Teams arrive for Bulyanhulu gold mine enquiries

Over the weekend, two independently organised teams of investigators arrived in Tanzania to look into various aspects of the 1996 evictions and alleged killing of small-scale artisanal miners at the Bulyanhulu gold mine in the north of country. There have been repeated allegations of human rights abuses during the Bulyanhulu evictions, and that some miners were buried alive when the artisanal shafts were filled in to make way for the large-scale development of the mine. The first group of investigators to arrive at the weekend comprised Rachel Kyte, a senior specialist, and John Ambrose, a consultant, from the office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman (CAO) - a specialist agency that investigates complaints and concerns of people directly affected by projects of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The organisation can also help stakeholders resolve issues by providing a context and process for parties to find mutually satisfactory solutions. [see http://www.tomoye.com/] A separate, unrelated, group of five representatives from various international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and media has also begun a fact-finding mission in the country. Despite some confusion in the Tanzanian press, the mandates of the two investigation teams are different. Moreover, the investigations are not believed to be linked in any way to calls made earlier this month by the Tanzanian former attorney-general, Judge Mark Bomani, for an independent probe into repeated claims of wrongdoing in Bulyanhulu in 1996. In this case, the CAO's concern is with a formal complaint to MIGA, which aims to promote foreign direct investment into emerging economies by offering political risk insurance to investors and lenders, according to an official from the Tanzanian Lawyers Environmental Action Team (LEAT). "The investigators from the CAO have come with a mandate to explore the complaints made by the Lawyers Environmental Action Team to the CAO," LEAT lawyer Vincent Shauri told IRIN on Monday. The group sent a formal complaint to the CAO regarding the US $172 million political risk guarantee that MIGA granted to the Kahama Mining Corporation (KMC), the group that manages the Bulyanhulu mine, when the mine was developed as a large-scale gold mine in 1996, according to Shauri. "They have come to investigate whether MIGA should have given KMC this political risk guarantee," he added. According to LEAT, the KMC has violated World Bank conditions on the protection of human rights during the eviction of the small-scale miners, and, therefore, should not have been given the political risk guarantee. KMC has repeatedly called on anyone with evidence supporting any of the allegations that have been made to come forward so that the matter can be investigated fully. A spokesperson for the mining company is quoted by the African newspaper on Tuesday as saying that the company would cooperate fully with the CAO mission, and would organise meetings and tours, as well as provide any information the team might need in carrying out its evaluation. The second group of five investigators that arrived over the weekend is in Tanzania on a fact-finding mission, according to a spokesman. "We are here to talk to as many people as possible to try and establish the facts," Steve Herz of the NGO Friends of the Earth told IRIN on Monday. "Our priorities are to focus on the evictions, and the circumstances in which they took place; then we will look at the alleged burials," he added. By talking with the mining community, KMC, artisanal miners, family members, local government and the police, the issues the NGO team wants to investigate will include how many people were affected, the rights of the miners at the time, and what has happened to them since, according to Herz. Much of the focus of these allegations has been on the allegations miners having been buried alive, but Herz was cautious about how much his team would be able to discover. "The [alleged] burials are a big issue, but in the little time that we have, we know we aren’t going to solve the entire issue," he said. Asked what the government’s reaction was to these investigations, Attorney-General Andrew Chenge denied any knowledge of the groups being in the country. "This is the first I have heard of it, so I cannot comment any further," he told IRIN. "I must say, though, that if people come to Tanzania to do investigations, they should go through the appropriate channels," he added. Allegations have been made "time and again" that a number of people were buried alive at Bulyanhulu, Bomani told IRIN earlier this month, when he called for an independent commission of inquiry. Amid accusations and counter-accusations, such an inquiry was the only solution, he said. [see http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=23896] "I believe that - just like in the case of the killings in Pemba and Zanzibar [of January 2001] - if a commission on Bulyanhulu is appointed, it will create a culture of acting on such allegations quickly before rumours continue to fly," Bomani said. "Either these killings occurred, and someone is trying to hide something, or these deaths never took place, in which case society needs to know why such allegations have been made."