Mizzima: A Canadian Grave Digger in

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A Canadian Grave Digger in Burma

By: Kanbawza Win
Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)

December 9, 2000

"Thu Ba Yar Zar" in Burmese means an outcast gravedigger whose
profession compels him to live in a cemetery far away from town. He will
earn the money only when somebody dies. Such a person in the modern
sense is Robert Friedland of Ivanhoe Mines, Inc, a Vancouver- based
company.

How Robert Friedland, an American, end up as a gravedigger is of
interest. In 1981 Friedland launched his first mining venture, the
ill-fated Gaslactic Resources. The company name is Summitvillle Mines, a
cyanide heap-leach gold project in the state of Colorado. To save
expenses, instead of taking necessary precautions, it leached 35 million
pounds of cyanide and other toxic tailings into a nearby watershed. When
it became known, the Colorado State government stopped the operation in
1991 and the US Government launched a $150 million lawsuit against
Friedland. He declared his company bankrupts and fled to Vancouver where
he already had connections.

He got his chance with Golden Star Resource at Omai on the Essequibo
river in Guyana. Using the same strategy, he leached 3 billion liters of
cyanide-laced mine tailings into the river, not only poisoning all life
including fish stocks but also ruining Guyana?s farmlands.

Knowing this disastrous act would soon be uproar, his company fled after
garnering a huge profit. Although labeled as the worst environmental
disaster in Latin America, he escaped legal action by cunning.

Just a year after the Omai debacle he turned his attention to Canada,
his adopted country. In Labrador, his company, Diamond Field Resources,
struck a huge base nickel deposit in the native territory of Innu and
Inuit (the outside world known them as Eskimos). As a shrewd and evil
business genius he formed a consortium to exploit the deposit to solicit
the support of a major Canadian company. The nickel miner Falconbridge
fell to his bait and a deal worth $4.3 billion was inked with Friedland
personally gaining $5 million. With a stroke of a pen, Friedland has
become the biggest shareholder in the world?s largest deposit of nickel.

Now he has turned his attention to Asia and the Pacific and targeted the
authoritarian regimes in Indonesia (under Suharto), Vietnam, China and
Burma. This time his financial vehicles were Indochina Goldfields and
Ivanhoe Capital Corp (ICC).

In 1996 he decided to devote his full time to Ivanhoe and moved on to
Singapore. He was helped by an expatriate Burmese businessman, U Tun
Maung (Reggie), who now has the position of a Senior Vice President of
Ivanhoe Myanmar Holdings, a wholly owned by ICC. Thus Friedland got a
connection with the Burmese Junta for U Tun Maung?s son has married to
the daughter of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Burmese regime. U Tun
Maung also skillfully used religion to shore up the business when he
made himself Chairperson of the Vancouver Buddhist Society, to which
Friedland graciously donated $75,000. Ivanhoe Myanmar Holding sealed a
compact with the Junta?s Mining?s Enterprise No1 to export copper
deposit on a fifty-fifty joint venture. It is in the process of
extracting 15 billion pounds of copper over a 30 year- period and
Friedland boasts in as the cheapest run mines in the world.

In Burma where a dictatorial regime has banned all trade unions and the
average worker earns just 8 cents an hour, there are practically no
regulations to ensure both labor and environmental standards. It is an
ideal place for Friedland to make a profit on the blood and sweat of the
Burmese people. Furthermore, slave labour (International Labor
Organization has decided to take actions against the regime for
widespread use of forced labor in the country) was routinely used in
building of infrastructure in areas around the mines. Open pit, heap
leach mining is prone at the best of times to be a dirty business,
especially when regulations are weak.

Open-pit mining involves clearing standing vegetation and forests,
diverting drainage systems, disrupting drainage patterns and
destabilizing topography, causing mountains to collapse. The heap leach
design creates serious problems since waste rock and toxins have to be
contained for a long period of time to avoid leaching. There is a
serious risk of acid rock drainage, where exposed waste rock will leach
sulfur trioxide when it rains. This is especially dangerous when heavy
rainstorms and occasional flooding occur during the monsoon period. Mine
tailings can contaminate local drinking water supplies, and poison water
bodies and aquamarine life.

