On the October 30, 2006, ignoring numerous reports linking the presence of Ascendant Copper Corporation to serious human rights violations in the Intag area of Ecuador, Rio Tinto signed an exploratory/profit-sharing agreement with Ascendant. The agreement, which included turning over to Ascendant many years’ worth of exploratory information gathered in Western Ecuador by Rio Tinto, also gives Rio the right to invest in future mining projects developed by Ascendant.
Since May of 2004, Ascendant Copper has unsuccessfully tried to develop its Junín copper mining project, situated in the biodiverse Toisan mountain range of northwestern Ecuador. The opposition to mining in the Intag area – which includes all local governments, and most of the communities and local organisations – has stopped all of Ascendant’s attempts to get onto land the company claims it has rights over in order to carry out exploration activities. The company has also been singularly unsuccessful at getting its environmental impact statement approved by government so it can begin exploration. This is in spite of losses of nearly 20 million dollars and several millions worth of “exploration investments” in the Junín mining project.
Rio Tinto likes to portray itself as a model corporate citizen, or at least one that has reformed after being forced to face some of its more grotesque abuses, yet the agreement with Ascendant was signed just 2 weeks after police illegally raided the home of a well-known anti-mining activist opposed to Ascendant’s Junín project. The illegal action was linked to Ascendant Copper Corporation by CEDHU, a prestigious national human rights organization in its report (in Spanish).
The day following the signing of the agreement, approximately 50 persons hired by a company contracted by Ascendant Copper tried to violently enter some of Ascendant’s concessions using tear gas and attack dogs. Community members stopped the incursion, but not before several local residents – including a 6 year-old boy – were tear-gassed, and another community member was allegedly run over by a company car. But then things got much worse.
On December 2nd, 2006, exactly 30 days after the first failed incursion, the same company tried again to force its way into community areas. This time the confrontation, which was filmed and photographed in high-definition digital cameras, showed how about 20 heavily armed individuals pretending to be security guards (and paid for by Ascendant) without any provocation started pepper-spraying and shooting their 38 calibre handguns and shotguns at unarmed community members. One community member received a gunshot wound in the leg. As in the previous attempt, the community stopped the aggression, and the guards had to turn back. The company even hired an army helicopter to supply the “troops” with supplies. Later that night, over 100 more so-called security guards arrived in the town of García Moreno. Two days later, the communities captured and held 56 of them in the village of Junín. On being interviewed, it was discovered that they were all ex-military personnel, and some indicated they had been hired to do work for the mining company and that they were to build a mining camp. Several of them admitted having participated in the November incursion.
Based mostly on the violent incident of December, which was featured on several national newspaper and shown on prime-time Ecuadorian TV, in addition to several high profile internet sites and even Canadian newspapers, the government of Ecuador immediately suspended all of Ascendant’s activities in the area. The government also rejected the company’s environmental impact study (EIS) based on fundamental flaws. To date, the company has not resubmitted another one.
The persecution and harassment against anti-mining activists did not stop with the use of armed ex-military groups. It deteriorated to the point where, in July of 2007, Amnesty International issued an urgent action alerting the world to the threats and danger faced by Polivio Pérez, Mercy Torres, and “others opposed to the Intag copper mining project”. Another alert was issued in August, 2007, following a near lynching of Mr. Perez, involving company employees.
All these events were widely publicized, so there was no way Rio Tinto could not have known of them. But even prior to these specific events, there were already many other documented instances of human rights violations taking place in Intag, and many voices had already alerted the world to the violent conflicts arising from Ascendant’s presence in the area. The confrontations included the burning down of the company’s mining camp in December of 2005 by local residents (see Mining War in Ecuador).
The involvement of Rio Tinto Zinc with Ascendant Copper Corporation points to a worrisome and disturbing trend behind the so-called “social-responsabilization” of the large mining companies. Besides using similar publicity tactics utilized in the greening of many of these same companies, a more worrisome truth is emerging: the strategy of the big companies (with a reputation at stake) relying on aggressive cowboy junior companies to “clear the way for them” in troubled areas. In the case of the Junín copper-mining project, “clearing the way” has turned into a human-rights nightmare for the people on the ground opposeing the mining project.
By attracting fresh capital from new investors, the signing of exploration or exploitation agreements between aggressive or even violent junior mining companies and large, reputable, well-established ones can legitimise and exacerbate this sort of human rights abuses.
If responsible corporate-citizenry has any meaning whatsoever, and if corporations like Rio Tinto are serious about respecting human rights, they would never sign on to such a very troubled project.
For additional information, please see: decoin.org, miningwatch.ca, and intagsolidarity.org.