Gdp 6.

144 million usd

Per capita income 523 usd

On April 27, more than 300 homes were burned to the ground in a
violent eviction of indigenous landowners near Barrick Golds
Porgera open pit gold mine in Papua New Guinea.
At least 200 police and military personnel were sent to the village,
and began setting fire to the landowners' homes. The Akali Tange
Association (ATA), a human rights organization in Porgera, said on
the day of the eviction that that no one was given any time to gather
their possessions, and "anyone who spoke up was reportedly
physically attacked by the security forces and some were arrested,"
relays protestbarrick.net.
"Increasing numbers of people are reporting injuries, as are those
who are being detained. Although the landowners received no
formal warning that they were to see their houses destroyed
according to the ATA Barrick Gold had demanded that the land be
cleared of local villagers, some of whom are small scale artisanal
miners eking out a living beside the
mine," protestbarrick.net continues.
Employees of Barrick Gold assert that the landowners are 'illegal'
and issued a memorandum one week earlier that demanded an end
to their subsistence activities and for the landowners to abandon
their territory.
Also leading up to the eviction, Porgera MP Philip Kikala
established a State of Emergency (SoE) in an effort to "restore

peace" in Porgera. The landowners previously asked the

government for help in dealing with some local problems.
However, the police operation was carried indiscriminately. Mark
Ekepa, chairman of the Porgera Landowners Association, insists
that the SoE did not serve its purpose, that the police operation
targeted innocent people, and that the homes police burnt down
belonged to second and third generation landowners "who were not
thought of by the National Government and Barrick Gold in their
relocation plan in 1989," states Ekepa.
According to a May 2 report on radio New Zealand, the Police deny
that they destroyed any of the landowners' houses, saying it was
only 50 or so "illegal make-shift shelters and huts built within the
Porgera Special Mining Lease area."
On May 2, the landowners announced thay are now planning to sue
the police and government for the wanton destruction of their
homes.

FAULTLESS CHAMPIONS
Meanwhile, in a strange and far away place called Canada, Jethro
Tulin from the Akali Tange Association confronted Barrick Gold at
the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) last week.

Tulin was
joined by
indigenous
delegates
from

communities around the world who are similarly effected by the

company.
Speaking outside the AGM, Tulin called on the company's CEO
to invest some conscience into the Porgera region. Tulin explained
that, in addition to the eviction, Barrick is continuing to dump toxic
waste into Porgera's local river system, which recently "caused the
Norwegian Government to divest its pension fund" in the company worth more than $230 million dollars. He also pointed out that, since
last year's AGM, "there have been 5 more killings of indigenous
community members... and more women have been raped by your
security guards."
Tulin called on Barrick to call for an end to the eviction, which was
still ongoing at the time. He also requested that the company "agree
to move the more than 5,000 families who live within your mine
lease area in a way that is fair and will provide us an opportunity to
be healthy, to feed our families, and to educate our children;" to

"finally pay fair compensation to the families who have lost their
loved ones to the guns of your security forces, to the rape victims,
to the families who have lost members in your open pit and in the
waste dumps and who have drowned in your river of tailings;" and,
to "carry out the recommendations of the 1996 CSIRO report and
stop dumping mine waste into our river."
Unfortunately, Tulin might as well have been speaking to a brick
wall, because the company categorically denied everything he said.
As far as Barrick is concerned, and "for the sake of the
shareholder's money", they are faultless Champions who can do no
wrong.
The same is doubltess true for all of Barrick's operations:
on Shoshone Territory, at the Gold mine in Lake Cowal, at the
Famatina camp in Argentina, at the North Mara open pit mine in
Tanzania and elsewhere around the world. It's all a figment of our
imagination.