Bush+Kikwete Vs Tundu Lissu

[Asha Abdala]

Our men has been sworn into office, now Bulyankulu file will move.....Fax ya Ubalozi wa Canada baada ya Mkapa kuapishwa.

Bush aliyafurahia yote haya, na Kikwete ndio aliyetia saini. Someni orodha ya Mafisadi ya Dr Slaa mtanielewa. Tundu Lissu mpaka leo anaendelea kupinga, nashangaa Mtanzania anasema hajui mchango wa Bush.

Soma hapa maoni maoni kuhusu Tundu Lissu:

But I still don’t know what do you do with a used President and I looked at the Barrick website and it says there that the President helped them get a gold mining concession in Tanzania-so I wonder-why do you need a President to do this for you? Why cant you just bid for it-there was a political problem-because the gold field in Tanzania already had gold miners on it-Tanzanians you would be surprised to hear-and which got in the way of the Canadian-Saudi-American deal-so the Tanzanians had to go for Barrick to buy the land-so it was cleared by running bulldozers across the property- August 1996 they ran bulldozers across the property-smashed the workers houses, filled the mine pits and chased away 30,000 workers-all but 50-because according to our reports 50 miners were in the mining pits when they were sealed-yeah and I reported that too and they sued me and my paper. It is no co-incidence that my outlet BBC TV is not for profit and my paper like WBAI is run by a non profit-we do not have the cash to pay for these armed and dangerous billionaires-to fight these guys-so we were nervous-they wanted me to sin a statement saying that no one died in the peaceful clearing of these mines-I said I would love to sign that what is your evidence. They said the evidence is that we are billionaires -You are not, so sign. I said I need a little bit more than that- they said OK-they provided nothing-my paper sent one of the top human rights investigators in the world-Tundu Lissu is his name-he is a member of the Tanzanian bar- a lawyer-speaks Swahili-he sent back photos off crushed corpses-he sent back statements he sent back a videotape of the bodies being exhumed-and I showed this to the gold-fingers-Bush’s guys and they said OK sign here-no one died-I said I cant do that-and I will tell you why I didn’t-because Tundu Lissu before he left had a press conference in Dar El Salaam and said that there ought to be an investigation of the clearance of the mines and for that he was charged with sedition and so I couldn’t sign off and hang him literally-it turns out though he’d left the country without knowing that he had been charged-and he got back safely to his home in DC-his wife was pregnant and I met up with him and I said Tundu what are you going to do after the twins are born and he said go back to Tanzania and I said they are going to arrest you and he said if I am lucky. Now he did go back-in case he wanted to change his mind the Bush administration pulled his visa and took away 3 million dollars from the World Resources Institute because they refused to stop their investigation in Tanzania-he went back and has been in and out of jail-his offices were burnt down-go to Gregpalast.com and keep abreast of what is going on with that story.

Chanzo:http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cach...08/22/1529206+Tundu+Lissu&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=46

I will always love him

Asha

 

[Asha Abdala]

Hii ni mpya kabisa: TOR za Kamati ya Kikwete hazitagusa human rights abuse. Mtanganyika, bado hujui mchango wa Tundu Lissu kwa Tanganyika yetu?

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 04:49:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tundu Lissu
Subject: Six Villagers Killed in Barrick's North Mara Mine

Folks, It's bad news again. Over two weeks ago, on June 1, security guards employed by Barrick Gold Corp. at the North Mara Gold Mine in Tarime District, Northern Tanzania shot dead a villager who was alleged to have illegaly entered the Mine complex. Kieva Yohanna was shot five times on the back at Nyangoto Village, home to the giant Mine. He died instantly. His death brings to six the number of villagers who have died violently at the hands of Barrick security operatives and/or riot police who guard the sprawling Mine since July 2005. Since April of this year, three villagers have been shot dead by company security alone. Even though the killers are well-known, not one of them has been arrested and prosecuted in courts of law.

The killings represent a major shift in Barrick's strategy for dealing with teh troublesome locals who have always opposed the Mine. In the period after the forced evictions of the villagers in August 2001, hundreds of villagers, particularly community leaders and prominent locals were targeted for illegal arrests, criminal prosecutions and long term imprisonment. Numerous local leaders including the area's current Member of Parliament Chacha Zakayo Wangwe and elected Member of the Tarime District Council Augustino Nestory Sasi were harrassed this way, with the latter being sentenced to 30 year jail before we got him out on appeal to the High Court of Tanzania in December 2004.

