The Price of Gold
Introduction
During their visit to Ghana in November 2005, Inter Pares staff Caroline Boudreau and Eric Chaurette visited citizens' groups in the towns of Prestea and Kenyasi to learn more about how communities have been affected by gold mining and how they are organizing to defend their rights. The visit was led by Abdulai Darimani, from the Environment Unit at Third World Network-Africa, a longtime Inter Pares counterpart.
The first thing that strikes us as we enter Prestea, a town of 40,000 located in southwestern Ghana, is the tall mountain that overshadows it. As we walk towards the mountain, we can see that this is no ordinary mountain, but is in fact a gigantic pile of tailings. The surface mine lies in the heart of Prestea, where the central market used to be. The post office and local police station have also been relocated. "We are afraid they may even come into our bedroom to mine" says Alhaji, a leader of the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea. He is referring to a Canadian mining company operating a surface gold mine in the centre of Prestea.
Commercial gold mining is nothing new to this region, where it has been practiced for nearly 100 years. But whereas gold was once extracted underground by boring a complex network of shafts, today it is extracted in the open by blasting. The shift from underground mining to surface mining came in 2002, when the mine was purchased by a subsidiary of a Canadian company. The company's management decided that underground mining was too costly, so switched to the much cheaper surface mining.
This decision has transformed the quiet town of Prestea into a living hell. Large trucks speed through town, and blasting occurs several times a day causing structural damage to buildings, and deteriorating air and water quality, as well as the quality of life and safety of residents. People live in constant fear that they will be driven from their homes and there is a growing climate of mistrust, with community members accusing one another of accepting bribes from the company to provide intelligence on local citizens' groups. When residents decided enough was enough and organized a protest, soldiers were ordered to control the crowd using tear gas and rubber bullets. When this failed, they shot protesters with live ammunition. Seven people were injured, two of them seriously.
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| Reviewed July 31, 2009 |  |
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