Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
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Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionto indigenous people, North or South, without capitalist property rights. The term‘sacrifice area’, reports mining activist and researcher Roger Moody, 63 was first officiallyattached to <strong>the</strong> Four Corners region of <strong>the</strong> US Midwest by <strong>the</strong> US Academy of Sciencein 1973, after it had been trashed by uranium, coal, oil and gas mining. In July 1979,a tailings dam in <strong>the</strong> area burst to release 1,100 tons 64 of milling waste and nearly 100million gallons 65 of radio-active liquids into streams on Native American (Navajo)territory. According to Native American activist Winona La Duke “at least one memberof every Navajo family has likely died from lung cancer and o<strong>the</strong>r diseases resultingfrom uranium mining” [quoted by Moody 2007: 127].In Papua New Guinea, Rio Tinto insisted on <strong>the</strong> right to dump wastes from its verylucrative Panguna mine in Bougainville into a nearby river and so provoked a civilwar:Leased in 1966, when <strong>the</strong> territory was under Australian control, within sixyears <strong>the</strong> Panguna mine had become <strong>the</strong> most commercially successful ofall <strong>the</strong> company’s operations. Costs were savagely cut by dumping all <strong>the</strong>mine’s wastes (tailings) into <strong>the</strong> nearby river. By 1988 a few of <strong>the</strong> Pangunaindigenous landowners, led by a former Rio Tinto mineworker, FrancisOna, demanded US$10 billion compensation for <strong>the</strong> ruination of <strong>the</strong>irgardens, forest and waterways. The company jeered at <strong>the</strong> claim and refusedto negotiate. Ona set up a nucleonic ‘Bougainville Revolutionary Army’,declaring independence from Papua New Guinea. Backed by Australianhelicopter gunships, troops from <strong>the</strong> mainland invaded <strong>the</strong> island. In <strong>the</strong>bloody civil war that ensued up to a fifth of <strong>the</strong> island’s population (between15,000 and 20,000 villagers, many of <strong>the</strong>m women and children) were todie before peace was reached in early 1998. [Moody 2007: 2]Mines do not only leave physical waste, <strong>the</strong>y also lay waste to <strong>the</strong> institutions of <strong>the</strong>irhosts. Greg Lanning and Marti Mueller’s 1979 classic Africa Undermined describes inhistorical detail how mining corporations underdeveloped Africa and intervened tomake state structures in ‘independent states’ its servants.63 Moody is managing editor of <strong>the</strong> Mines and Communities website at www.minesandcommunities.org.64 The US uses imperial measures: hence ‘tons’ ra<strong>the</strong>r than metric ‘tonnes’.65 About 378 million litres.<strong>Wasting</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Nation</strong> - groundWork - 89 -