Communities Opposed to New Coal at Hunterston
Human Rights issues connected with coal
 |
"...we should not forget the human cost of coal — the miners who suffer daily in bringing this substance to the surface."
See also pages about:
Colombian MinerSmall and rustic mining is a very common way of making a living in the towns of Angelópolis and Amagá (Antioquia, Colombia). These men intern themselves hundreds of meters within these mines working long hours to retrieve a decent amount of coal. A miner says, "this work is harder than you imagine." Photo |
Scotland on Sunday (re Hunterston)
The coal to feed a planned new power station in Scotland will come from countries linked to severe human rights abuse and environmental damage.
Power plan fuels human rights fearsHuman Rights abuse allegations re. coal mining companies
Change
“While you are getting a good standard of life, we Wayuu are eating food contaminated with coal.
When you have money in your bank accounts, why are our people living in worse conditions?”
- Karmen Ramirez,
Wayuu from Colombia
With the world‘s focus turning to environmental worries, we are rightly concerned about the carbon cost of coal and seeking cleaner forms of energy. However, in our pre-occupation with the environmental harms produced by mining and burning coal, we should not forget the human cost of coal — the miners who suffer daily in bringing this substance to the surface.
The Human Cost of CoalSynthesis/Regeneration (worldwide)
There is one very good but little-known reason to oppose carbon offsets: their immediate and dire human costs. Offset opponents have always maintained that using them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is like trying to lose weight by paying someone else to go on a diet. But I argue that even more critical is that fact that such proxy schemes present human dangers on both sides of the equation ... The trail of carbon offsets might be washed in green, but from start to finish it is lined with human rights violations.
Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights AbusesGreenpeace
How people and the planet are paying the price for the world's dirtiest fuel
The True Cost of Coal (pdf; 92 pages, detailled but very readable)
UK
UK Coal to avoid 'devastating' fines over deaths
A judge has indicated he will not impose heavy fines on UK Coal after four miners died following safety breaches by the struggling firm....Justice Alistair MacDuff adjourned sentencing of UK Coal, which admitted offences under health and safety laws.
UK Coal's solicitor Mark Turner told the court that shares worth £5 five years ago recently traded for 34p. Mr Turner said it was in a "very poor way financially" and was implementing a survival plan.
The judge told Sheffield Crown Court he had a very difficult exercise to perform to provide justice for the men's families yet not threaten a company which "provided energy to the nation, employment within the nation and a valuable service all round".
See also: The Telegraph 28 May 2010
MPs spearhead undersettlement claims drive for former coal miners
Solicitors behind a website aimed at gathering allegedly undersettled coal health compensation claims have begun running seminars for former coal miners with the backing of local MPs.
Law Society Gazette 1 April 2010London Mining Network
Submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into business and human rights
The role of London-based and financed mining companies in human rights abuses overseasMost of the world’s biggest mining companies, and many smaller (‘junior’) mining companies, are listed on the London Stock Exchange, including its Alternative Investment Market (AIM). London is the world’s biggest centre for investment in the minerals industry: British high street and investment banks, churches and boroughs invest hundreds of millions of pounds a year in scores of mining projects across the globe. The mining industry’s key lobbying organisation, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) is based in London.
World’s largest mining company challenged at AGMBANGLADESH
The South Asian
The Phulbari coal mine in Bangladesh, proposed by GCM Resources Plc, is set to cause major social and environmental upheavals in the region, displacing upwards of 50 000 residents. Despite strong local opposition, investors UBS, RAB Capital and Barclays continue to back GCM with significant shareholdings. (2007)
Human Rights Concerns Over Bangladeshi MinesTruthout.org
Located in an agricultural region that is home to thousands of farming and indigenous families, the Phulbari Coal Project has been fiercely opposed by Bangladeshi citizens for over six years. Regardless, the UK-based company pursuing the project, Global Coal Management Resources, is expressing confidence that the mine will go forward.
Responding to announcements of the protest, police and members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) were deployed in advance to guard GCM's office, the Phulbari railway station and other key establishments.
RAB, set up as an elite anticrime and antiterrorism force, has become notorious for what several human rights groups describe as the routine use of torture and an alarming number of extrajudicial killings that occur in RAB custody.
Although RAB has been denounced by Human Rights Watch as a "government death squad," diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010 revealed that the UK has provided support to RAB, including training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement."
CANADA
Canadian mining companies are far and away the worst offenders in environmental, human rights and other abuses around the world, according to a global study commissioned by an industry association but never made public.
“Canadian companies have been the most significant group involved in unfortunate incidents in the developing world,”
The problems involving Canada’s mining and exploration corporations go far beyond workplace issues. “Canadian companies are more likely to be engaged in community conflict, environmental and unethical behaviour, and are less likely to be involved in incidents related to occupational concerns.”
