The reporters investigated the abuses and corruption of a Barrick gold mine in Tanzania. They faced threats and censorship

"At the present time, responsible procurement is clearly part of the cost of doing business, it is part of a company's business need to access markets and finance, among other things", said Tyler Gillard, due diligence expert of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. .

In other words, it is profitable to promote ecological and ethical products. That's why big tech companies get the gold they need for certain electronic components from certified suppliers. In the case of Apple, Canon, Nokia and more than 500 companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, it is MMTC-PAMP in India.

Yet certifications guaranteeing conflict-free minerals focused on small miners and not on multinationals. In Tanzania, a gold mine indirectly owned by Canadian gold mining giant Barrick has a documented history of human rights abuses and environmental damage. The North Mara gold mine is currently sending its gold bullion to MMTC-PAMP in India, where gold is then found in many of the world's most popular technological gadgets.

Canon and Nokia both pointed out that the Indian refiner had already been audited and declared compliant. "If the allegations are confirmed, this smelter will be flagged with a red flag and we will ask our supply chain to divert the activities of this smelter," said a spokesman for Nokia. Apple shared a similar statement.

At the other end of the supply chain, local and foreign reporters who have tried to cover what is happening on the ground have been victims of intimidation and censorship. the share of the state. Forbidden Stories, an international consortium of 40 journalists working in 30 media organizations around the world, found that wrongdoing was ongoing at the North Mara gold mine, despite the company's claims.

The mine, located near the Kenyan border in northern Tanzania, has been undergoing violence for about two decades. As a result, the mine is surrounded by a two-meter wall and guarded as a fortress – both physically and metaphorically.

Forbidden Stories has been keeping up with several discouraged reporters to report on the mine. Some received anonymous threats, others were censored by the authorities. A journalist even decided to flee the country for more than a year.

"They created fear." Jabir Idrissa, a 55-year-old journalist from Zanzibar, did not forget what happened to him two years ago. He was then working for two newspapers, the Swahili weekly MwanaHalisi and Mawio, both of which are part of a group of newspapers known for his investigative reporting.

In June 2017, Mawio published an article linking two former Tanzanianz presidents to alleged irregularities in mining deals signed in the 1990s. "We had a long discussion in the newsroom when we decided to pick stories. Says Idrissa. "Really, there are topics we have not reported on because of the general environment," he said. But this one was a must, he says. They could not avoid it "because journalism is a work of truth".

This is particularly difficult in Tanzania, where freedom of the press has been under threat for five years and more specifically since the election of John Magufuli to the presidency in 2015. A recent law provides for more than three years of press freedom. imprisonment, a fine of more than five million Tanzanian shillings (US $ 2,100), or both, for knowingly publishing information or data considered "false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate".

In addition, "journalists are attacked for no reason," according to Ryan Powell, a specialist in media development in East Africa and the West. "The police will harass journalists and people will not interfere." Tanzania is now ranked 118th out of 179 countries in the Reporter Without Borders World Freedom Index. He lost 25 places in the last year.

The day after the publication of Mawio's investigation, Information Minister Harrisson Mwakyembe banned the newspaper for two years. Mawio's editor, Simon Mkina, claimed that he had started receiving threatening phone calls. As for Idrissa, he lost his job and was left out of any other journalistic opportunity. Left destitute, forced to feed his three children, he left Dar es Salaam and began working in his cousin's second-hand shop in Zanzibar.

The story that caused all these difficulties is Acacia Mining, a UK-registered company that has owned the North Mara gold mine under different names since 2006 and whose main shareholder is the gold giant Barrick. The Canadian parent company may soon become the direct owner of the North Mara Mine and two other companies as a result of a tax dispute between Acacia and the Tanzanian government.

Benefiting for years from an extremely advantageous tax deal with the Tanzanian government, the company is losing a tug of war with the authorities in environmental matters. In May, the authorities fined the company 5.6 billion Tanzanian shillings (US $ 2.4 million) for alleged pollution of the North Mara tailings dam.

