On May 15th 2011 The ProtestBarrick Impacted Communities tour came to Montreal and gave a talk at the 2110 Centre!
Join the resistance to resist corporate impunity! Who is Barrick Gold? Barrick Gold is the world’s largest gold mining company, founded and chaired by Peter Munk. With a former Prime Minister on their board and former executives sitting on the board of the Canadian Pension Plan, Barrick enjoys government funding and diplomatic support.
Why protest Barrick? Barrick Gold takes advantage of inadequate and poorly enforced regulatory controls to rob Indigenous Peoples and communities of their land and livelihoods, destroying sensitive ecosystems, supporting brutal military and security operations, and suing anyone who dares to report on it. Impacted communities are coming to Toronto to confront Barrick, sharing their own undeniable perspectives and shedding light on the ongoing corporate impunity.
Highlight: Chairman and founder of Barrick Gold, Peter Munk, claimed that gang rape was a cultural practice in Papua New Guinea when Barrick workers there were implicated in a slew of them – leading to accusations that the company was violating human rights.
Make the transformation away from gold extraction!
Why? With the majority of gold used for jewelry or to store wealth and the majority of gold extraction destruction on Indigenous lands around the world. It is time to question humans ongoing obsession with gold.
How? Through reduction, recycling and reuse of gold there can be a halt on new and expanding gold mining explorations and operations around the world.Information about presenters:
Jethro Tulin: Jethro has been organizing within and outside the Barrick’s Porgera mine since its inception (then owned by Placer Dome). In 1989, he registered Porgera’s first mine workers union and became its first secretary. Years later, Tulin returned to Porgera to find the situation worse and thus founded the Akali Tange Association (ATA), a human rights organization documenting abuses at the Porgera mine in Papa New Guinea – a mine owned by Toronto’s Barrick Gold.
Sakura Saunders: Sakura Saunders is an organizer for ProtestBarrick.net, an all-volunteer online network of groups researching and organizing around mining issues, particularly involving Barrick Gold. It contains news articles, testimonies, and backgrounders about Barrick’s operations worldwide. Ms. Saunders came to Protest Barrick as an independent journalist and activist, whose radio/tv work has appeared on Democracy Now! and Sprouts radio and whose writing is published regularly on CorpWatch.org and The Dominion paper in Canada. Every year, Sakura organizes a tour of impacted communities in Canada, to learn from each other’s campaigns as well as bring their stories to Barrick’s shareholders, Parliament, the public and the UN. Sakura also co-founded the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network in Toronto which focuses on creating a platform for mining-impacted communities to share their stories in Toronto. Sakura will be showing video and providing background for other communities that were not able to join this tour due to having their visas repeatedly denied.