Full report from the Canadian Centre for the Study of Resource Conflict
CHINA
Voracious mining has hollowed out vast tracts of the north of China, leaving three million people living on ground that could collapse at any moment.
To keep its glittering skylines alight, now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined.
In the dust-blown mountains of China’s coal belt, locals have lived for years with choking clouds of soot and the continual roar of mines that never sleep, digging for 24 hours a day. Now they face being buried alive as China tries to extract every last nugget of coal from beneath them.
COLOMBIA
Cerrejón Coal Mine
... People are living in extremely difficult conditions, with blasting from the mine causing damage to homes, coal dust in the air causing skin and respiratory problems, land on which people used to work being swallowed up by mining activities or fenced off in readiness for mine expansion. People feel that their communities are being ‘strangled’.
At the same time, Cerrejon mine workers who are members of the SINTRACARBON trade union are concerned about the inferior working conditions of non-unionised contract workers at the mine. SINTRACARBON is also worried about exposure to coal dust. The union says that coal dust is a hazardous substance under Colombian law and that because of this the company is legally bound to pay higher social security contributions than it is currently paying, in order to facilitate earlier retirement for mine workers.
Colombia Solidarity Network
Coal mining and forced displacement in Colombia: the British connection
Fighting for Peace with JusticeDanWatch
DanWatch is a Danish corporate watchdog that investigates and monitors companies' impact on humans and the environment globally.
Our coal consumption causes diseases, pollution and poverty in Colombia.
Gizzacroggy (re Colombia)
A blog which is a writing project is a collection of stories, experiences and thoughts about different aspects of Colombia. The link leads to five writings related to coal.
Privileged InsightsInstitute of Southern Studies
In a case that gives a whole new meaning to the term “dirty coal”, a federal lawsuit filed against the Drummond Co. of Birmingham, Ala. alleges that the coal company paid millions of dollars to a Colombian paramilitary terrorist group responsible for the deaths of 67 people in an effort to disrupt union activities at its South American mine and railway operations.
Alabama coal mining company sued over slain Colombian unionistsThe brother of the former Inspector General of Colombia has been arrested in connection with the murder of two union activists working for Drummond, a multinational coal company based in Birmingham, Ala. Jaime Blanco Maya allegedly ordered the killing of labor rights activists Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita Amaya in Colombia in 2001, according to Colombia Reports. The arrest was ordered by a human rights prosecutor in Bogota who is investigating the killings.
Arrest made in murders of union activists at Colombian mine owned by Alabama coal companyInter-Press service
Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada invited Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of Anglo American plc, the world's second largest mining company, to address a packed house about ‘Sustainability Challenges for Extractive Industries Operating Globally’.
Controversy Dogs Coal Operations in ColombiaMiami Herald (re Colombia)
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been subpoenaed to provide a deposition in a lawsuit against a U.S. coal company that allegedly supported right-wing death squads who killed at least 116 people in that nation.
The suit alleges that Alabama-based Drummond worked with the Colombian Army and the United Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC paramilitary group, from 1999-2005 to battle left-wing guerrillas that were threatening its installations there.
Collingsworth represents about 500 plaintiffs who say their family members were killed by the AUC during those operations.
Reuters
A federal lawsuit alleges the Drummond Company paid millions of dollars to a Colombian paramilitary terrorist group that while acting as paid "security" was responsible for the deaths of 67 people in a plot to disrupt union activities at the company's South American coal mining and railway operations.
Federal Lawsuit Alleges U.S. Mining Company Drummond Paid Millions to Colombian Paramilitary Terrorists Who Killed 67 Including 'Execution' of Union LeadersINDONESIA
What is the coal relationship between Indonesia and the UK? How are ordinary people connected — from consumers and shareholders in the UK to communities suffering the impacts of coal-mining in Indonesia? This article is the result of some initial investigations into those links.
UK - Indonesia coal connections (Down to Earth)Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development
An academic study based on mining operations in Indonesia by Dr Chris Ballard The Australian National University Canberra, Australia
Human Rights and the Mining Sector in Indonesia: A Baseline Study (pdf)INDIA
Nun murdered in fourth activist killing in 2011
Valsa John's family and human rights activists in Jharkhand told Amnesty International she had received death threats hours before her murder in Pauchuara, Pakur district.
The family told Amnesty International they believe these threats may have come from criminal gangs involved in illegal coal mining in Jharkhand.
Valsa John was jailed in 2007 for protesting against the forced acquisition of adivasi lands for Panem Coal Mines, a coal mine project jointly operated by the Punjab state-owned Electricity Board and Eastern Mineral Trading Agency.
