Anglo American: Profiting from Conflict
Louise Richards, War on Want | 16.08.2007 13:19 | Analysis | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements
British mining company Anglo American is profiting from a pattern of global abuse and brutality against poor people, including the murder of opponents who say the firm’s mining operations threaten their livelihoods.
Last month Gordon Brown announced a new push to meet the Millennium Development Goals. To push the plan forward, Brown lined up the G8 countries on his side, and enlisted the support of corporations like Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and mining giant Anglo American. The parent company of diamond cartel De Beers and the world’s second largest gold mining outfit AngloGold Ashanti, Anglo American has tried to clean up its image wrapping itself in the mantle of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
But this latest gloss on Anglo American’s CSR campaign underscores the venality of the whole enterprise. While the company makes grand-sounding promises, its actions tell a different tale. Anglo American profits from the conflict and associated human rights abuses that condemn local communities to insecurity and terror.
In September 2006, Colombian mining leader Alejandro Uribe was assassinated by the Colombian military as part of a campaign of terror and intimidation, the purpose of which is to guarantee AngloGold Ashanti’s presence in the region. Uribe had been leading the community’s peaceful opposition to AngloGold Ashanti mining in the region and was seeking an investigation into the killing of another mining union leader the month before.
Police and company security officials have adopted brutal methods to protect commercial interests around Ghana’s Obuasi gold mine, owned by AngloGold Ashanti. Patrols are often conducted in the villages to track down ‘illegal’ miners, and miners have been shot on company property or died after being held in custody by police working for the company.
In June 2006 over 100 protesting Anglo Platinum’s confiscation of their land stopped a drilling team, which Anglo Platinum had sent onto the community’s land. The following day police officers returned to arrest the community leaders and ordered the crowd to disperse. The crowd became agitated and when police opened fire, 26 people were reportedly taken to local hospitals, eight of whom had rubber bullet wounds and one who had been hit in the arm by live ammunition.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Anglo American continues to profit from the conflict and associated human rights abuses that condemn communities to insecurity and terror. In the Philippines and South Africa, communities threatened with Anglo American mines have faced severe repression in their fight to stay on their land. In Ghana and Mali, local communities see little of the huge profits being made by AngloGold Ashanti but suffer from fear and intimidation and from the damaging impact of its mines on their environment, health and livelihoods.
The string of voluntary codes Anglo American is signed up to did nothing to stop these abuses. CSR has foundered on the unavoidable truth that voluntary principles are, by definition, ones you can ignore if you choose to. Developed as an explicit strategy to avoid external regulation and corporate accountability, the voluntary approach cannot be relied upon to prevent corporate abuse and ensure that companies minimise their negative impacts on communities and the environment.
Unsurprisingly, one of the leading voices in favour of CSR has been Anglo American’s chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart. His opposition to increased regulation of companies is absolute. He argues that these will only increase legal actions and serve to “distract” the international community from “proper national legislation”.
More alarming is that the British government has consistently sided with business against those whose rights stand in their way. This stance has allowed Anglo American to continue to acquire vast wealth at the expense of the security and human rights of the communities where it operates.
In its 2005 annual departmental report, the Foreign Office even boasts of its role in stopping a legal case brought in the US against British companies working overseas, in this case those accused of complicity in apartheid in South Africa: “As a result, we believe it will now be more difficult to pursue such cases against UK companies through the US courts,” the Foreign Office notes. It has been completely opposed to introducing international legally binding frameworks for multinational companies.
As long as the political will of our elected leaders to rein in corporate power is lacking, companies like Anglo American will continue to profit from conflict and associated human rights abuses, which condemn local communities to insecurity and terror. If meeting the commitments of the G8 to the developing world is going to be one of Gordon Brown’s key commitments, as the shake up of DFID suggests, then the new Prime Minister must stand up for the world's poorest by holding to account UK companies - even if this loses him a few corporate friends like Mark Moody-Stuart.
Download Anglo American The Alternative Report and find out more about War on Wants Corporations and Conflict campaign and how you can take action at www.waronwant.org.
But this latest gloss on Anglo American’s CSR campaign underscores the venality of the whole enterprise. While the company makes grand-sounding promises, its actions tell a different tale. Anglo American profits from the conflict and associated human rights abuses that condemn local communities to insecurity and terror.
In September 2006, Colombian mining leader Alejandro Uribe was assassinated by the Colombian military as part of a campaign of terror and intimidation, the purpose of which is to guarantee AngloGold Ashanti’s presence in the region. Uribe had been leading the community’s peaceful opposition to AngloGold Ashanti mining in the region and was seeking an investigation into the killing of another mining union leader the month before.
Police and company security officials have adopted brutal methods to protect commercial interests around Ghana’s Obuasi gold mine, owned by AngloGold Ashanti. Patrols are often conducted in the villages to track down ‘illegal’ miners, and miners have been shot on company property or died after being held in custody by police working for the company.
In June 2006 over 100 protesting Anglo Platinum’s confiscation of their land stopped a drilling team, which Anglo Platinum had sent onto the community’s land. The following day police officers returned to arrest the community leaders and ordered the crowd to disperse. The crowd became agitated and when police opened fire, 26 people were reportedly taken to local hospitals, eight of whom had rubber bullet wounds and one who had been hit in the arm by live ammunition.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Anglo American continues to profit from the conflict and associated human rights abuses that condemn communities to insecurity and terror. In the Philippines and South Africa, communities threatened with Anglo American mines have faced severe repression in their fight to stay on their land. In Ghana and Mali, local communities see little of the huge profits being made by AngloGold Ashanti but suffer from fear and intimidation and from the damaging impact of its mines on their environment, health and livelihoods.
The string of voluntary codes Anglo American is signed up to did nothing to stop these abuses. CSR has foundered on the unavoidable truth that voluntary principles are, by definition, ones you can ignore if you choose to. Developed as an explicit strategy to avoid external regulation and corporate accountability, the voluntary approach cannot be relied upon to prevent corporate abuse and ensure that companies minimise their negative impacts on communities and the environment.
Unsurprisingly, one of the leading voices in favour of CSR has been Anglo American’s chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart. His opposition to increased regulation of companies is absolute. He argues that these will only increase legal actions and serve to “distract” the international community from “proper national legislation”.
More alarming is that the British government has consistently sided with business against those whose rights stand in their way. This stance has allowed Anglo American to continue to acquire vast wealth at the expense of the security and human rights of the communities where it operates.
In its 2005 annual departmental report, the Foreign Office even boasts of its role in stopping a legal case brought in the US against British companies working overseas, in this case those accused of complicity in apartheid in South Africa: “As a result, we believe it will now be more difficult to pursue such cases against UK companies through the US courts,” the Foreign Office notes. It has been completely opposed to introducing international legally binding frameworks for multinational companies.
As long as the political will of our elected leaders to rein in corporate power is lacking, companies like Anglo American will continue to profit from conflict and associated human rights abuses, which condemn local communities to insecurity and terror. If meeting the commitments of the G8 to the developing world is going to be one of Gordon Brown’s key commitments, as the shake up of DFID suggests, then the new Prime Minister must stand up for the world's poorest by holding to account UK companies - even if this loses him a few corporate friends like Mark Moody-Stuart.
Download Anglo American The Alternative Report and find out more about War on Wants Corporations and Conflict campaign and how you can take action at www.waronwant.org.
Louise Richards, War on Want