CorpWatch article on Porgera
by Alex
David Martinez of “CorpWatch”:http://www.corpwatch.org/ has just finished an “article on the Porgera gold mine”:http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14381 which summarizes a longer report (I haven’t read the report yet — just the article on the website). I emailed him back and forth for a bit and I’m quoted a few times in the story. Its worth reading if you are interested in Porger and particularly how debates in the valley get picked up and circulated in international fora — check out the “cartoon”:http://www.corpwatch.org/img/original/Papua.jpg that came with the article. Is it just me or is the mountain gendered female in the picture? This fits in well with the idea of the exploitation of ‘mother earth’ familiar with first world activists but not with Ipili conceptions of Kupiane — the snake inside the mountain that makes the gold — being male. There are also a few other zingers in the piece that could have been fact checked: the tailing from the mine eventually make their way into the Gulf of Papua, not the Coral Sea as the article claims.
But these are small quibbles and the article at least shows great restraint given the lefty inclinations of CorpWatch. And indeed, since 2001, it has gotten harder and harder to pain the mine as a success story (as I did in my dissertation) in which mine and Ipili needs and demands were more or less in equilibrium. Mounting social pressure, shooting of illegal miners, and so forth have all taken their toll on life in the valley — or at least so it seems to me from this distance. Also I must say that I am sort of partial to this report because its _tene_ are my Waiwa brothers Nelson Akiko and William Gaupe and you _know_ I still represent for Waiwa.
So while I think that “Kelly Patterson’s article”:http://alex.golub.name/log/2006/06/04/article-on-the-ipili-in-the-ottowa-citizen/ does a better job of sounding out the complexities of the mine’s entanglement with Porgera, I like CorpWatch’s report just because it is ethnographically richer — there are pictures of Nelson, transcriptions of interviews, etc. Check it out.
Thanks for your contribution to and comments on the CorpWatch article. It does seem that the mine got less popular as the mine produced more waste and less gold. In fact, whereas in 2000, the Porgera mine produced 6.6 tons of waste per ounce of gold produced, in 2006, that figure was up to 97.6 tons of waste per gold ounce (according to Barrick’s own reporting: http://www.barrick.com/Default.aspx?SectionID=AE16ED96-78D3-4451-AB11-281B502746FB&LanguageID=1&ProjectId=e84dc542-4437-4761-af82-35d7a603d457).
The mine has changed, while the development has either stagnated or degenerated. This shifting reality needs no lefty slant to communicate, but should encourage thought, consideration, and (in my opinion) action.
We are currently raising money to help build a community radio station for the people in the Enga province. The labor organizer, Stanley Kaka, in the story already has arranged for a station manager and has organized a group of young people to be it’s programmers. We are also raising funds to test the water that is dumped directly into the river. Our first attempt was thwarted by the Australian Quarantine division in Brisbane, but we are now in touch with a lab in Port Moresby that will aid us in getting samples.
What we need is not just money, but invitations to present our material at Universities, to spread the word about mining in the developing world. Also, I would appreciate it very much if we could get an interview with you (on video) to add depth to a future documentary on the subject.
Please contact me at sakura [at] corpwatch [dot] org if you are interested in contributing to our campaign, or if you have any leads to anthropologists who might be interested in traveling to PNG with us to build a radio station, having David present at their university, school or community group.
Best,
Sakura Saunders
p.s. I changed the fact about the Coral Sea.