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A recently released book suggestively entitled, THE EVIL: The K Model and Barrick Gold, Masters and Servants in the Sacking of Argentina, written by the Argentine Congressman Miguel Bonasso, reveals global crime, deceit, worker exploitation, and intentional ethical mismanagement in the construction of global gold mining giant Barrick Gold, led by Hungarian-Canadian, Peter Munk.
Miguel Bonasso, who carried the flag and the fight for the passage of a recent glacier protection law in the Argentine Congress, which curtails mining activity of companies like Barrick in the high Andes mountains, digs into the dirty arms trading past of Barrick’s CEO Peter Munk along with one of Barrick’s largest investors, the Saudi national, Adnan Khashoggi, allegedly according to Bonasso, a CIA Agent with links to President George Bush (father) who mercilessly and unscrupulously crafted the financing along with the now defunct BCCI, behind the infamous Iran-Contra scandal orchestrated by Oliver North. Bush, according to Bonasso, is also one of the owners of Barrick’s giant gold operation, although the relationship is downplayed by Barrick suggesting that Bush’s role is honorary.
The book delves into the shady past of the Canadian mining giant. It reveals troublesome evidence, linking personnel in charge of security forces (such as Ruben Osvaldo Bufano) at Barrick Gold’s Veladero Mining operations to death and torture during Argentina’s former military dictatorship.
The narrative novel format, moves back and forth between Barrick’s allegedly less than transparent global financial operations, and its local manipulation of power and politics to build Veladero and Pascua Lama, two of the largest gold mining operations anywhere. Bonasso tells how Barrick smothered efforts by workers to form a workers union to fight for better working conditions, how Barrick covered up negligent deaths due to machinery overuse—including the unimaginable plunge of one of Barrick’s largest trucks into an abyss, killing both of the workers aboard instantly (one of these, according to Bonasso, was never found despite claims suggesting the contrary by Barrick). According to Bonasso, when co-workers wanted to stop Veladero’s operations to look for the body, the officer in charge at Barrick said, “this happens … but the Show Must Go On” as he rejected pleas by the deceased worker’s colleagues to help in the rescue operation.
The congressman recounts how Peter Munk, who regularly met with Latin American Presidents, and could convene three, four, five president’s with just a few phone calls, flaunted before the company’s Board of Directors how cheap it is to extract gold in Argentina and Chile, and how eager and money-hungry Latin American presidents are to receive Barrick’s investments, “please, please, please, come invest your money in our countries”, several presidents are purported to have said to Mr. Munk according to his own accounts, says Bonasso.
An infamous secret commercial and taxation agreement between Argentina and Chile, which public officials denied existed for some time, crafted to meet the needs of Barrick’s border operation is also revealed in the book. Bonasso says he obtained the secret agreement from an informant from inside the Economic Ministry, who felt the agreement was ludicrous and illegal. This agreement is one of many specially crafted laws between the two countries and within each, to facilitate Barrick’s operations.
Bonasso reproduces heart wrenching storied of gang rape by Barrick’s security guards for the Porgera Mine in Papua New Guinea, mass killings and forced evictions of entire communities and small mining workers being buried alive to force and accommodate Barrick’s operations in projects in Tanzania, which replaced nearly 400,000 local small miners, with a mere few hundred Barrick jobs. Munk allegedly said to a Canadian news source, in relation to the rapes in the South Pacific by Barrick’s security guards, dismissing the event lightly, “Gang rape is a cultural habit”.
Bonasso paints an incredible picture of deceit, crime and unethical behavior of the Canadian mining company who displays proudly it’s logo of “Responsible Mining”. He parallels these horrific stories and scenes with events in the Veladero Project in Argentina, enumerating local political crime and manipulation to favor Barrick, but of enormous environmental impacts caused by the mining project. One passage recounts the words of a former Barrick Topographer who says dismally to his interviewer:
I would tell the company where to set off the explosions. I worked 20 days and then off 10. when I would come back, several mountain ranges were gone. That really impacted me. I’m still moved. When I’d finish my shift, half the mountain or more was gone. I suppose that because of my profession, I shouldn’t be troubled by this, but seeing a whole range disappear causes an awful sensation. (interview with José Gonzalez, ex-Veladero worker)
Additional information is provided suggesting that Barrick has actually found more gold at other sites (Argenta, for example) at or near Veladero, and that the company is actually, and illegally, extracting minerals from those sites with no permits.
The book restates what is commonly accepted in the region, that a recent bilateral treaty between Argentina and Chile to exempt mining occurring on the border from most environmental and other controls as well as tax obligations, was actually drafted by Barrick or specifically catered to the company’s interests. When a Canadian flag accompanied the Argentine and Chilean flag in a recent remake of the independence crossing of the Andes by General San Martin, more than 200 years ago, local social and environmental groups clamored that both countries were being overrun by the mining companies, the new and real colonial power. Bonasso recalls that in 1990 two mining companies purchased land on the border area, which was illegal by the laws of both countries, Barrick Gold for Pascua Lama, and Cambior for the mega copper project El Pachón (now owned by Xstrata Copper). The treaties allowing for this, came soon thereafter.
Bonasso, who fought a ground war in the Argentine Congress to get the Glacier Law passed, which had been vetoed by the president previously in what has become euphemistically referred to as “the Barrick Veto”, outright accuses several fellow congressmen and women to be paid by the mining industry, including Barrick. Bonasso reminds readers that Barrick, in order to quell local concerns over glacier impacts from Pascua Lama, published nearly comical cartoon figures showing how they intended to dynamite glaciers (which they refused to call glaciers) and haul them off in dump trucks to an alternate site, so the ice would not disturb mining operations.
A former president of the Congressional Mining Commission, according to Bonasso, owns a mining company which supplies Barrick Gold’s Veladero mine. His brother happens to be the governor of San Juan Province, where Barrick operates. But this sort of influence by Barrick is not new, claims Bonasso. He recounts how Barrick Gold started in gold mining, with a find at Goldstrike in Nevada USA, that turned out to be much larger than ever anticipated. By greasing the wheels and leveraging influence in the US administration, despite efforts by Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit to enact legislation to favor the public interest against excessive mining benefits, Barrick was able to push through a permit approval in record time, and obtained, thanks to a mid 19th Century Gold Rush Law, the permit to operate Goldstrike, for merely US$10,000.
Barrick, of course, denies all of the information presented by Bonasso in a general and hard to find press statement deep in the background of its local website, suggesting it would be impossible to respond to each and every point. The general response can be found on its website at: http://www.barrickargentina.com/component/content/article/43-prensa/288-posicion-de-barrick-en-relacion-al-libro-del-diputado-bonasso.html
For more information:
Jorge Daniel Taillant
Coordinator Mining, Environment and Human Rights Program Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA)
Córdoba, Argentina
54 9 351 507 8376