The Try-Works

Don’t believe me?  Ask the Denver Post editorial board.  Or, if you don’t believe them, try the Rocky’s.  Still confused on the issue?  Never the swiftest player on the field, David Harsanyi chimes in.

Is there anything quite as cringe-inducing as watching over-paid, under-read newspaper hacks attempt to wax philosophical in times of crisis?  Here’s a thought: when inexplicable shit happens, whyn’t you refrain from visiting us with a second inexplicable horror by attempting to explicate on said event?

Y’know, instead of bludgeoning your readership with the kind of half-baked platitudes that’d make Maya Angelou drive a railroad spike through her temple.

The Denver Post has been running a typically stupid series about the lack of law enforcement in “Indian Country,” entitled “Lawless Lands”. It’s what you’d expect from the Post: short on fact, and, as exemplified in the following, long on cliché and titillating blame-the-victim mentality.

Navajo society straddles both old and new: The tribe has one of Indian Country’s most advanced judicial systems but one of its worst prison systems. Women adorned in sweeping traditional skirts swish through the doors at Wendy’s, their faces deeply creased by the desert sun.

A small offshoot set away from the main reservation, the enclave of To’hajiilee (pronounced Toe-hajee-lay) just west of Albuquerque is in many ways typical. At the end of 5 miles of deteriorating road, it dissolves into clusters of villages organized along clan lines and fiercely private.

But the peaceful veneer is deceptive. Alcoholism and drug use are chronic, and from that stems crime that is at once brutal and intimate - often committed by family members, but certainly among people who know each other: Rape. Bloody beatings. The physical and sexual assault of children.

The rest.

I love how, for all its focus on crime on reservations, the Denver Post never once mentions the ongoing crime at the heart of the extreme poverty on US reservations: the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars from the poorest people on the continent by the Department of the Interior. That one must’ve fucking slipped by them.

But perhaps more reprehensible is Michael Riley’s attempt to sum up the Major Crimes Act, one of many attempts to “pulverize” — to paraphrase T. Roosevelt — the sovereignty of Indian nations.

Much of the law that governs America’s Indian lands starts with a trade-off.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, tribal chiefs signed treaties giving away their rights over vast stretches of territory, and in turn the federal government took on specific obligations. Much of Indian Country policy since has been an effort to resolve the inevitable tensions: the federal government as guardian of Indian interests versus the tribes’ view of themselves as sovereign peoples.

Nowhere is the myth of sovereignty so apparent as the sphere of justice. Shocked that the murderer of a Brule Sioux chief was set free under tribal custom, Congress in 1885 gave the federal courts power to prosecute the most serious crimes in Indian Country, declaring that many Indians would “be civilized a great deal sooner by being put under (federal) laws.”

The rest.

Hmm, wonder where those “tribes” got that ridiculous idea that they’re “sovereign peoples”? Wonder where that “myth of sovereignty” came from”

What, have they been reading the US Constitution again?

Fucking idiot.

I love the snide tone and the heavy handed paternalistic racism. Especially from a gentleman who seems wholly ignorant of the issues at play.

I know the lay-offs have been trying over there on Colfax, but good Christ, they needn’t sink to letting recently lobotomized Klan members pen their articles.

Have you ever fucking written an editorial wherein you decided the free speech at issue was, like, free speech?  Ever?

I’m just curious.  Because I’d like one of you Constitutional geniuses to sit down with me sometime and explain the logic behind your line of horseshit.

Colorado State University student editor J. David McSwane got the attention of thousands, maybe millions, of readers with his simple four-word editorial last week in the Rocky Mountain Collegian newspaper. As you probably know, it read: “Taser this … (Expletive) Bush.”

Give him points for being concise and direct - two ingredients of an award-winning editorial. And give him mad props, or whatever lingo the college kids are using these days, for its effectiveness.

But it’s hardly worth defending.

McSwane, who intentionally set the firestorm, says he was merely trying to stoke an important conversation on an otherwise apathetic campus. Now the arsonist is being swallowed by those very flames. But hey, kid, they’re talking about ya, and isn’t that always the goal?

Like all provocateurs, including Ward Churchill, McSwane has now wrapped himself in the Constitution. (He’s lawyered up, too - another great American tradition. And, surprise, he even picked Churchill’s lawyer.)

“Our judgment is certainly being challenged, but if standing by quietly while free speech is scorned on a college campus is a step in the right direction, you’ll find the Editorial Board and me skipping in the opposite direction,” he said in an early statement.

But this isn’t really about free speech. The Constitution protects our right to use unpopular words and to print unpopular thoughts, and few people quibble with that. This is really about college kids trying to stir it up, and not knowing their boundaries.

The rest.

How the fuck are using unpopular words and printing unpopular thoughts not about free speech?  I’m curious.  And, whyn’t one of you shiteating morons explain to me exactly where the free speech boundaries are?  Are these boundaries in the Constitution?  Can you point them out to me? 

Oh, yeah, and while we’re at it, I know your brand of fucking moron feels a kneejerk obligation to end every one of these slapdash, slipshod editorials with the fallback cliché of middlebrow, two-bit hacks everywhere: “with the First Amendment comes responsibility,” but would you mind elaborating?  Where’d you find those responsibilities in the Constitution? 