The Burmese people are sure that to maximize his profits Friedland will
use the same old method that he used in Colorado and Omai. Even in
democratic countries where information is openly accessible and where
high standards of monitoring and control exists how much more dangerous
will be a place like Burma where it is a crime to bring the people?s
grievances to the authorities?

Independent investigation is next to impossible and local enterprises
and foreign companies that do not answer publicly to shareholders and do
not follow international accepted standards run these mines.

In past years an increasing number of people have expressed their faith
in the "codes of conduct" emanating from the Asia-Pacific Mining
Conference in Canada (1996), but there are growing skepticism about
whether such codes are relevant or enforceable in states like Burma.
These states essentially respond not to better environmental, human
rights and labour standards, but to the need for foreign investment,
which led them to meet, the structural adjustment criteria set by
multilateral institutions. Where infrastructure and power supply are
poor there is bound to be slave labour, as the ruling authority would
prefer to protect its own internal interest rather than the welfare of
local communities. That is exactly what the mining companies are doing
in Burma. It is natural that a mining company will often try for as long
as possible to fence off their critics by coming up with their own
limited criteria and system of auditing rather than submit to being seen
by an international body. Thus there is little or no way to stop the
activity of this Canadian gravedigger in Burma.

It has been known that more than 50% of the global finances for mining
are raised in Canada, particularly the Toronto Stock Exchange. Moreover,
Canadian companies with more than $ 3 million in their annual
exploration budgets are estimated to control 35% of the exploration
expenditures worldwide. Even though the Canadian Mining Task Force made
numerous recommendations to improve operating standards, it is doubtful
whether they are ever implemented in Burma.