The strategy was intended to frighten other villagers by making an example of their leaders. Though still used regularly, that strategy never quite worked, particularly after we started to offer free legal representation to the villagers thus targeted. The company and its government backers appear to have decided on a major escalation of their punitive measures against the communities.

Firstly, begining 2004, the company has been taking by force villagers' lands it requires for its mining operations. This is done by simply dumping millions of tons of waste rock and rubble onto village lands without even the pretense of seeking owners' consent or payment of compensation as required by law. The lands surrounding the Gokona Pit to the north of the Mine were taken over this. The Kihinda Clan and dozens of other landowners in the area have lost their lands in this way. Similarly, lands to the west and south-west of the Mine at Nyangoto Village have been taken over by simply dumping mountains of waste rock onto farmlands and residential areas thereby forcing the villagers off. All this is done with the active participation of the district and administration and police.

Another strategy has been to release waste water from Barrick's tailings dam onto villagers' lands. This is happening at Matongo Village to the west of the Mine where hundreds of hectares of farmlands have been inundated with the cyanide-laced sludge from the tailings dam. We also know inside sources that the company has been releasing this cyanide-laced water onto the Thigithe River which empties onto the larger River Mara just to the south of the Mine.

The third strategy is the use of lethal force and naked violence. This started in earnest in July of last year when two villagers were killed by by company security guards. Marwa Nyansinge was shot dead on the Nyabigena Primary School grounds on July 20 after he was alleged to have stolen petroleum oil from the company. Chacha Meng'anyi, Barrick's security guard alleged to have shot him dead was never arrested. The fatal shooting prompted an uprising of the villagers in which machines, vehicles and numerous other company properties were destroyed by angry villagers. In the wake of the protests, dozens of villagers were rounded up and many remain in Tarime Prison to this day.

The latest fatal shooting was also committed by Chacha Meng'anyi. After he was killed, the victim's body was taken to Tarime Police Station about 40 km. away and later to the Tarime District Hospital for alleged post-mortem. It was returned the next day. The angry villagers refused to accept the body, taking it in a demonstration to the company housing complex where they were met by riot police wielding guns and tear gas. One person was shot and injured and over sixty were arrested and detained at the Tarime Police Station. Many have since been charged in court and released on bail after community leaders protested to the Regional Commissioner.

The murderer, though, remains under police protection in Tarime Town. He has not been charged with any offence. The information we have has it that the police fear that charging him in court with murder would mean surrendering him to the jurisdiction of the courts and the prison department as murder is non-bailable. In the wake of the latest killings I personally visited the Mine area and held public protest meetings attended by thousands of villagers and their elected leaders. Later on Tuesday this week we organized a press conference in which we asked the Tanzanian president to intervene. Our Joint Statement released to the press is attached.

We ask for your support to put an end to these killings of innocent civilians. We particularly request our Canadian partners and friends to draw public attention to these abuses and to help bring Barrick Gold Corporation to account for its actions. When we campaigned for Bulyanhulu in 2001-03 Barrick feigned innocence, claiming that the killings - which it never quite admitted - occured years before it took over at Bulyanhulu. This time around we await to see what this rich company will say as it is in full charge of the North MAra Mine, having taken over late last year after swallowing up Placer Dome. We are in the process of drafting a sign-on letter which we intend to circulate worldwide to press for our people's demands for rights and justice.

Please get back to me if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Tundu A.M. Lissu
Executive Director Lawyers' Environmental Action Team
Mazingira House, Plot 428 Mazingira Street, Mikocheni B PO Box 12605 Dar es Salaam TANZANIA.

 

[Asha Abdala]

Wapinzani wa Tundu Lissu wanasambaza uvumi kuwa amenunuliwa na Barick ili avunje kamati ya Rais!

If so why does he demand the most instead of the least?




Poppy Strikes Gold
July 9, 2003
By Greg Palast

This excerpt is taken from Greg Palast's book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy available from www.gregpalast.com

George W. could not have amassed this pile if his surname were Jones or Smith. While other candidates begged, pleaded and wheedled for donations, the Bushes added a creative, lucrative new twist to the money chase that contenders couldn't imitate: "Poppy" Bush's post–White House work. It laid the foundation for Dubya's campaign kitty corpulence and, not incidentally, raised the family's net worth by several hundred percent.