After being released on bail in late 2007, she reached an agreement with Panem paving the way for their acquisition of adivasi lands, in exchange for alternate land, employment, a health centre and free education for the children of the displaced families.
Fighting Hunger with Human Rights
The rapid development of open cast coal mining in the North Karanpura Valley in Hazaribagh and Chatra Districts of Jharkhand (India) is destroying the resources of food and water of the original inhabitants of these areas, mainly Adivasis (indigenous people), of more than 200 villages. The region has extremely fertile land which is now being converted into a mining site, taking away vital farming land and forests, and polluting the Damodar River, which is the lifeline of the area. This means a gross violation of the Adivasis' right to food - and hunger and malnutrition for them in the future.
India: Opencast coal mining destroys the livelihood of indigenous peopleInside the mine everything is very fragile. Even the falling of a small rock can cause death sometimes. People from outside cannot imagine what the hell is inside the mine!" Muzzammal Haque, a 16 year old bonded labourer who works in a coal mine in the Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya, India.
Child labourers in the ‘rat-holes’ (Two Circles)Nowhere is the story of coal affected communities playing itself out in a more grotesque way than India, where a coal rush is occurring with a mind-boggling 173 coal fired power plants approved last year alone. ... The sheer scale of this expansion leaves local communities to bear the brunt of an increasingly violent onslaught of land acquisition, displacement, corruption and intimidation, along with a toxic legacy of localized pollution.
The Struggle Against India's Coal RushINNER MONGOLIA
Inner Mongolia moves to overhaul mining industry
Authorities in northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday began an overhaul of its coal industry in the wake of the death of a herder who was dragged to death by a coal truck.
The regional mining sector overhaul comes as a local court is preparing to try four people in the death of the Mongol herder named Mergen, who protested against the noise and dust created by the stream of coal trucks day and night near his village in West Ujimqin Banner (County), Xilingol League.
Mergen and 20 others attempted to block the path of a coal truck and argued with the drivers on May 10. According to police, the truck dragged Mergen for 145 meters and subsequently killed him.
The truck driver, Li Lindong, along with Lu Xiangdong, who was sitting in the co-driver seat, have been charged with intentional homicide. Two others were charged with obstructing justice.
MEXICO
Rights Panel Says 90 Mexico Coal Mine Deaths Since 2006
Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission said that 90 people have died since 2006 in mine accidents in the northern state of Coahuila, the country’s main coal-producing region, attributing the fatalities to poor safety conditions...
“Owners have not complied on numerous occasions with essential safety and hygiene measures, while actions by the Mexican government have been insufficient to guarantee miners’ physical well-being,” the document read.
Workers at the “pocitos” must provide their own equipment and owners, in a bid to keep costs down, typically do not provide them with emergency exits or well-constructed tunnels.
“Instead of installing four beams they install two and they don’t put roof bars on the tunnel ceilings,” the rights commission said.
PERU
UK firm's partner 'wanted Peru to curb priests in mine conflict areas'
A mining company in Peru part-owned by a British FTSE 100 company agitated for the removal of teachers and Catholic bishops to new posts away from "conflictive mining communities".
An executive of the company, in which BHP Billiton has a one-third stake, urged diplomats to persuade the Peruvian government and church to "rotate" such professionals out of sensitive areas, the secret document said.
PHILIPPINES
Indigenous Peoples: Issues and Resources
Local opposition demands the immediate cancellation of Sultan Energy Philippines Corporation's (SEPC) Coal Operating Contract (COC) in Barangay Ned, Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. Yellen Zata, chairperson of Hublag Kontra Mina (HUKOM) based in Barangay Ned asserts that SEPC was not able to secure an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) within a year after the contract was awarded.
Coal Mining In Lake Sebu, South Cotabato Opposed By Environmental And Local GroupsNB: there are many other links to human rights issues related to mining in general at the bottom of this page.
THAILAND
Thongnak Sawekjinda, along with twelve other prominent human rights defenders and community leaders, had been actively involved in publicising both the environmental and health risks associated with coal mining factories operating in the Tambon Thasai Community.
On 28 July 2011, at 10.00am approximately, two men, on board a black and green Honda motorcycle stopped in front of Thongnak Sawekjinda's home. The pillion passenger disembarked from the motorcycle, approached Thongnak Sawekjinda who was sitting in front of his house reading the newspaper, and opened fired. Thongnak Sawekjinda was shot nine times and was wounded in the left shoulder, stomach, chest, and back. The gunman returned to the motorcycle and both men, who were wearing helmets, fled the scene.
