analysis: Midas’s gold —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
analysis: Midas’s gold —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The powerless provincial government in Balochistan, if it has a
modicum of decency, should quit immediately to absolve itself of the
responsibility of exploitation and destruction of Balochistan’s
resources and environment
Nawab Aslam Raisani,
Chief
Minister (CM) Balochistan, announced last year that the provincial
cabinet had unanimously decided to cancel an agreement with Tethyan
Copper and Gold Company (TCC) for exploration of copper and gold in the
Reko Diq area of Chagai district and not to lease out the land to the
company for further work. He said, “Cancellation of the Reko Diq copper
and gold project agreement is a step towards getting control over
provincial resources in accordance with the wishes of the people.” He
added agreements undermining the rights of indigenous people would be
cancelled. Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp and Chilean Antofagasta’s
have a major share in TCC.
It turned out that he had not
consulted the real masters and, ironically, the day he said that that
the FC was running a ‘parallel government’ he also disclosed that the
federal government had rejected the scrapping of the Gwadar Deep Sea
Port and Reko Diq project agreements; which in fact means that his
government does not really exist. However, he bravely added, “the
Balochistan government would not allow any agreement that undermined
the rights of the people of Balochistan”. I wonder what ‘rights’ was he
talking of because his cabinet’s unanimous decision had been rejected
out of hand without even a face-saving gesture.
The CM’s bubble
of defiance and of the federal government, if any, was pricked the
moment Anne Patterson, the US envoy, had said, “Multinational
corporations will not invest in a country where deals are cancelled in
one hour...two major international mining companies were recently
burned when the Balochistan provincial government recently announced
the cancellation of their long-negotiated contract to build a copper
and gold mine in Reko Diq.” Adding, it had cost Pakistan a loss of $
3.5 billion investment for one of its least developed regions. After
this no government here would have the courage to stand by its
cancellation decision. We indeed are sovereign.
Many interests
are at work in Balochistan. The Baloch people have primary interest.
Their so-called representative, the provincial government, is as
toothless as it is ineffectual. Its resolutions and decisions are not
even worth the paper they are written on. Then there are the mining
multinationals, the modern Midases, their mentor the US, then China
that is milking Saindak dry and would love to do the same to four times
bigger Reko Diq, and lastly the interests of powerful and corrupt
politicians and bureaucrats in Quetta and Islamabad.
A question
arises why would the US Envoy be interested in the cancellation of this
deal in particular? The real reason is the support for Barrick Gold,
the foremost gold mining corporation in the world, founded in 1983 by
Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. It produced 7.42 million ounces gold
in 2009 and expected to increase to 7.6-8.0 million in 2010. It is as
rich and influential as it is notorious. Remember Halliburton in Iraq?
Moreover, the US seeks to limit China’s role in Balochistan.
Barrick’s
track record is pathetic. Credible international surveys indicate and
suggest that Reko Diq is home to one of the biggest copper reserves in
the world with over “12.3 million tons of copper and 20.9 million
ounces of gold”. With an estimated life span of more than 50 years and
four times larger in copper ore tonnage than Saindak, it is a modern
day Midas’s dream. Allowing a mining company like Barrick Gold is like
welcoming disasters of unparalleled magnitude for the people and
environment because mind boggling amounts of water and cyanide would be
needed.
Marcel Claude, of environmental group Oceana, says,
“Gold mining dumps 79 tonnes of waste for every 28 grams of gold, and
produces 96 percent of the world’s arsenic emissions.” So extraction of
a tonne of gold produces 28,214,285.72 tonnes of waste; just imagine
how much waste and arsenic emissions would result in extracting 20.9
million ounces of gold (650 tonnes) at Reko Diq. The gold here will be
more cursed for the people than it was for Midas.
A few facts
about cyanide would not be out of place here. The discoverer of cyanide
Carl Wilhelm Scheele found that it could dissolve gold in 1783 but it
was not used until 1887. Though there are alternatives to cyanide,
including starch and sulphur dioxide, cyanide is preferred as it
readily bonds with gold, etc. Approximately 1.4 million tonnes of
hydrogen cyanide is produced annually worldwide; with approximately 13
percent, i.e. 182,000 tonnes, being used to produce cyanide reagents
for gold processing. Recent studies show that residual cyanide trapped
in the gold-mine tailings may cause persistent release of toxic metals
(e.g. mercury) into the groundwater and surface water systems. Cyanide
poisoning can occur through inhalation, ingestion, and skin or eye
contact. One teaspoon of a 2 percent solution can kill a person.
Though
cleaner and safer methods exist but multinational mining companies, the
modern day Midases, more concerned with profits, use cyanide freely
because in any case neither they nor their public are affected; the
host areas are ravaged irreparably. Chagai has already had more than a
fair share of disasters. It was an unwilling victim of two nuclear
explosions that turned a black coloured mountain to ashen grey.
The
powerless provincial government in Balochistan, if it has a modicum of
decency, should quit immediately to absolve itself of the
responsibility of exploitation and destruction of Balochistan’s
resources and environment. But then the lure of power and pelf, however
demeaning it is, is deemed acceptable by those to whom
self-aggrandisement is a priority. Had they shown spine and resisted
the Centre on the Reko Diq issue, they would have got a groundswell of
support all around.
Considering the environmental consequences,
all licenses to Reko Diq should be cancelled. In Sindh it is said that,
“Gold that begets grief is better forsaken.” The hunger for gold is
seemingly insatiable. Till 2009, 161,000 tonnes of gold had been mined
in human history but that failed to satiate. A hundred more Reko Diqs
will not satiate either. With gold prices at above $ 1,100, to expect
the modern Midases to be compassionate to the people or environment in
their ruthless quest for gold is futile, unless of course the people
take matters into their own hands.
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the
early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com
Notes