In 1998, for example, the former president and famed Desert Stormtrooper-in-Chief wrote to the oil minister of Kuwait on behalf of Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush says, honestly, that he "had no stake in the Chevron operation." True, but following this selfless use of his influence, the oil company put $657,000 into the Republican Party coffers.

That year Bush père created a storm in Argentina when he lobbied his close political ally, President Carlos Menem, to grant a gambling license to Mirage Casino Corporation. Once again, the senior Bush wrote that he had no personal interest in the deal. However, Bush fils made out quite nicely: After the casino fiap, Mirage dropped $449,000 into the Republican Party war chest.

Much of Bush's loot, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, came in the form of "bundled" and "soft" money. That's the squishy stuff corporations use to ooze around U.S. law, which prohibits any direct donations from corporations.

Not all of the elder Bush's work is voluntary. His single talk to the board of Global Crossing, the telecom start-up, earned him stock worth $13 million when the company went public. Global Crossing's employees also kicked in another million for the younger Bush's run. (We'll meet Global Crossing again in Chapter 3.)

And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not have the right to vote for president, they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas by U.S. church leaders, Poppy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $100,000 per talk) sponsored by organizations run by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat—and formerly the guest of the U.S. federal prison system. Some of the loot for the Republican effort in the 1997–2000 election cycles came from an outfit called Barrick Corporation.

The sum, while over $100,000, is comparatively small change for the GOP, yet it seemed quite a gesture for a corporation based in Canada. Technically, the funds came from those associated with the Canadian's U.S. unit, Barrick Gold Strike.

They could well afford it. In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush–era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could "perfect its patent" on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $10,000. Eureka!

Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada's Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so. Upon taking office, Bill Clinton's new interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called Barrick's claim the "biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy." Nevertheless, because the company followed the fast-track process laid out for them under Bush, this corporate Goldfinger had Babbitt by the legal nuggets. Clinton had no choice but to give them the gold mine while the public got the shaft.

Barrick says it had no contact whatsoever with the president at the time of the rules change.[1] There was always a place in Barrick's heart for the older Bush—and a place on its payroll. In 1995, Barrick hired the former president as Honorary Senior Advisor to the Toronto company's International Advisory Board. Bush joined at the suggestion of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who, like Bush, had been ignominiously booted from office. I was a bit surprised that the president had signed on. When Bush was voted out of the White House, he vowed never to lobby or join a corporate board. The chairman of Barrick openly boasts that granting the title "Senior Advisor" was a sly maneuver to help Bush tiptoe around this promise.

I was curious: What does one do with a used president? Barrick vehemently denies that it appointed Bush "in order to procure him to make contact with other world leaders whom he knows, or who could be of considerable assistance" to the company. Yet, in September 1996, Bush wrote a letter to help convince Indonesian dictator Suharto to give Barrick a new, hot gold-mining concession.

Bush's letter seemed to do the trick. Suharto took away 68 percent of the world's largest goldfield from the finder of the ore and handed it to Barrick. However, Bush's lobbying magic isn't invincible. Jim Bob Moffett, a tough old Louisiana swamp dog who heads Freeport-McMoRan, Barrick's American rival, met privately with Suharto. When Suharto emerged from their meeting, the kleptocrat announced that Freeport would replace Bush's Canadians. (Barrick lucked out: The huge ore deposit turned out to be a hoax. When the con was uncovered, Jim Bob's associates invited geologist Mike de Guzman, who "discovered" the gold, to talk about the error of his ways. Unfortunately, on the way to the meeting, de Guzman fell out of a helicopter.)

Who is this "Barrick" to whom our former president would lease out the reflected prestige of the Oval Office? I could not find a Joe Barrick in the Canadian phone book. Rather, the company as it operates today was founded by one Peter Munk. The entrepreneur first came to public notice in Canada in the 1960s as a central figure in an insider trading scandal. Munk had dumped his stock in a stereo-making factory he controlled just before it went belly up, leaving other investors and government holding the bag. He was never charged, but, notes Canada's Maclean's magazine, the venture and stock sale "cost Munk his business and his reputation." Yet today, Munk's net worth is estimated at $350 million, including homes on two continents and his own island.

How did he go from busted stereo maker to demi-billionaire goldbug? The answer: Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer, the "bag man" in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostage scandals. The man who sent guns to the ayatolla teamed up with Munk on hotel ventures and, ultimately, put up the cash to buy Barrick in 1983, then a tiny company with an "unperfected" claim on the Nevada mine. You may recall that Bush pardoned the coconspirators who helped Khashoggi arm the Axis of Evil, making charges against the sheik all but impossible. (Bush pardoned the conspirators not as a favor to Khashoggi, but to himself.)