Thongnak Sawekjinda was transported to Mahachai Hospital where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Investigate Murder of Environmentalist
SOUTH AFRICA
Black and White Unite against Dirty SA coal
Many NGOs have expressed alarm at the prospect of World Bank financing for a major new coal-fired power station in South Africa.
Critics claim that, if the project goes ahead, it would unequivocally consolidate South Africa's state-owned utility Eskom as the continent's leading producer of greenhouse gases.
For communities near the coalfields and coal-fired stations, the externalised costs imposed by Eskom are extremely high, including the complete degradation of water sources, air pollution, a frightening rise in mercury associated with coal and other health burdens.
Meanwhile, Eskom continues its giveaway prices to several large export-oriented metals/mining multinational corporations, headquartered abroad - offering the world's cheapest electricity, heavily subsidised by all other - mainly poor - users in South Africa. The two main beneficiaries are BHP Billiton of Melbourne, which runs aluminium smelters, and the notorious Anglo American Corporation, which shifted its financial headquarters to London a decade ago.
Thus mining/metals profits flow abroad, exacerbating South Africa's dangerously high international payments deficit.
Having lost the vast majority of South Africans' trust, Eskom began raising prices by more than triple the inflation rate in 2008. From 2007 to 2012, the price of a month's normal electricity use in an "average township household" is anticipated to rise 127% in real terms, according to Eskom. These price increases will have an extreme adverse impact, leading to a major increase in disconnections (and illegal reconnections, hence electrocutions) of poor households, that can best
be described as "underdevelopment".
USA
A West Virginia community gets wiped off the map
... Fighting isn't an option for Lora, who asked me not to use her real name for fear of repercussions: The mining operations that are destroying the land also employ her son and son-in-law—good jobs, the only real ones around. "It's the way of life here; there's nothing else," says the 54-year-old grandmother. Like many West Virginia coal towns that have shifted from underground mining to far more destructive mountaintop-removal mining, this hamlet, known as Twilight, is now in the business of burying itself alive. ...
First Big Coal Broke the Union. Then It Broke This TownAppalachian Voices
One of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history is underway just southwest of our nation's capital. In the coalfields of Appalachia, individuals, families and entire communities are being driven off their land by flooding, landslides and blasting resulting from mountaintop removal coal mining.
Mountaintop Removal Coal MiningZAMBIA
The African Union (AU) has marked the African Human Rights Day, with a call for action to end human rights abuses of mine workers in Africa, days after the shooting of several mine workers demanding pay at a Zambian mine.
African Union to tackle human rights abuse of mine workers (Coal Mountain)Reuters Africa
Police in Zambia charged two Chinese mine managers on Monday with attempted murder in connection with the shooting last week of 11 miners protesting about poor pay and conditions, an official said.
Zambia charges Chinese bosses after miners shot 18 Oct 2010Wall Street Journal
It’s tough enough ensuring the best possible safety conditions prevail at a mine, but quite another thing when the biggest risk is your boss. Collum has a checkered safety record, and was closed as recently as 2009 after several safety-related deaths. Lessons clearly weren’t learned: an accident in June seriously injured 22 miners.
Union leaders have long protested the dangerous operating conditions and lack of proper clothing for its workers, and criticized the “slave wages” paid to locals. A local government minister said the sanitation conditions at the mine are appalling, and were responsible for the cholera outbreak in the area last year.
China in Zambia: One Step Too Far 19 Oct 2010
General Mining/Human Rights issues worldwide
World Mining Exploration News
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in Ghana has recommended to government to set up an independent committee to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the mining industry to the national economy. The Committee should specifically investigate the impact of mining on the environment and health with a view of establishing whether in reality the mining industry in its current state is beneficial to the nation.
Ghana: CHRAJ Calls for Cost-Benefit Analysis On MiningOne Step Forward for Conflict Minerals, but What Impact on Congo?
The issue of conflict minerals is finally center stage, thanks to a provision in the new Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that requires U.S. manufacturers to demonstrate that their sourcing practices aren't contributing to human rights atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The issue is also news on the other side of the pond, where human rights NGO Global Witness is suing the U.K. government, claiming it "turns a blind eye" to British firms who trade in "lucrative" Congolese conflict minerals.
GreenBiz 10 Aug 2010UK government to be sued over Congolese 'conflict minerals'
"British companies have supported armed groups by purchasing minerals from areas under their control in the DRC," Global Witness says in an application to the high court for a judicial review. "Despite this, the UK government has never put any of them forward for sanctions."
It claimed that the British government was "acting unlawfully", refusing to put forward individuals as well as firms. Some UK companies, known to have been trading in minerals sourced from the eastern DR Congo, should have been referred to the UN sanctions committee in 2008 and 2009, the campaigners said.
