Post #367

Giant Evictions, Giant Profits 📄 The UK OECD bodyhas found the complaint by residents of eastern DRC over forced evictions to be well-founded and worthy of examination. The case concerns British company AngloGold Ashanti which, together with the notorious Barrick, owns the Kibali gold mine, one of the largest of its kind in Africa, in the northeast of Congo. 📍 Local residents first became an obstacle to gold mining as early as 2010, a year after the complex was launched. After the initial resettlements in 2010–2015, a cordon of so-called Exclusion Zones was drawn on the map around the complex. Living there was formally prohibited, even though the already existing settlements were also included into the zones. 🚧 At the same time, no significant work was carried out there and the zones were not fenced off – so, people who didn't spend their evenings reading municipal cadastral planscould not even have the idea that living there was forbidden. ⚠️ The turning point was reached in 2021, when the discovery of new deposits prompted the project expansion. "Waste dumps" needed to be created on the sites of the Exclusion Zones, and residents who still remained there began to be pushed out, while their houses were demolished. For locals this came as a surprise – far from everyone knew that their homes was part of some kind of special area. 🏘 The escalation turned into violent protests in the nearby town of Durba. On 22 October 2021 3 people were shot dead and 14 wounded by local security forces — which led to the suspension of resettlements. However, most houses had already been demolished by then, amounting to a total number of around 2,360 removed households. ⚖️ Since then, activists have been trying to achieve justice through local courts and foreign institutions. The initial attempt to go to court in Kinshasa went nowhere – the court ruled that the residents had not made sufficient efforts to resolve the dispute through dialogue with the miners. After that, activists lodged complaints with the non-judicial OECD mechanisms in Canada and the UK. ⏩ Unfortunately, their mandates only allow them to issue recommendations, which is what the Canadian body has already done and what the UK one is likely to do as well, despite having accepted the claims as well-founded. #CostOfGreed ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow