| Home > South Pacific & Oceania >> Papua New Guinea | |
US court clears way for class action against big miner
Sydney Morning Herald - August 8, 2009
Anne Davies, Washington – A class action in the United States against the mining giant Rio Tinto, in which islanders of Bougainville are seeking massive damages for what they claim were human rights abuses stemming from operations at the Panguna copper mine, has cleared a procedural hurdle and could proceed to trial within two years.
A US court ruled this week that three of the claims – war crimes, crimes against humanity and racial discrimination, allegedly committed by the company in the 1980s and '90s – should be allowed to proceed under a US law that permits foreigners to bring actions in US courts on big international crimes.
After years of litigation, the US District Court in Los Angeles ruled it was not a prerequisite for the plaintiffs, a group of Bougainville Islanders, to exhaust their legal rights in PNG. It said the alleged crimes were of such "universal concern" that the US would hear them under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
The case will open a chapter of history that could be as embarrassing to the Australian Government as the events surrounding the Balibo Five in East Timor.
The islanders allege that Rio Tinto appropriated their land and then developed the mine – now closed – with wanton disregard of the environment and the health and culture of the local people.
The miner defoliated pristine rainforest and bulldozed an entire mountainside, they claim, and while the mine operated, billions of tonnes of toxic waste were dumped on land and in waterways.
Rio's treatment of the indigenous people was part of a pattern of behaviour worldwide that amounted to treating non-caucasian indigenous people as racially inferior and expendable, the islanders claim.
"The mine was an ecological disaster. It was the equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped into their culture," said Shayne Stevenson, a lawyer at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, representing the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs claim that damage to the island was so bad it led to an uprising and the decision of Rio and the government of PNG, which owned a 17 per cent share in the mine, to send in troops. With help from the Australian government, the PNG government then instituted a 10-year blockade of the island, which prevented medicine and health care from reaching the population, causing at least 2000 children and many adults to die unnecessarily, the claim says.
By the time the war ended in 1999, 15,000 civilians, or 10 per cent of the island's population, had died, it says.
Central to the claim is an allegation that Rio provided support for the military and blockade efforts, which were aimed at securing its economic interests. Australia's role in the blockade is likely to come under scrutiny.
"Rio Tinto completely rejects the allegations of wrongdoing made in the Bougainville complaint and will continue to vigorously defend the matter," a spokesman, Tony Shaffer, said.
See also:
 |