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<b><font face="Times New Roman,Times"><font size=+2>A Canadian Grave Digger
in Burma</font></font></b>
<p>By: <b><font size=+1>Kanbawza Win</font></b>
<br>Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)
<p>December 9, 2000
<p>"<font face="Arial Black"><font size=-1>Thu Ba Yar Zar</font></font>"
in Burmese means an outcast gravedigger whose profession compels him to
live in a cemetery far away from town. He will earn the money only when
somebody dies. Such a person in the modern sense is <b><i>Robert Friedland</i></b>
of Ivanhoe Mines, Inc, a Vancouver- based company.
<p>How Robert Friedland, an American, end up as a gravedigger is of interest.
In 1981 Friedland launched his first mining venture, the ill-fated Gaslactic
Resources. The company name is Summitvillle Mines, a cyanide heap-leach
gold project in the state of Colorado. To save expenses, instead of taking
necessary precautions, it leached 35 million pounds of cyanide and other
toxic tailings into a nearby watershed. When it became known, the Colorado
State government stopped the operation in 1991 and the US Government launched
a $150 million lawsuit against Friedland. He declared his company bankrupts
and fled to Vancouver where he already had connections.
<p>He got his chance with Golden Star Resource at Omai on the Essequibo
river in Guyana. Using the same strategy, he leached 3 billion liters of
cyanide-laced mine tailings into the river, not only poisoning all life
including fish stocks but also ruining Guyana?s farmlands.
<p>Knowing this disastrous act would soon be uproar, his company fled after
garnering a huge profit. Although labeled as the worst environmental disaster
in Latin America, he escaped legal action by cunning.
<p>Just a year after the Omai debacle he turned his attention to Canada,
his adopted country. In Labrador, his company, Diamond Field Resources,
struck a huge base nickel deposit in the native territory of Innu and Inuit
(the outside world known them as Eskimos). As a shrewd and evil business
genius he formed a consortium to exploit the deposit to solicit the support
of a major Canadian company. The nickel miner Falconbridge fell to his
bait and a deal worth $4.3 billion was inked with Friedland personally
gaining $5 million. With a stroke of a pen, Friedland has become the biggest
shareholder in the world?s largest deposit of nickel.
<p>Now he has turned his attention to Asia and the Pacific and targeted
the authoritarian regimes in Indonesia (under Suharto), Vietnam, China
and Burma. This time his financial vehicles were Indochina Goldfields and
Ivanhoe Capital Corp (ICC).
<p>In 1996 he decided to devote his full time to Ivanhoe and moved on to
Singapore. He was helped by an expatriate Burmese businessman, U Tun Maung
(Reggie), who now has the position of a Senior Vice President of Ivanhoe
Myanmar Holdings, a wholly owned by ICC. Thus Friedland got a connection
with the Burmese Junta for U Tun Maung?s son has married to the daughter
of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Burmese regime. U Tun Maung also skillfully
used religion to shore up the business when he made himself Chairperson
of the Vancouver Buddhist Society, to which Friedland graciously donated
$75,000. Ivanhoe Myanmar Holding sealed a compact with the Junta?s Mining?s
Enterprise No1 to export copper deposit on a fifty-fifty joint venture.
It is in the process of extracting 15 billion pounds of copper over a 30
year- period and Friedland boasts in as the cheapest run mines in the world.
<p>In Burma where a dictatorial regime has banned all trade unions and
the average worker earns just 8 cents an hour, there are practically no
regulations to ensure both labor and environmental standards. It is an
ideal place for Friedland to make a profit on the blood and sweat of the
Burmese people. Furthermore, slave labour (International Labor Organization
has decided to take actions against the regime for widespread use of forced
labor in the country) was routinely used in building of infrastructure
in areas around the mines. Open pit, heap leach mining is prone at the
best of times to be a dirty business, especially when regulations are weak.
<p>Open-pit mining involves clearing standing vegetation and forests, diverting
drainage systems, disrupting drainage patterns and destabilizing topography,
causing mountains to collapse. The heap leach design creates serious problems
since waste rock and toxins have to be contained for a long period of time
to avoid leaching. There is a serious risk of acid rock drainage, where
exposed waste rock will leach sulfur trioxide when it rains. This is especially
dangerous when heavy rainstorms and occasional flooding occur during the
monsoon period. Mine tailings can contaminate local drinking water supplies,
and poison water bodies and aquamarine life.
<p>The Burmese people are sure that to maximize his profits Friedland will
use the same old method that he used in Colorado and Omai. Even in democratic
countries where information is openly accessible and where high standards
of monitoring and control exists how much more dangerous will be a place
like Burma where it is a crime to bring the people?s grievances to the
authorities?
<p>Independent investigation is next to impossible and local enterprises
and foreign companies that do not answer publicly to shareholders and do
not follow international accepted standards run these mines.
<p>In past years an increasing number of people have expressed their faith
in the "codes of conduct" emanating from the Asia-Pacific Mining Conference
in Canada (1996), but there are growing skepticism about whether such codes
are relevant or enforceable in states like Burma. These states essentially
respond not to better environmental, human rights and labour standards,
but to the need for foreign investment, which led them to meet, the structural
adjustment criteria set by multilateral institutions. Where infrastructure
and power supply are poor there is bound to be slave labour, as the ruling
authority would prefer to protect its own internal interest rather than
the welfare of local communities. That is exactly what the mining companies
are doing in Burma. It is natural that a mining company will often try
for as long as possible to fence off their critics by coming up with their
own limited criteria and system of auditing rather than submit to being
seen by an international body. Thus there is little or no way to stop the
activity of this Canadian gravedigger in Burma.
<p>It has been known that more than 50% of the global finances for mining
are raised in Canada, particularly the Toronto Stock Exchange. Moreover,
Canadian companies with more than $ 3 million in their annual exploration
budgets are estimated to control 35% of the exploration expenditures worldwide.
Even though the Canadian Mining Task Force made numerous recommendations
to improve operating standards, it is doubtful whether they are ever implemented
in Burma.
<br>&nbsp;
<p>&nbsp;</html>

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