5 / 64
COMMENT
July 2015
MODERN MINING
3
I
t’s amazing to see that more than 10
years on the so-called Kilwa Incident in
the DRC is still attracting attention. For
those readers who don’t know what the
incident was and who need to be brought
up to speed, Kilwa is a small town in ‘Haut-
Katanga’ on the shore of Lake Mweru in the
DRC. In 2004 an uprising in the area was “bru-
tally suppressed” – as some reports put it – by
the Congolese army, whose actions resulted in
around 100 deaths.
What has this to do with the mining indus-
try? Well, Australia’s Anvil Mining operated
the nearby Dikulushi copper/silver mine and
was accused of supplying logistical support –
in the form of vehicles and a plane – to the
Congolese army and of thus being complicit in
the massacre.
The Australian current affairs TV pro-
gramme ‘Four Corners’ aired a story on the
incident in 2005 that was highly critical of
Anvil. The company responded by saying that
while it was true that its vehicles and a plane
were involved in the incident, they had more
or less been commandeered by the army. The
whole affair was, of course, extremely damag-
ing to Anvil’s reputation.
For what it’s worth, I visited Dikulushi on
three occasions after it was commissioned in
2002 and I got to know Bill Turner, the com-
pany’s then CEO, well on these trips. Dikulushi
was the first modern mine to have been built in
the DRC in decades and its success undoubtedly
encouraged other Western mining companies
to take the plunge and invest in the war-torn
country. I found Bill to be a man of the utmost
integrity and I was impressed by the efficiency
of the Dikulushi operation – and the evident
commitment of its management to the welfare
of communities near the mine.
Dikulushi, incidentally, is now in the hands
of Mawson West (and on care and maintenance)
while Anvil itself was sold to Minmetals in
2011. I still see Bill occasionally – he normally
attends the Mining Indaba – and he is now
the Chairman of the Australia-Africa Mining
Industry Group.
The reason the Kilwa Incident is once again
in the news is a just released multi-media report
– easily accessed on the Web – prepared by
the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists (ICIJ) entitled
Fatal Extraction –
Australian Mining in Africa
. A summary of the
report on the ICIJ website says that “more than
380 people have died in mining accidents or
in off-site skirmishes connected to Australian
publicly-traded mining companies in 13
countries in Africa” since 2004.
Although there are more than 150 Australian
exploration and mining companies active in
Africa, the report hones in on four in partic-
ular – Anvil, as already mentioned, Paladin
Energy which owns the Langer Heinrich and
Kayelekera uranium mines in Namibia and
Malawi respectively, Resolute Mining, which
operates the Syama gold mine in Mali, and
Aquarius, active, of course, in South Africa.
While it is difficult to argue with the con-
clusions of journalists who have spent months
carrying out their investigations, in my view
the report does not make a particularly compel-
ling case against any of these companies.
Aquarius, for example, seems to feature
mainly on the basis of the 2010 incident at
Marikana in which five contract workers were
killed when a huge 500-ton slab of rock fell
from a hanging wall. Obviously this was a
tragic accident but hardly evidence – I would
have thought – of any terrible wrongdoing by
Aquarius. Similarly, Resolute is mentioned
primarily because of an incident at Syama in
2012, when villagers who had blocked a road
near the mine were dispersed by police, who
opened fire on them. Resolute’s role in this
– as far as I can tell – was simply that it had
asked the authorities to open the road to enable
access to the mine.
As for Paladin, the report makes much of an
accident at Kayelekera in 2009 when a tank that
was being cleaned exploded and injured several
workers (two later died) but there is very little
evidence presented to show any negligence on
Paladin’s part.
Paladin has provided a detailed response
to the accusations made against it on its
website and remarks that its critics “appear
philosophically opposed to the activities of min-
ing companies in Africa.” Paladin has probably
hit the nail on the head here. There are indeed
many activists around the world who seem to
oppose on principle any and all mining activity,
particularly if it takes place in the Third World.
Having said this, the massive improvements
we’ve seen in mining over the past two or three
decades in respect of safety, employment prac-
tices and care for the environment are arguably
a result of the pressure applied by the indus-
try’s critics. This being the case it’s important
not to dismiss criticism out of hand and I hope
CEOs and others in the mining industry will
take the time to look at
Fatal Extraction
and
learn from the unfortunate accidents and inci-
dents it catalogues.
Arthur Tassell
Australian
miners in Africa
under fire in new report
Since the
beginning of
2004, more than
380 people have
died in mining
accidents or in
off-site skirmishes
connected
to Australian
publicly-traded
mining companies
in 13 countries in
Africa.
Conclusion of a report
by the International
Consortium of
Investigative Journalists