Second part of the series of articles dealing with the mining hell.
The other items are available here:
Part 1 : Mines, an environmental disaster
Part 3 : The return of mines to Europe: ecology at the bottom of the hole
Part 4 : The impossibility of mineral decay
Mines, a social disaster
” Extractive industries are also blamed for most of the worst abuses, including complicity in crimes against humanity. These abuses include actions by public and private security forces responsible for protecting corporate assets, large-scale corruption, violation of workers' rights, and a wide range of abuses affecting local communities, especially indigenous people.[1].”
The first victims of the mine are the workers. Considered by the World Labour Organization [2] to be the most dangerous employment sector, mining kills. Many workers are thus victims of accidents or diseases (often cancers and respiratory diseases) linked to exposure to toxic substances (arsenic, cyanide, lead, mercury, etc.).
In Morocco, Célia Izoard investigated working conditions in the Bou-Azzer cobalt mine, certified “responsible” by the Responsible Minerals Initiative, which includes the famous “ethical” smartphone company Fairphone [3]. The working conditions are exhausting and the mine is contaminated with arsenic, causing” skin, lung and bladder cancers, neurological and cardiovascular diseases, and reproductive disorders[4]. ” The use of subcontracting removes all rights from some workers, who have no health insurance, leave or pension. Fatal accidents at the bottom of the mine are common.
” Workers with stage 2 silicosis are generally dismissed with a “bonus” of two years of pay provided they do not report their illness. Cancers are numerous among former miners and local residents, as are “new unknown diseases” that they cannot afford to have diagnosed. “All my uncles and their sons who work in Bou-Azzer are ill,” says a shopkeeper from Agdez outraged. One of my uncles receives the equivalent of one hundred euros in pension after twenty years at the mine[5]. ”
Worse, any revolt against this modern slavery is severely suppressed by the Moroccan State, as in 2011 when a large-scale strike was launched for better working conditions. ” The strike ended with beatings and torture sessions at the police station, prosecutions and imprisonment for “obstructing work”. Eighty unionized miners were dismissed, others were able to return to work on the sole condition of leaving the union.[6]. ”
Despite the hell of work in Bou-Azzer, many people submit to it: the lack of water caused by the mine prohibits agriculture in the vicinity. Water is pumped into the groundwater to process the ore, threatening the supply of local populations.
” As Managem multiplies the number of holes for mineral processing, there is less and less water for the village, and the new borehole is ten kilometers from the houses. In summer, supplies stop for several hours a day. “We are walking dead,” says Mustapha. Soon there will be no water. That's what they call sustainable development[7] ? ”
Unfortunately, the Bou-Azzer mine is no exception. That is the rule. The mining sector is considered to contain the most contaminants threatening human health, and many mines threaten the water supply of local populations. According to a 2021 study, 90% of mining areas would be poorly equipped with water [8]. For example, in Chile, the El Soldado copper mine emptied the aquifers and farming families in the neighboring town had to leave, due to the lack of water for irrigation and the contamination of tap water by toxic metals. The mining company will deliver water by tanker truck until 2027, in exchange for the expansion of its tailings yard [9]. These water problems are worsening with a double effect: the drop in the grade of deposits requires an increasing quantity of water for mineral processing, and climate change is likely to increase drought phenomena.
Women are also particularly affected by the inferno of mining. They are often excluded from mining jobs or relegated to menial tasks. Violence against women and prostitution are increasing in mining regions due to the influx of workers from other regions.
” As such, Cunha and Casimiro (2021) collected testimonies from women recounting the changes associated with the establishment of the industrial ruby mine in Montepuez, Mozambique. These describe the massive influx of men from Mozambique and other countries, who engage in extremely aggressive behaviors against women, including through acts of harassment, abuse, and regular rape[10]. ”
Despite its dramatic nature, the human tragedy of mines is relatively absent from the Western imagination. We generally think of the coal mines of the 19th century, a barbarity that would belong to the past centuries. However, this monstrous exploitation is still there, but not at home anymore. Indeed, the wave of relocations in the 1980s relegated the majority of mining to so-called “Southern” countries, to the margins of the industrial system. Out of sight, out of mind. This delegation was allowed by the colonial powers and their neoliberal policies of the 1980s [11].
This dominance is also exerted through Western multinationals (or Russian and Chinese). They have private security services to quell local disputes, or who call directly on the local police or army. The methods of repression are extremely violent: criminalization of activists, sexual assaults, arbitrary detentions, tortures, assassinations.
Indigenous peoples are particularly affected and these projects often threaten their survival. For example, in the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India, the mobilization of indigenous Adivasi Indian communities against industrial iron mines was violently suppressed by the police and paramilitaries, through arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual assaults on women [12].
This is the price of European telephones and washing machines [13]. Thanks to all this delocalized violence, the inhabitants of industrialized countries can quietly enjoy their technological comfort, while allowing themselves to be lulled by the soft melody of the “dematerialization of the world”.
This hegemony is now turning into dependence, especially on China. Western countries are seeking to relaunch the mining industry in Europe in the United States, in the name of the “energy transition”.
But ATR is organizing against all mines, wherever they are and whatever they promise.
