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Attention News Editors:

New evidence links Canada to death of Tanzanian miners

OTTAWA, Sept. 27 /CNW/ - Citing dramatic new evidence uncovered by
Tanzanian investigators, the Council of Canadians, Mining Watch Canada and the
NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation joined today with
environmental and human rights groups in the United States, the United
Kingdom, the Netherlands and Tanzania to call for an independent investigation
into allegations of mass killings and forced relocation of small scale miners
at the Bulyanhulu gold mine in Tanzania in 1996.
Eyewitness accounts, family testimony, photos and police videotape
recently uncovered by the Lawyer's Environmental Action Team (LEAT) of
Tanzania corroborate long-standing allegations that employees of the Canadian
owned Kahama Mining Corporation, LTD (KMCL) in conjunction with the Tanzanian
police, buried over fifty artisanal miners by bulldozing over the entrances to
the shafts in which they worked. LEAT has also compiled significant evidence
that tens of thousands of small-scale miners and their families were forcibly
evicted from the area without any compensation to enable the Canadian mining
company to take over the property.
To release the evidence, the Council of Canadians, Mining Watch Canada
and the NGO Working Group were joined by Tundu Lissu, a human rights lawyer
from Tanzania who has been monitoring this case for years. "The video, the
photographs and the testimony of family members and eye witnesses show
incontrovertibly that there was a massacre. All this in its totality proves a
scandal of international proportions," said Lissu.
Since the allegations had been publicized in the Tanzanian press prior to
EDC providing political risk insurance, the question must be asked if EDC was
aware of these allegations when it provided political risk insurance worth
$117 million US for the mine last year. Since the EDC falls under the
jurisdiction of the Minister of International Trade, the groups called upon
Minister Pettigrew to support an international independent investigation.
"The Canadian government likes to portray itself as a defender of
democracy and human rights around the world. This is truly a test of the
government's will to live up to that image. If Minister Pettigrew is really
committed to human rights he will call for an investigation and make sure that
one happens," said Maude Barlow, Volunteer Chair of the Council of Canadians.
"The livelihoods and lives of small scale miners and villagers in the
Bulyanhulu area of Tanzania have been sacrificed to ensure enormous profits
for the owners of Canadian companies. The companies involved are celebrated as
outstanding corporate citizens. As a Canadian I am ashamed - not only that
these forced removals have taken place - but that the truth about what
happened there has not occasioned an outcry in this country," said Joan Kuyek,
National co-ordinator, Mining Watch Canada.
It is unacceptable that Canada, through EDC, continues to provide support
to a project with allegations like these around. The Minister must require an
independent investigation and ensure EDC develop an effective human rights
assessment process," said Emilie Revil, Coordinator of the NGO Working.
The group also expressed outrage that journalists and others involved in
researching the stories have been threatening with legal action. Rather than
welcoming the efforts to clear up the allegations, the company has been using
its lawyers and its political connections to try to keep this story buried.

Today the groups issued the following demands to the Canadian government:
- that the Minister publicly call for and offer full support to an
independent international human rights investigation into the deaths at
Bulyanhulu in August 1996
- that Minister Pettigrew ensure that EDC's withdraw the political risk
insurance for the Bulyanhulu mine site
- that the government specifically examine the mandate and policies of
the EDC in light of its involvement in this case
- that threats of legal action to journalists and human rights
organizations in an attempt to keep this story buried be stopped
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For further information: Jennifer Story, (613) 233-4487 ext. 234.
Additional materials related to this story are available at
http://www.canadians.org
COUNCIL OF CANADIANS has 104 releases in this database.

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