Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque
20 November 2008
Taking up the example of the small village of Dumasi in Ghana's Western Region and drawing upon her experience of filming a documentary entitled When Silence is Golden, Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque discusses the destructive action of the Canadian Golden Star Resources mining company and its pressure on local people for forcible resettlement. While Canada's anti-poverty agenda cancelled some CAD$18 million of Ghana's debt in 2004, the author highlights the core contradictions of a Western nation that is conversely unwilling to accept any extraterritorial responsibilities in conflict with the needs of its own domestic economy. As Sicotte-Lévesque underlines, the principal poverty faced by local Ghanaian communities is above all one rooted in a lack of information, a lack underpinning a vicious cycle characterised by poor communities getting poorer as mining companies get richer.
'This is pure gold' Joanna Nkrumah told me as she carefully opened a small bag to unveil her grandmother's jewellery, which had been passed on to her by her mother. The beautifully crafted necklace and earrings had been made over fifty years ago by local goldsmiths, probably around the time when Ghana became the first country in Africa to gain independence from colonial rule. 'There are no goldsmiths here now. There is no gold anymore,' Joanna explained. 'No one can get gold, except the company.'
I met Joanna while preparing a documentary film on the impact of Canadian gold mining operations in Ghana. A fervent activist in her community, Joanna is an incredibly strong woman who won't ever give up a fight. Her family has been living for centuries in Dumasi, a small village in Ghana's Western Region and a few miles away from Prestea, a former major mining town now in decline. The family house, which she shares with her widowed father and some of her brothers and sisters, overlooks a large open pit mining operation. Joanna showed me around her farmlands, most of which have now been destroyed by the surface mining activities of Golden Star Resources, a Canadian company registered in Ghana as Bogoso Gold Limited (as per Ghanaian law, all mining companies in the country are partially owned at a rate of 10 per cent by the Ghanaian government.) 'We are jobless, formerly we are all farmers, now we don't have anything to do', Joanna told me. Some of her farmlands have been compensated for, but not always fairly she claimed. Since Golden Star has been operating near the village, cyanide spillages have occurred in nearby streams, farm lands expropriated and the open pit menacingly expanding closer to Dumasi. Today Golden Star is planning to resettle the entire village to mine the gold the community is sitting on.
A NEW MILITARY RULE?
Ghana has been praised in recent years for its economic stability and for being a haven of peace in a region often in turmoil. It is the second producer of gold in Africa, following South Africa, and democratic elections have taken place twice in the last decade. For such reasons, Canada has made Ghana one of its main beneficiaries of international aid on the African continent. So one can't help but be surprised to see the Ghana Armed Forces roaming the areas near Dumasi and Prestea, to protect, according to locals, the interests of Golden Star.
As surface mining increased in Ghana in the past few years, so did conflicts regarding land use. Indeed, foreign mining and exploration companies can acquire large stretches of land from Ghana's Minerals Commission while using only 50% for actual mining. In most cases, local communities are not allowed to farm on mining concessions unless permission is granted by the company.
Prestea, a historic mining town, has been at the centre of controversies for the operations of Golden Star. In 2001, the low price of gold (before its increase in 2002) caused financial difficulties for the Prestea underground mine owned at the time by a Ghanaian company. Not having paid its employees' salaries for more than five months, it decided to sell its site to Golden Star. Golden Star closed down the underground mine and began surface mining right in the centre of town, which caused much uproar in the Prestea community. Indeed, this meant that most employees of the underground mine were going to lose their jobs while others would lose their farms. Moreover, the community expressed worries about the environmental degradation that would occur because of the new surface mine. Conflicts also arose within the community, as the head of the traditional area, Nana Kyie, was accused of receiving monies from Golden Star on behalf of the community without accounting for it. Riots occurred when two young men were shot dead by security forces. In June 2005, more riots occurred as the Prestea community gave the authorities of Golden Star 21 days to cease all operations that were destructive their environment. Once again, seven people were injured as shots were fired at the demonstrators. In an interview granted for the film, Ghana's Minister of Mines did express his discontent with the actions of Golden Star.
However, conflict did not only arise in the area because of environmental degradation and loss of farmland caused by the presence of Golden Star. Traditional small-scale mining, locally known as galamsey (meaning 'gather and sell') has been an important livelihood in the area for generations. To this day individuals often risk anything, even their own health (mercury is a common chemical used in the process) to find nuggets of gold that will give them enough money to feed their families. The Ghanaian government attempted a few years ago to formalise this sector of the local economy by requiring that all small-scale miners obtain licences in the capital Accra. But as Gavin Hilson, a Canadian lecturer in environment and development at the University of Reading, has explained 'all of the land is under the concession of mining and exploration companies...so it makes it very difficult for these small scale miners to obtain a licence to work as a legitimate small-scale miner.' The persistent poverty in the region and the absence of alternative livelihoods undoubtedly encourage individuals to resort to small-scale and illegal mining activities in order to make a living.
In 2007, Golden Star lobbied the government for military intervention in order to stop galamsey activities taking place on its concessions. Under pressure from such important economic forces, the government eventually sent its soldiers and operation 'flush-out' took place. As small-scale miners were forced to cease all activities in the area, more conflict arose with a few people getting injured. To this day, local communities complain of intimidation by the military.
To what extent then, is Golden Star involved with the military in the region? In an interview included in my documentary film, Mark Thorpe, Golden Star's Vice-President of Sustainability in Ghana, admitted that the company had lobbied the government. 'We assisted the government operation at the time with a little bit of logistics' he said, 'but in terms of the actual planning of the operation, that was all organised by the central government.' I was able to convince the military to take me with them on patrol in the nearby hills. Day and night, long after operation 'flush-out', the military still roamed the area in search of illegal miners. We rode in an unidentified pick-up truck, likely owned by Golden Star (as I tried to jump in the back of the truck, a soldier inadvertently asked me if I had insurance with the company) and the driver wore a Golden Star employee card. One of the soldiers even informed me that one of their commanders, who would wear civilian clothing and a construction vest, was directly assigned to work with the company. 'It's the corporate players who are behind the financing of the military,' Gavin Hilson explained to me. 'If I'm making $50 a month as a soldier,' he said, 'and you have Golden Star Resources come around and say I'll give you a few hundred dollars if you help me get these guys off the property, of course I'm going to do it.'
The first day I spent filming the documentary in Dumasi, locals told me that the night before a few huts near the Golden Star open pit had been burnt down, probably by soldiers. When my crew and I visited the site, we found Nana Ofouri, a local farmer, in a rage. The roof of his hut had been burnt with most of his belongings inside. Nana usually used this hut as shelter when farming and considered himself lucky that he had decided to sleep instead in his house in the middle of Dumasi. Why would soldiers have destroyed such property, I asked? But no one could give me an answer. Months later, when I came back to Dumasi, I noticed that the area where the hamlets originally stood was now covered in waste from Golden Star's open pit. Perhaps the company had tried to warn the community to stay away as they expanded their operations near Dumasi. Nana Ofouri's fish ponds were also destroyed by mining waste, but Golden Star refused to compensate him as they claimed that these were 'speculative' fish ponds built after the company had announced their intention to work in the area.
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