Khashoggi got out of Barrick just after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, long before 1995, when Bush was invited in. By that time, Munk's reputation was restored, at least in his own mind, in part by massive donations to the University of Toronto. Following this act of philanthropy, the university awarded Munk–adviser Bush an honorary degree. Several students were arrested protesting what appeared to them as a cash-for-honors deal.

Mr. Munk's president-for-hire did not pay the cost of his rental in Indonesia. The return on Barrick's investment in politicians would have to come from Africa.

Mobutu Sese Seko, the late dictator of the Congo (Zaire), was one of the undisputed master criminals of the last century having looted hundreds of millions of dollars from his national treasury— and a golfing buddy of the senior Bush. That old link from the links probably did not hurt Barrick in successfully seeking an eighty-thousand-acre gold-mining concession from the Congolese cutthroat. Bush himself did not lobby the deal for Barrick. It wasn't that the former president was squeamish about using the authority of his former posts to cut deals with a despot. Rather, at the time Bush was reportedly helping Adolf Lundin, Barrick's sometime industry rival. Africa specialist Patrick Smith of London disclosed that Bush called Mobutu in 1996 to help cinch a deal for Lundin for a mine distant from Barrick's.

Rebellion against Mobutu made the mine site unusable, though not for the company's lack of trying. In testimony in hearings convened by the minority leader of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights, expert Wayne Madsen alleged that Barrick, to curry favor with both sides, indirectly funded both and thereby inadvertently helped continue the bloody conflict. The allegation, by respected journalist Wayne Madsen, has not been substantiated: The truth is lost somewhere in the jungle, where congressional investigators will never tread.

Though Barrick struck out in Indonesia and the Congo, the big payoff came from the other side of the continent. The company's president bragged to shareholders that the prestige of the Mulroney-Bush advisory board was instrumental in obtaining one of the biggest goldfields in East Africa at Bulyanhulu, Tanzania. Barrick, according to its president, had hungered for that concession—holding an estimated $3 billion in bullion—since the mid-1990s, when it first developed its contacts with managers at Sutton Resources, another Canadian company, which held digging rights from the government. (See footnote 1.) Enriched by the Nevada venture, Barrick could, and eventually would, buy up Sutton. But in 1996, there was a problem with any takeover of Sutton: Tens of thousands of small-time prospectors, "jewelry miners," so called because of their minuscule finds, already lived and worked on the land. These poor African diggers held legal claim stakes to their tiny mine shafts on the property. If they stayed, the concession was worthless.

In August 1996, Sutton's bulldozers, backed by military police firing weapons, rolled across the goldfield, smashing down worker housing, crushing their mining equipment and filling in their pits. Several thousand miners and their families were chased off the property. But not all of them. About fifty miners were still in their mine shafts, buried alive.

Buried alive. It's not on Bush's resume, nor on Barrick's Web site. You wouldn't expect it to be. But then, you haven't found it in America's newspapers either.

There are two plausible explanations for this silence. First, it never happened; the tale of the live burials is a complete fabrication of a bunch of greedy, lying Black Africans trying to shake down Sutton Resources (since 1999, a Barrick subsidiary). That's what Barrick says after conducting its own diligence investigation and relying on local and national investigations by the Tanzanian government. And the company's view is backed by the World Bank. See Chapter 8 of my book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" for more on this.[2]

There's another explanation: Barrick threatens and sues newspapers and human rights organizations that dare to breathe a word of the allegations—even if Barrick's denials are expressed. I know: They sued my papers, the Observer and Guardian. Barrick even sent a letter to the internationally respected human rights lawyer Tundu Lissu, a fellow at the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, outlining its suit against the Observer and warning that it would take "all necessary steps" to protect its reputation should the Institute repeat any of the allegations. Barrick's threats are the least of Lissu's problems. For supplying me with evidence—photos of a corpse of a man allegedly killed by police during the clearance of the mine site, notarized witness statements, even a police video of workers seeking bodies from the mine pits—and for Lissu's demanding investigation of the killings, his law partners in Dar es Salaam have been arrested and Lissu charged by the Tanzanian government with sedition.

In 1997, while Bush was on the board (he quit in 1999), Mother Jones magazine named Barrick's chairman Munk one of America's "10 Little Piggies"—quite an honor for a Canadian—for allegedly poisoning the West's water supply with the tons of cyanide Barrick uses to melt mountains of ore.

