throughout the countryside, caused massive environmental damage and has been linked to serious human rights abuses. The legacy from abandoned mines and the operation of existing ones continue to negatively affect the livelihoods of many thousands of poor Filipinos. These effects are particularly detrimental to the Philippines indigenous peoples. Over 800 extrajudicial killings have been reported since 2001. Disturbingly, a number of these are believed to be directly linked to protests against mining. The current plans for a major expansion of the mining industry – some involving British companies - will seriously exacerbate all of these problems.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has called for the country’s 1995 Mining Act to be repealed and for plans for a massive expansion of mining in the country to be shelved. At the January launch in London of a report into mining – ‘Mining in the Philippines - Concerns and Conflict’ - a letter to the launch was read out from Bishop Zacarias Jimenez of Butuan, chair of the Episcopal Commission on Indigenous People, in which he indicated that he saw transnational mining companies as bringing “empty promises of progress and development”.

Other useful websites:
www.columban.com,
www.piplinks.org,

Anglo American under fire in South Africa

Phillipos Dolo travelled to the AGM from South Africa to confront Anglo American over the way the company has treated people in the area where he lives. Anglo Platinum, which is 70 percent owned by Anglo American, is creating the world’s biggest open cast platinum mine near Mokopane in Limpopo province. “The mine bosses are destroying our community and turning the whole area into a rural slum,” Phillipos said. “It produces fortunes for them, but terrible poverty for us”. He complained that when people have tried to resist they face beatings, fines, jail and constant harassment. “My own family used to have land that my mother, father and two sisters worked on to grow food to survive” he said, “but the company seized this land and gave us no compensation”. Some 17,000 people have now been relocated through a mixture of bribes and violence.