Tanzanian villagers accuse Canadian mining big of being complicit in killings and torture on the North Mara gold mine.
A gaggle of Tanzanian villagers is suing Canadian mining big Barrick Gold over alleged police killings, torture and different abuses at a gold mine in northwestern Tanzania.
The declare, filed within the Superior Courtroom of Justice in Ontario, Canada on Wednesday, accuses the world’s second-biggest gold miner of being complicit in extrajudicial killings by police guarding its North Mara facility, positioned about 30km (18 miles) from the border with Kenya.
The plaintiffs embrace family members of 5 males killed by Tanzanian police assigned to the mine, based on the submitting. 9 of the plaintiffs have been themselves overwhelmed or shot by the police, it mentioned.
The declare states that residents routinely enter “waste rock areas” at North Mara to retrieve rocks with hint quantities of gold, which they course of and promote. Police there have responded violently to individuals coming into the mine, the lawsuit mentioned.
It additionally claims that Barrick “has had efficient and sensible management” over Tanzanian police stationed on the mine and that the corporate’s safety agreements with the police successfully make them the mine’s “personal and closely armed safety drive”.
“The motion by the plaintiffs, who're members of the Indigenous Kurya group amongst whose villages in northern Tanzania the mine has been constructed, issues brutal killings, shootings and torture that they allege have been dedicated by police engaged to protect the mine,” RAID, a company watchdog, mentioned in a assertion on Wednesday.
A Barrick Gold spokesperson instructed the Reuters information company that the corporate had acquired a duplicate of the authorized motion and that it “is riddled with inaccuracies”.
The spokesperson mentioned the lawsuit “makes an attempt to advance claims towards Barrick Gold Company in Ontario based mostly on alleged actions of the Tanzanian police, regardless that Barrick workout routines no management or course of any nature over the Tanzanian police”.
“We intend to vigorously defend towards these allegations within the applicable discussion board,” she mentioned.
That is the primary case filed towards Barrick Gold in a Canadian courtroom for alleged violations overseas. It comes after the nation’s high courtroom in 2019 dominated that the Canadian firm Nevsun Assets Ltd could possibly be sued in Canada for alleged pressured labour and different abuses at a mine in Eritrea.
For years, Canadian corporations have been accused of being complicit in, or failing to analyze or forestall, alleged rights abuses and environmental harms of their operations outdoors the nation.
Canada “is dwelling to nearly half of the world’s publicly listed mining and mineral exploration corporations”, Pure Assets Canada, a federal ministry, says on its web site.
The companies’ work overseas accounts for many of the earnings. In 2020, 730 Canadian mining and exploration corporations had belongings in 97 overseas international locations, valued at $150bn (188.2 billion Canadian dollars), the ministry reviews.
Whereas Canada created the workplace of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Accountable Enterprise (CORE) to observe enterprise practices involving Canadian corporations within the mining and different sectors, advocates say the federal government must do extra to rein in abuses.
Wednesday’s declare towards Barrick Gold is the seventh human rights case filed by overseas plaintiffs towards a mining firm in Canada since 2010, based on the Canadian Community on Company Accountability.
“We stand in solidarity with these plaintiffs and will probably be carefully following the case. On the identical time, we’re asking Ottawa to step up and cross a regulation to stop abuses from taking place within the first place,” Emily Dwyer, the group’s coverage director, mentioned in a press release.
Anneke Van Woudenberg, government director at RAID, additionally welcomed the Ontario lawsuit, saying: “Tanzanian communities have been left with little selection however to show to Canadian courts for justice and an finish to the mine’s tradition of violence”.
“This case is a crucial check of whether or not Canada is ready to carry its personal corporations to account for wrongdoing, or whether or not its authorized commitments to human rights are put aside in relation to individuals harmed by Canadian corporations working overseas,” she mentioned in a assertion.
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