(My words and opinions. Not Nomogaia’s in any way, shape or form.)
Reinford is 31 and looks 24 – a surprise in Malawi, where most people look twice their age and everyone thinks I’m 18. His English is impeccable, since he spent 4 years in St. Louis for undergrad and another year in Australia for grad studies. He was raised in Karonga, loves his country, and is trying to shutter the Kayelekera mine, backed by all the force of European, Australian and American funding.
Rein works with an NGO (non-government organization) funded by Friends of the Earth, which operates globally, sponsoring small local nonprofits and then training them what issues to present to the press, how to do it, and what to do to make inroads in villages that might otherwise support or turn a blind eye to capital projects in their communities.
I’ve come across Friends of the Earth repeatedly. The first time was in 2006 in Indonesia, when FotE was supporting an anti-mining campaign claiming a company was causing methyl-mercury poisoning among the local population. The charges were bogus, and FotE ultimately backed down a bit, but not before spreading a global rumor that ultimately resulted in jailings, a multi-year lawsuit and misguided public skepticism still persists to this day (flatter me by asking for my Master’s Thesis on the topic).
What do you do with the rights groups that, in protecting communities from postcolonial oppression (and environmental degradation) actually create a postcolonial imposition of their own (forestalling the ‘right to development’)? FotE has pet causes (anti-gold mining, anti-nuclear, anti-logging, etc). To advance these, it sends personnel to remote locations where such projects exist, who tell communities that their rights are being violated before even asking whether people have any thoughts, feelings, aspirations or fears about the project in question. Then, often, the disgruntled people who surface are coached on activism – they’re told what issues to present as their main concerns (“my cows are falling ill ever since operations began – I can tell the rivers have become polluted” or whatever) and then they’re provided travel funds to tell their stories to broader audiences.
This is extremely effective and SO valuable when real problems exist. However, the organization does not have a strong research arm to validate all of the claims it makes. To FotE’s credit, they’ve actually started environmental monitoring on the Kayelekera project, and the baseline quality of the local rivers is pretty terrible (soaring e. Coli and fecal colyform, plus a wealth of metals and minerals that occur naturally in the geology around the Project), so this time around maybe they really WILL wait for environmental degradation before crying foul.
I don’t get that sense, though. I get the sense that a lawsuit is brewing, if not on environmental issues than on corruption charges. If not on corruption than on health issues – HIV would be an easy bet.
Don’t get me wrong – I am adamant that the company needs to take steps to safeguard the rights to a clean environment, right to health, right to housing, labor rights, etc. But the solution is not a campaign to shut down the project before it has begun, and FotE really wants to see this mine close up and go away.
The people all around the mine are THRILLED at its arrival. The north of Malawi is still referred to as “the dead north” by southerners. It has for so long been stigmatized as a place of nothingness that local communities are avidly defining themselves by the presence of this Project. Plus, towns that previously couldn’t imagine quality health care or electricity are on the verge of having both, plus a clean water supply and an enriched economy. Even the 5 relocated families were happy to have new land and a year’s worth of food, until FotE showed up and told them they were being shortchanged. Maybe they *are* being shortchanged. In 3 hours of searching the Lands Ministry, I couldn’t find a soul who knew what Malawi’s resettlement policy was, let alone who carried it out in Kayelekera.
