Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 1.1: Overview of Impacts of Extractive Industries on Indigenous Peoples
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was a statement by a Norwegian Parliamentarian in 2008 that
“reindeer herders don’t have the right to exist,” and companies
such as Beowulf Mining who claim that they obey the law,
yet choose to ignore the opposition of local reindeer herders
to their drilling projects. 50
Human rights violations: Human rights abuses associated
directly with the extractive industries have continued
at a disturbingly high rate. They include the most serious
violations such as murder and wounding, torture, intimidation,
militarization, forced displacement, gender violence,
and illegal detention. These acts can be perpetrated by state
forces, or private security forces and/or paramilitaries. Where
opposition is strong, there are clear reports of governments
intervening with police and military forces in partisan support
of the mining interests. This only leads to a cycle of political
instability, violent upheavals and the potential rise of armed
rebel groups in indigenous areas, to the point where indigenous
peoples can be caught between government and rebel
forces, for example, with the Naxalite movement in India or
the New Peoples Army in the Philippines.
Attempts by Peruvian indigenous peoples in 2009 to assert
their right to say no to unwanted oil, gas and gold exploration
within their territories resulted in a clash with government
forces at Bagua, which resulted in the death of at least
33 people. This event, that has become known as “Amazon’s
Tiananmen” continues to reverberate, despite efforts by the
government to deal with the demands of indigenous peoples.
This has manifested itself in a “Grand National March for the
Right to Water and Life” on the Peruvian capital, calling for
Newmont’s Conga copper and gold mining project (and two
others, controlled by Anglo American and Grupo Mexico) to
be cancelled. 51
In Papua New Guinea, mining company security personnel
have been accused of shooting at local people as well
as burning their houses and using gang rapes at Barrick’s
Porgera mine. Subsequently, the company acknowledged that
forced evictions occurred in violation of international law. 52
Security forces have repeatedly been accused of serious
abuses at Freeport McMoRan’s Grasberg mine in West Papua