Environment Minister Jan Makamba said the amount of the fine was justified, inter alia, by the persistence of the problem.

"It's been 10 years and the tailings storage facility is still subject to seepage," he said of the dam, which is supposed to prevent the run-off of harmful by-products from the mining environment. .

"The North Mara gold mine has long kept poisonous water in this facility, and this dam is not built properly, so the poison has infiltrated into the waters underground and in nearby rivers and streams. " Makamba has acknowledged his responsibility. The Tanzanian government said it "constantly believed what the mine said."

Acacia Mining told Forbidden Stories that she "had already recognized the need for an additional tailings management" and that she "had begun planning and designing a new facility. storage of residues ".

The opposition politician, Tundu Lissu, who wrote on the environmental aspects of the mining industry in Tanzania, pointed to "the pollution of rivers and grasslands where villagers take water and raise their animals ", as well as" serious health problems related to pollution ". . "

"I saw six people who washed in the water near the mining area and they had a very bad reaction," said Dr. Mark Nega, former district chief medical officer, about patients that he saw in 2013.

In 2009, a study found high levels of arsenic in the water near the mine. High concentrations of arsenic are frequently found near gold mining sites. In 2015, farmers in the region sent samples of water from the mine to Kenya for testing. The toxicological analysis conducted by a Kenyan government analyst revealed that "levels of nitrates and nitrites are considered dangerous for animal consumption".

"An environmental incident occurred at the North Mara mine during the heavy precipitation season of spring 2009 when water containing containment pond discharges and runoff from the mine penetrated in the nearby Tigithe River, "Acacia Mining said in a statement. The company said it took quick action after the incident.

In addition, nongovernmental organizations have documented 22 alleged police killings or mine-safety officers since 2014. The victims were mostly illegal minors, referred to as "intruders" by the company.

"The government-licensed artisanal miners previously held most of the land in question," said Mary Rutenge, lecturer at Mzumbe University in Tanzania. "The company's acquisition of their land has destabilized their livelihoods, and this company has not compensated them adequately."

All this with disastrous results: groups of unemployed youth from neighboring villages arm with machetes or metal spades and get drunk with beer and Konyagi – a local gin brand – finds courage every night to climb the wall in the hope of not doing more than the equivalent of $ 20. Instead, they find the armed police on the other side.

Why take so many risks? "We have to go in order to find gold to help our families," said Monchena Mwita, chief of "intruders" in Kewanja, a village on the edge of the mine. "We can not get gold without entering this place, and there is nowhere else to find money, it's our only source of income."

Barrick's leaders accuse the Tanzanian police of wrongdoing. "There have been many, many investigations into various allegations, and you can not hold me responsible for state authority," said Barrick's CEO Mark Bristow. about the murders perpetrated by Forbidden Stories.

Yet the barrier between national police forces and mine security is not as clear. According to the British non-governmental organization Rights and Accountability in Development, Acacia has signed a memorandum of understanding with the police in which it says it will "provide" financial and in-kind support "to the police , pay an allowance to the officers, provide meals and accommodation, provide fuel "to protect the mine.

Some victims also say that it was not the police, but mine security agents who attacked them. Forbidden Stories, along with a reporter from the Guardian (UK), met Lucia Marembela, a 44-year-old woman who claims to have been raped twice in 2010. She acknowledged having recognized her rapists as forces security because they were wearing blue clothes. uniforms and not beige police.

Marembela was caught by men while she was looking for gold in the mine, a fate that, she says, is common to women in the area. "When we were tired of running, they ended up catching us and taking us with them," she says. "They would put us in their vehicle and take us to an isolated place, near a small airfield, away from the eyes of passers-by." She says one man would rape them while others were at the airport. # 39; lookout. "Once their dirty work was done, they let you go, got into their car and went back to work," she said.

We met two other women who described the same type of attack.

Marembela will have to spend the rest of her life with the consequences. His partner left him when he learned that she had been raped, leaving her alone to raise her six children. "I have very bad memories of what has been done," she says. "Everyone knows that I've been raped, starting with my kids. Sometimes people tell me what happened in the street and it hurts a lot.

