Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 11:02:08 +0200
<http://www.spyghana.com/world-news/inside-africa/> Inside Africa-Mining in
Africa
October 12, 2014-
The small east African country of Eritrea has started a mining industry and
is doing it right. To start with Eritrea is receiving 40% of the profits
generated by its first gold/copper mine.
Compare this to Tanzania where Anglo-American mining company operates one of
the worlds largest gold mines and pays a whopping 4% royalty to the
government.
Thanks to Wikileaks we know that the USA forced sanctions against Eritrea
through the UN Security Council in 2009, not to punish Eritrea for allegedly
supporting "terrorism" (i.e. Al Shabab in Somalia) but in an attempt to
sabotage the start of Eritrea's mining industry.
40% vs. 4%? Small wonder that Eritrea's deal threatens western interests for
if the rest of Africa takes note and begins to follow suit in the deals cut
allowing exploitation of the continents resources Pax Americana and its
vassals are facing a serious problem.
Mining is a dirty, dangerous industry which inevitably scars the land and
leaves behind massive amounts of cyanide and acid polluted slurry. Any
country starting a mining industry has to face up to whether mining is a
blessing or a curse.
Unfortunately small, war and climate change ravaged countries like Eritrea
badly need foreign currency to pay for medicines, fuel, machinery and to
help pay for building the infrastructure colonialism failed to provide.
When Eritrea won its independence on the battle field in 1991 there was no
national electric grid. Most of the people had no access to clean drinking
water, medical care or education for their children. While major advances
have been made in providing these basic human rights to Eritrea's people
much, much more needs to be done and
developing the mining industry is an immediate answer.
Still, once Eritrea's first mine runs out of ore it faces a major problem in
dealing with the mines "tailings pond", actually a massive reservoir of
cyanide and acid polluted water, the by product of the process used to
extract the gold and base metals from the ore. We are talking about hundreds
of thousands of barrels of "slurry", toxic and very, very difficult to
treat.
In most of Africa, in the rest of the world really, the multinational mining
barons just walk away from this problem, taking their super profits with
them. This is not going to happen in Eritrea. First of all the "tailings
pond" has to be built right. A densely compacted base of gravel is laid
down, similar to a heavy duty road
bed and then covered with not one, but two layers of acid resistant rubber.
Once the mine has exhausted the ore bearing rock the best solution presently
available is to cap the "tailings pond" with a layer of rock and absorbent
earth which acts like a sponge, soaking up rainwater during the rainy season
which later evaporates under the scorching east African sun.
This prevents the water from reaching the toxic slurry and prevents it from
overflowing and seeping out into the ground water. Bore holes down slope are
monitored to test if any of the slurry is leaking and can be used to pump
back into the capped "tailings pond" any leakage, god forbid.
Compare this to the all to common practice of abandoning the tailings ponds,
leaving them to burst their banks during major floods and polluting the
surrounding lands and waterways with toxic slurry for many many decades to
come.
Eritrea is doing mining right, yet is being condemned by reports in the
western media that can only be termed malicious. To start with there have
been a series of stories claiming that Eritrea uses "slave labor" to build
its mines.
A closer reading reveals that what is actually going on is that members of
Eritrea's national service program are helping construct the mines.
In Eritrea everyone is required to complete their national service
obligation. Most of the country's school teachers are in the national
service program along with many of our nurses, medical technicians as well
as our troops at the front defending the country from Ethiopian invasion. To
say that being a member of the national service program is tantamount to
"slave labor" is to say that most of our teachers are "slave labor"?
Still, this matter obviously needed more investigation and over the last few
years I tracked down half a dozen national service members who have helped
build Eritrea's first mine, the Bisha gold and copper mine. First of all,
they all verified their work at Bisha by showing me photos on their mobile
phones of them actually working at Bisha.
All of them, while not being happy with the very small salaries paid
national service members, were proud of the work they had done helping build
Eritrea's first mine. They knew that the foreign currency the mine would
bring in was badly needed and that their contributions would really help the
country.
When I asked them if they ever considered themselves to be "slave labor"
they were rather insulted. In contrast, none of the reports claiming the use
of slave labor in Eritrea's mining industry could provide any proof that
those persons they interviewed every worked at the Bisha gold mine let alone
were actually anything other than
national service members. Today the Chinese are constructing a new mine, the
Zara Gold mine, and members of the Eritrean national service program are
participating. I know one of them, Tseggai Asmerom, who is a surveyor at the
site and in the national service program. Tseggai says the work is hard, the
sun is hot but he actually enjoys it and is proud of his contribution. Of
course he wishes his salary was larger, but that is another story.
Like I have said, Eritrea is doing mining right and the rest of Africa would
be well served to take notice. As for those outside maligning our new
industry, it would serve your readers well if you would do your homework
first and report reality on the ground here for a change.
Source:
Thomas C. Mountain has been living and writing from Eritrea since
2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at g mail dot com
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mining firms
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