Actualité - New Caledonia : Indigenous people take on mining giant
Franc-Parler publie un article sur la situation en Nouvelle-Caledonie, une île de l'océan Pacifique. Le peuple Kanak lutte depuis des décennies pour la reconnaissance de leurs droits ancestraux. Le monopole minier canadien Inco est impliqué dans des activités minières destructrices pour l'environnement naturel et des actions contre les peuples indigènes.
The New Caledonian islands lie 1200 kilometres off the east coast of Australia. A French territory that is co-governed by a provincial New Caledonian parliament and the French government, New Caledonia (or Kanaky) is a biodiversity hot-spot.
The main island, Grand Terre, is bounded by a barrier reef that is second only to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and which is home to an immeasurable number of marine species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
The indigenous Kanak people of New Caledonia have fought for decades to protect this unique environment from the degradation caused by mining and for the recognition of their rights as indigenous people.
On March 25, management for the Inco-operated Goro Nickel mine, situated in the Southern Province, acknowledged a huge landslide that affected the nearby marine lagoon, the oldest and largest protected marine area in New Caledonia and an area soon to be nominated for World Heritage listing.
The Kanaks living near the Goro Nickel project have been struggling for years to have Inco heed their calls for negotiations about the mine’s environmental and social impacts.
On March 29, tensions between the locals and Goro-Nickel erupted again with a blockade established at the site that forced mining operations to stop. The blockade was a response to the company’s plans to construct a pipeline that would release mine waste water into the sea and to use nearby Lake Yate as a source of water for mining operations.
Opponents of the plans argue that the marine environment will be degraded and the local community’s access to clean, fresh water from Lake Yate will be affected.
The provincial government responded by deploying riot police and troops to remove the blockade, at times using tear gas and live ammunition to disperse protesters, and invoking “anti-terrorist” measures against one Kanak leader.
Goro Nickel says the overall cost of the blockade and the damage caused to heavy machinery by protesters amounts to US$10 million — although no evidence has been made public backing this assertion. Eight protesters were arrested and many other activists have been in hiding.
Jacques Boengkih, spokesperson for the Agency for Kanak Development, says the ensuing police search for these activists has been brutal. “This morning they sent some police to search the house of Raphael Mapou, who has been hiding for the last month, and in that house only the mother and some minor kids are living there and so it was once again a brutal police search of the house”, he said.
Mapou is former president of the Rheebu Nuu committee, a Kanak organisation established as a local monitoring body over the Goro Nickel project to protect indigenous rights. The committee was responsible for organising the March blockade.
The Rheebu Nuu committee has been accused by New Caledonia’s Southern Province President Philippe Gomes of misleading the public. In a comment made to a New Caledonian television broadcaster, Gomes said he believes the reasons behind the Rheebu Nuu committee’s actions were not environmental, and that their real motive is mining royalties.
But according to Boengkih, “Environmental issues have been always first on the list of claims from the chiefs from the south. They have been always saying that the company should be careful because some areas are sacred sites and in the sea are fishing grounds and they have always been calling for tough measures to protect the environment.”
Boengkih also alleged that the provincial government has misrepresented the Kanak claim for royalties. The Rheebu Nuu committee has stated that royalties should be paid to the government, and not to the individual indigenous groups concerned.
Furthermore, Boengkih said that New Caledonia is way out of step with other countries on the issue of mining royalties. “Everywhere else, in Australia or Canada, people have experienced access to benefit sharing from the exploitation of their resources and this is no more than what people are asking for and they are asking for that being paid to the government and not to themselves.”
Inco has repeatedly declined negotiations with Rheebu Nuu on the basis that French law does not recognise Indigenous rights. However, the preamble to the Les Accords De Noumea, signed in 1998, recognised the Kanak peoples as distinct from other citizens of the French republic.
On November 8, 2004, the French Tribunal in Noumea found that the political and cultural rights of the indigenous people of New Caledonia exist and are protected by law.
Goro Nickel has not obtained the free, prior and informed consent of the Kanak people for its plans to further develop the mining project. The Senat Coutumier (Kanak Customary Senate) specifically withheld consent in 2002.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have both called on governments to ensure the participation of indigenous people in decisions affecting their lives and their natural resources. It is on this basis that the Kanaks seek a negotiated and legally binding settlement regarding royalties and the social and environmental impacts of the Inco Goro-Nickel mining project.
Despite much opposition, Boengkih says the Kanaks will continue to push for roundtable negotiations with Goro Nickel, the French government, the New Caledonian government, the Senat Coutumier and the Rheebu Nuu committee.
A series of peaceful demonstrations took place on May Day in Kanak communities up and down the east and west coasts of Grande Terre. They aimed to show Inco Goro Nickel and the French and New Caledonian governments that the Kanak communities directly affected by the Goro Nickel mine are not alone in their opposition to the proposed development of the site.