Notably, one of the first acts of the junior Bush's Interior Department in 2001 was to indicate it would reverse Clinton administration rules requiring gold extractors to limit the size of waste dumps and to permit new mines even if they were likely to cause "substantial, irreparable harm." The New York Times ran a long, front-page story on this rule-relaxing windfall for Nevada goldmining companies, but nowhere did the Times mention the name of the owner of the largest gold mine in Nevada, Barrick, nor its recent payroller, the president's father.

[1] Barrick has responded to every allegation reported in my first report on the company in a manner certain to get my attention: The company and its chairman sued my papers, Guardian and the Observer. While I have a distaste for retort by tort, I have incorporated their legitimate concerns to ensure their views are acknowledged in Chapter 8 of my book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy"

[2] A bit of confusion here: Barrick swore to my paper that the alleged killings "related to a time years before [Barrick] had any connection whatsoever with the company to which the report referred." Yet Barrick's president and CEO, Randall Oliphant, told Barrick's shareholders that prior to their acquisition of Sutton, "we followed the progress at Bully (i.e., Bulyanhulu) for five years, remaining in close contact with the senior management team." That would connect them to the mine in 1994. The mining company wants me to report their version of events. Okay, here's both of them.


Greg Palast is an investigative reporter for BBC television and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin/Plume 2003). You can read more of Greg's writings and order the book at www.gregpalast.com.

 

[Asha Abdala]

In The Joker’s Wild: Dubya’s Trick Deck, award-winning investigative journalist and author of the New York Times best seller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy Greg Palast gets to the bottom of the crooked hand we’ve been dealt and plays the slim suit that could save us. Reading this oversized deck of real playing cards, which feature original research, will amaze you, infuriate you, and make you laugh out loud. Or strike up a game for a whole new twist on gin Rummy.

With striking, hilarious, full-color original art by Robert Grossman on each card, The Joker’s Wild gives the lowdown on the cast of high-priced back-scratchers that brought our mis-leader to power, paving Dubya’s way to the White House with hefty campaign funds, lucrative insider trading tips, and sleights of hand that cancelled thousands of ballots.

Meet the Billionaire Clubs, a suit stuffed with ceos and top campaign contributors. Grossman brings us the menacing mugs of the folks behind Walmart and Wackenhut, Enron and Exxon, corporate cronies who hedge their bets, back both parties, and get their hands dirty everywhere from Venezuela—colluding with plotters of a coup—to here at home—spying on you.

The Diamonds glitter with a list of characters that reads like the black book of a Texan prince. Get the score on George’s friends, international bigwigs from Pakistani potentate Musharraf to former Canadian head of state–cum–gold baron, Mulroney. In George’s world, action figures come to life as the governor of the Golden State, nightly news men fall in line in the service of W., and a sheepish leader of the pack polishes his runner-up speech before the ballots are in.

Shadowy aces emerge from the suit of Spades, the -behind-the-scenes players on Team Bush. We’ll see James Baker, who “fixed the election in Florida for George Bush”; meet the fairy godsheik who bailed out the Texan’s dud exploration company to the tune of millions; and catch up with that former director of the cia and traveling salesman serving greater Arabia whom Dubya calls Pop.

With Hearts, Palast and Grossman play their best hand, packing the suit with profiles in courage from around the globe—Oscar Olivera, the man who took on Bechtel in Bolivia and won; Amy Goodman, the media exception to the rulers; Tundu Lissu, the Tanzanian environmentalist who socked it to Daddy Bush; and Joe Stiglitz, World Bank-er turned global justice advocate.

The game seems fixed, but even Dubya’s Trick Deck has its surprises—it takes only one suit to flush the royals.

 

[Asha Abdala]

Mtanzania:

Uko wapi? Ulitaka nikupe wasifu wa Tundu Lissu katika siasa na harakati na jinsi ambavyo ameisaidia Tanzania. Nimekumwagia mambo yote hapa, kazi kwako. Kucheka au kulia zote ni keleleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Asha

 

[Profesy]

Nice research indeed.

 

[Sangarara]

Thanks alot Asha Abdala

I know lots of shit is going to happen in Lindi and Mtwara in the due time, I hope they have been kind enough during the laying down of gas pipeline, wait, this one is in the hands of the black haired ones right?

 

[Kavunja]

Tunaomba watanzania wazalendo tumuunge mkono tundu lisu juu ya hili.