting operations. Let’s quote from the Awoko article at some length.
According to President Kabbah, Campaign for Just Mining is doing “a gross disservice to the people of Kono district and the entire country”.
How so? The president explained that the Campaign was giving “Grossly inaccurate and negative information about Koidu Holdings to international financial institutions…. necessary to give the company the type of financial guarantee that would enable them to stay in business”.
The President hit harder on that point: “It is no business of an NGO to feed international organizations with distorted and alarmist accounts with a view to deprive this country of opportunity of realizing the full benefits of its resources….”
“We should not let ourselves to be influenced by the few Sierra Leoneans who for their own personal interests and under the guise of operating as NGOs, are determined to stall our development.”
Why the President feels that a ‘few Sierra Leoneans’, registered by his self same government as NGO’s, wish to ‘stall development’ is not clear. But the Pa is very firm about what he considers to be an NGO.
“The role of the NGO, Campaign for Just Mining, as I understand it, is to act as a lobby group to raise issues of concern to it with government… and to attempt to reconcile or bring alarms in areas where it considers an improvement is necessary.”
Yes sir and the role of a government is to govern – not to act as a lobby group for dubious mining interests. Enough of this nonsense – presidential nonsense is, may be, but nonsense just the same…….