Marembela, with other women, went to complain to the management of the mine. She added that the company, then called African Barrick Gold, had contacted the company and asked it to sign a confidential agreement: in exchange for 13.9 million Tanzanian shillings (US $ 8,600), Marembela had waived its right to bring a civil action against the mine or against Barrick. She stated that she was not able to read and understand the document before signing it.

"You must not shut up people, but there is always retaliation," said Bristow, Barrick's chief executive. "And since I was at Barrick, there have been demands for retribution. Not for justice. For punishment. Pay the people who make the requests. "

The situation continues from today. "These abuses, particularly in the North Mara Gold Mine, come and go, come and go," said Lissu, who previously legally represented the villagers in the area. Lissu was the victim of an assassination attempt in 2017 after accusing the Magufuli government of lying on the mining contract. "There are periods of calm, then something happens and everything explodes. But tensions persist today. "

"Human rights violations related to the excessive use of force by the security of private and public mines began to increase significantly around 2005 and were very frequent between 2009 and 2016," said Catherine Coumans of the NGO Canadian Mining Watch, which documents what has been happening in North Mara for many years. "Our local contacts, and even the mine personnel that I interviewed, told me that the international attention that MiningWatch and RAID put on the issue helped to mitigate the shooting, but severe beating, especially the head and joints, sometimes have permanent disabilities, are still very high. "

In a statement, Acacia Mining said it systematically refuted various allegations by both NGOs about illegal deaths and human rights issues.

The Forbidden Stories journalists met the families of two men, shot dead by police during separate incidents in 2014 and 2016 while they were in the mine. Families say that they have not been compensated. The police claimed to have acted in self-defense.

"It is clear, according to Acacia, that human rights violations are continuing at its North Mara mine," RAID wrote in July 2017.

However, the gold bars of the mine are refined today at MMTC-PAMP, an Indian refiner belonging to the US-Swiss group MKS PAMP, certified by the London Bullion Market Association, the most prestigious professional association in the sector.

"During the due diligence we conducted on North Mara, we took the NGO's reports very seriously and put the mine to the test of the issues raised," said Hitesh Kalia, Chief Risk Officer. of conformity to MMTC-PAMP. "We assessed the mine's response to human rights claims, which are mostly historical and related to the activities of the state police force operating in the mine sector."

In 2010, at the height of human rights abuses, a document intended for investors indicated that the gold had been refined by the Swiss company Argor-Heraeus, also certified and supplier of more than 600 listed companies. in stock exchange. Asked by a journalist from Tamedia (Switzerland), Argor-Heraeus has neither confirmed nor denied having refined the gold of North Mara.

According to experts, there are fewer labels than it appears.

"It's important to know that these programs in the gold sector are run by industry associations," says Gillard. "They verify that refiners have put in place responsible gold procurement systems, in line with OECD standards. They are not intended to provide a guarantee on the status of each gold product, a guarantee that there is no child labor, a guarantee that there is no guarantee no conflict financing with each piece of gold purchased. "

He added that the complexity of the gold supply chain makes such certainty unachievable and that the quality of audits is often insufficient. Responsibility is diluted throughout the supply chain.

Jürgen Heraeus, chairman of the supervisory board of Argor-Heraeus, describes the situation candidly in an interview granted in 2016: "[I]In this industry, it is impossible to refine pure gold.

Back in Tanzania, impoverished "intruders" continue to search for gold at the risk of their lives, and journalists are punished and prevented from shedding light on environmental damage and other wrongdoing.

"Once they've used the gold, they will leave, and they will leave and leave the poison behind," Lissu said about mining.

And, in the case of journalist Jabir Idrissa, a career and a livelihood jeopardized.

In December 2018, Mawio was successful in court for information. However, the newspaper will not reopen anytime soon, as they need a government license to publish again.

"It's up to the government to decide. If they give us the license, we will go back to work, "says Idrissa. "I have not lost hope that we will come back and work with a high status and with courage."