Caa-oxfam Australia Recently Released Its Annual Ombudman's Report On Mining. This Covers Community

CAA-Oxfam Australia recently released its annual Ombudman's report on mining. This covers community issues around the Didipio and Marinduque mines (Philippines), Tolukuma (Papua New Guinea/PNG), Tintaya and the Tintaya-Hinipampa talings dam (Peru) and Indo Muro, Kelian and Gag Island (Indonesia).

http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/mining/ombudsman/2003/index.html (please note this is a large file to download)

In an interview with Radio Australia Richard Johnson, the PNG divisional director for DRD (the South African-based manager of the Tolukuma mine) has declared "quite outrageous", allegations that villagers downstream have died or suffered ill health as a result of its operations. The implication is that these accusations were made by CAA-Oxfam. In fact CAA did not do so; it reported local peoples' claims that the mine is responsble for deaths and ill-health, and called for independent analyses of heavy metals contamination and the prevalence of disease. The PNG government is supposed to have carried out its own health study in March but the results have not been published. CAA does call on DRD to stop riverine discharges, a move the company rejects.

Mr Johnson says that "the reason for us supporting this particular [government] investigation was really to show that the illnesses as such were not related to the mining operations upstream." - rather than himself calling for an open and independent study.