And their message is clear: the French and New Caledonian governments and the mining industry must recognise and respect their rights as indigenous people.
(Green Left Weekly)
The New Caledonian islands lie 1200 kilometres off the east coast of Australia. A French territory that is co-governed by a provincial New Caledonian parliament and the French government, New Caledonia (or Kanaky) is a biodiversity hot-spot.
The main island, Grand Terre, is bounded by a barrier reef that is second only to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and which is home to an immeasurable number of marine species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
The indigenous Kanak people of New Caledonia have fought for decades to protect this unique environment from the degradation caused by mining and for the recognition of their rights as indigenous people.
On March 25, management for the Inco-operated Goro Nickel mine, situated in the Southern Province, acknowledged a huge landslide that affected the nearby marine lagoon, the oldest and largest protected marine area in New Caledonia and an area soon to be nominated for World Heritage listing.
The Kanaks living near the Goro Nickel project have been struggling for years to have Inco heed their calls for negotiations about the mine’s environmental and social impacts.
On March 29, tensions between the locals and Goro-Nickel erupted again with a blockade established at the site that forced mining operations to stop. The blockade was a response to the company’s plans to construct a pipeline that would release mine waste water into the sea and to use nearby Lake Yate as a source of water for mining operations.
Opponents of the plans argue that the marine environment will be degraded and the local community’s access to clean, fresh water from Lake Yate will be affected.
The provincial government responded by deploying riot police and troops to remove the blockade, at times using tear gas and live ammunition to disperse protesters, and invoking “anti-terrorist” measures against one Kanak leader.
Goro Nickel says the overall cost of the blockade and the damage caused to heavy machinery by protesters amounts to US$10 million — although no evidence has been made public backing this assertion. Eight protesters were arrested and many other activists have been in hiding.
Jacques Boengkih, spokesperson for the Agency for Kanak Development, says the ensuing police search for these activists has been brutal. “This morning they sent some police to search the house of Raphael Mapou, who has been hiding for the last month, and in that house only the mother and some minor kids are living there and so it was once again a brutal police search of the house”, he said.
Mapou is former president of the Rheebu Nuu committee, a Kanak organisation established as a local monitoring body over the Goro Nickel project to protect indigenous rights. The committee was responsible for organising the March blockade.
The Rheebu Nuu committee has been accused by New Caledonia’s Southern Province President Philippe Gomes of misleading the public. In a comment made to a New Caledonian television broadcaster, Gomes said he believes the reasons behind the Rheebu Nuu committee’s actions were not environmental, and that their real motive is mining royalties.
But according to Boengkih, “Environmental issues have been always first on the list of claims from the chiefs from the south. They have been always saying that the company should be careful because some areas are sacred sites and in the sea are fishing grounds and they have always been calling for tough measures to protect the environment.”
Boengkih also alleged that the provincial government has misrepresented the Kanak claim for royalties. The Rheebu Nuu committee has stated that royalties should be paid to the government, and not to the individual indigenous groups concerned.
Furthermore, Boengkih said that New Caledonia is way out of step with other countries on the issue of mining royalties. “Everywhere else, in Australia or Canada, people have experienced access to benefit sharing from the exploitation of their resources and this is no more than what people are asking for and they are asking for that being paid to the government and not to themselves.”
Inco has repeatedly declined negotiations with Rheebu Nuu on the basis that French law does not recognise Indigenous rights. However, the preamble to the Les Accords De Noumea, signed in 1998, recognised the Kanak peoples as distinct from other citizens of the French republic.
On November 8, 2004, the French Tribunal in Noumea found that the political and cultural rights of the indigenous people of New Caledonia exist and are protected by law.
Goro Nickel has not obtained the free, prior and informed consent of the Kanak people for its plans to further develop the mining project. The Senat Coutumier (Kanak Customary Senate) specifically withheld consent in 2002.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have both called on governments to ensure the participation of indigenous people in decisions affecting their lives and their natural resources. It is on this basis that the Kanaks seek a negotiated and legally binding settlement regarding royalties and the social and environmental impacts of the Inco Goro-Nickel mining project.
Despite much opposition, Boengkih says the Kanaks will continue to push for roundtable negotiations with Goro Nickel, the French government, the New Caledonian government, the Senat Coutumier and the Rheebu Nuu committee.
A series of peaceful demonstrations took place on May Day in Kanak communities up and down the east and west coasts of Grande Terre. They aimed to show Inco Goro Nickel and the French and New Caledonian governments that the Kanak communities directly affected by the Goro Nickel mine are not alone in their opposition to the proposed development of the site.
And their message is clear: the French and New Caledonian governments and the mining industry must recognise and respect their rights as indigenous people.
(Green Left Weekly)
Libellés : La lutte des peuples pour restreindre le droit des monopoles
posted by Franc-Parler at 12:57 a.m.
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