Clement Boteng
11 November 2008
Recently, one of the effervescent human rights and environmental advocacy organisation in Ghana, WACAM celebrated its 10th birthday in Accra under the theme "A Decade of Community-Based Mining Advocacy in Ghana - Challenges and Prospects."
In retrospect, anybody who is conversant with the history of this organisation would not be far from right to describe the anniversary as WACAM's decade of grace, struggle and punctiliousness - a decade of resilience and perseverance which is indeed worth celebrating.
For many years, multinational mining companies had a field day in Ghana and other developing countries due to the absence of social movements to galvanise the struggles of affected communities into a legal pressure and resistance against the injustices associated with mining operations. The weak mining laws coupled with the low capacity of community people provided the mining companies with enough space to be a law unto themselves.
In Ghana, the central government by law was the custodian of lands endowed with mineral resources. The government used its trusteeship role over mineral wealth to allocate community lands to mining companies.
The involvement of the rightful owners of the lands including traditional rulers, family heads, individual interests and the affected communities in the decision-making processes relating to the use of large tracts of indigenous lands for surface mining were either minimal or non-existent.
HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
But for WACAM, the ever growing human and environmental rights abuses committed by the multinational mining companies in the mining communities would have assumed irrepressible state.
WACAM's vision is "to ultimately transform into a social movement which is well structured with resources and capacity to influence policies in favour of the marginalised people, especially those living in mining communities." As enshrined in its mission statement, "WACAM seeks to protect the environment, natural resources and rights of marginalised mining communities through networking, advocacy, campaign and representation within a legal framework that is sensitive to the concerns of mining communities."
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of WACAM is to work with mining communities for the protection of their rights, sensitise those whose lands have been ceded to mining companies to obtain acceptable compensation or appreciable packages in relocation and resettlement issues pertaining to mining and to liaise with governmental and other agencies on issues of concern to the mining communities.
WACAM also raises public awareness about issues on mining, environment and livelihood while collaborating with other groups and organisations with similar interest. Thematically, WACAM concerns itself with issues on human rights, community livelihood, environment, gender and mining and youth and mining advocacy.
THE GENESIS OF WACAM
The efforts to mobilise the communities around the critical issues arising out of the increased mining activities started around 1992 by Mr. Daniel Owusu-Koranteng who is the Executive Director of WACAM and his wife Hannah Owusu-Koranteng, the Director of Training and Research. Patriots such as the Late Ibrahim Issahaku, Baba Umaru Tsalhatu, Ralph Agbelenyo and other friends supported the idea of mobilising public support for the efforts that had been initiated to organise the mining communities. Mr. Owusu-Koranteng was the Co-ordinator of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) in the Wassa West District whilst Hannah was the Subject Matter Specialist of the Women in Agric Development of MOFA in the Wassa West District at the period when eight multinational surface mining companies were established in the Wassa West District.
Being officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture placed couple in a unique position for direct contacts with peasant farmers who had been affected by the operations of the surface mining companies. In an effort to support the struggles of the affected peasant farmers, the pioneers realised that the mining companies had great support from state agencies and therefore had to resort to independent popular mobilisation of the affected communities as an effective way of struggling against the negative effects of mining. A decision was thus taken to organise a Christmas party in December 1995 and some of the affected people in Atuabo which is one of the important Wassa communities that was faced with displacement by Goldfields Ghana Limited were invited to tell their story at the party which was attended by activists and people with nationalistic sentiments. Appeals were made at the party to solicit financial support for the mobilisation of the affected communities. The appeal for support at the Christmas Party yielded GH¢6 (Six Ghana cedis) then ¢60,000 and that became the seed money for the building of the organisation that developed into Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining now known as WACAM. Today, WACAM is not only visible but also vibrant in all the mining communities in Ghana championing the course of the marginalised communities affected by mining.
SOME ACHIEVEMENTS OF WACAM
WACAM has made enormous contribution to the sensitisation of the Ghanaian public on mining issues. There was little information in the public domain on the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of mining in the past before the formation of WACAM. An important achievement of WACAM's advocacy work is the increased information on mining impacts through the media and this has generated much public interest on mining issues. Many Civil Society organizations including NGOs and the media have shown great interest in mining issues and this has helped to amplify mining community issues to the Ghanaian public. The media sensitisation on mining impacts has helped to reduce the strong influence that the mining companies had over the media, which helped the mining companies to extol only the benefits of mining, and downplayed the negative effects of mining on affected communities.
It collaborates with the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) in providing legal support to mining communities. The legal support to mining communities has helped some mining communities to redeem their rights in court on the violations of their rights. WACAM, Third World Network and CEPIL supported a group of Landlords in Atuabo and Akontanse called the "Lawyer Group" who rejected the paltry resettlement package of Gold Fields Ghana Limited (GFGL) and resorted to court action for about four years. In addition to the legal support to the group, WACAM engaged in local and international campaigns, which led to an out- of- court settlement in the Atuabo/Akontanse case. Originally, GFGL had reduced the number of rooms of the affected households by 50% and paid 500,000 cedis (about $80) to a greater number of the affected people. WACAM, CEPIL and Third World Network were able to negotiate an out-of-court settlement in 2001 for the "Lawyer Group" which included a community Clinic for New Atuabo and three boreholes. In addition to the negotiated community projects, the individual Landlords in the "Lawyer Group" received compensations ranging between 16 million cedis (about $2500) and 18 million cedis (about $2800) for the reduced rooms in addition to the payment of 2 million cedis as inconvenience allowance to each Landlord in the "Lawyer Group". An important achievement in the negotiation was that the crop rates used in computing the rates for the „Lawyer Group was three times the original rate of compensation that the company paid to majority of the affected people of Atuabo and Akontanse.
WACAM and CEPIL also supported the people of Nkwantakrom who took legal action against Ghana-Australia Goldfields (GAG) for the demolition of about 40 houses, Early Childhood Centre, Mosque and church belonging to the people. AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mine inherited the case when it purchased the assets of GAG in 2004. The High Court in Tarkwa made a landmark judgement in favour of the Nkwantakrom community on the 20th of December 2007. The judge asked AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mine to pay compensations for the destroyed properties totalling about 670,000 Ghana Cedis (about $650,000). Though the company had appealed against the judgement at the Appeal Court, the judgement had increased the confidence of the community people in legal struggles. The case lasted for 10years (1997 to 2007) and the support of WACAM and CEPIL sustained the Nkwantakrom people in the prolonged litigation. The company had been asked to deposit a third of the compensation granted at the court as the case goes through an appeal.
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