And how is it not just a feeble, unconsidered attempt by a half-wit newspaper editor to nullify the First Amendment altogether?

Because that’s sure as shit what it sounds like.

Maybe, just maybe, you might ponder that while watching your readership continue its awesome and wonderful plummet towards the big Zero. 

Just got this today.  Funny, Al Lewis has a blog at the Denver Post where he posts correspondence, and for some reason I ain’t seen hide nor hair of this letter.

Wonder why?

Cajamarca, Peru
August 9, 2007

Mr. Al Lewis
Columnist, Denver Post

Dear Mr. Lewis,

I would like to send an open letter to you and to the academic community of the University of Denver.

I have read your column, Not all that Shines is Good (was this the original title?), and I feel only consternation and indignation at the decision of the Dean of the School of International Studies at Denver University to award a prize to the ex-CEO of Newmont, Mr. Wayne Murdy, “for building relationships between Denver and the rest of the world.”  Due to the actions of Newmont, for the rest of the world where this company operates, Denver, Colorado is now seen as the headquarters of the company that destroys our ecosystems, corrupts our societies, threatens our lives, and condemns our people to live in pollution and poverty.

I am a parish priest in Cajamarca, where the Yanacocha Mine operates, the largest gold mine in Latin America, of which Newmont is the principal shareholder.  The majority of my life has been spent studying in different universities in Peru, as well as the Papal Gregorian University in Rome.  My life has been tied to academic work at universities and to pastoral service among the poorest peasants of my diocese, helping them to live in harmony with God, their brothers and sisters, and Nature.  I have always believed that universities are places for searching for knowledge and truth, and ethically I have always felt that “the truth shall set us free” (John 8.32).

So I was completely dumbfounded to hear that Denver University awarded a prize to Mr. Wayne Murdy, who has been responsible not only for the economic success of Newmont, but also for the destruction of habitats and the suffering of so many people in Ghana, Bolivia, Indonesia, and Cajamarca, Peru.

I met Mr. Murdy in two shareholders’ meetings in Denver, which I attended to present a group of demands having to do with violations of human rights and environmental damages that his company is committing in Cajamarca.  On both occasions, Mr. Murdy publicly committed to write letters responding to the demands.  Mr. Murdy lied to us, as he never sent the letters.  On the contrary, his company initiated an espionage operation in 2006 to intimidate and endanger the security of environmental leaders in Cajamarca. And in recent months, we have received death threats, and dirty campaigns have been unleashed against us in many of the media connected to Yanacocha.  Most painful is that three peasant leaders who were defending their water and lands have been killed for opposing Newmont’s expansion of mining activities in Cajamarca (November 2004 in La Zanja, August 2006 in Combayo, and November 2006 in Yanacanchilla.)

Yanacocha removes more than 600 tons of rock daily, it consumes more than 3 million gallons of fuel monthly in the watershed of my region, and it uses immense quantities of cyanide and water for leaching.  The consequences are devastating: lakes, springs, rivers and streams have disappeared, in order to make way for new monstrous mountains for cyanide leaching.  In all of the rivers affected by the mining operations, there have been systematically documented fish deaths.  Hundreds of peasant families have lost their water sources, and many others complain that their livestock have died because they cannot drink the water, or they die from unexplained strange illnesses. As the official health statistics show, so-called environmental illnesses have increased exponentially in the region: dermatitis, conjunctivitis, and respiratory illnesses- all during the same period of time as Newmont’s mining operations.

Of course, Yanacocha has also received awards in Peru: for provision of water, for social responsibility, and also for their work in communication.  All of these awards have been given by associations tied to the government, which is Newmont’s principal ally due to the money and benefits that many times are given to the families of government authorities for jobs or contracts with the company; or in other cases they have been awarded by private associations that receive donations or contributions from the mining company itself.  Personally, I had thought that only in poor countries would important institutions such as universities beg for funds from the companies that then impose conditions on research results.  I know that Denver is a city that has benefited from Newmont’s income.  But should a school in that University forget or turn a blind eye to the fact that a large part of that income comes from the dirty work that Newmont does in the rest of the world?  Even worse, that the School of International Studies awards a prize to Wayne Murdy for “building relationships between Denver and the rest of the world”.  The relationships that poor countries such as Peru would hope for with Denver are relationships of respect, collaboration, and solidarity, and not of lies, exploitation and abuse. As long as American institutions, such as the School of International Studies of Denver University, continue to close their eyes to the reality that Americans’ well-being is achieved at the cost of suffering, pollution, and exploitation of poor countries’ resources, prizes will not be awarded for the goodwill and wisdom of illustrious American citizens in solidarity with the rest of the world, but rather to promote impunity and justify greed, which in our countries translates into more poverty, more corruption, and environmental contamination.

What unpleasant news for the people of Ghana, Indonesia, Bolivia, and Peru to find out that a school at an American university, in exchange for financial support, ends up paying homage to a company such as Newmont, whose history is stained with the suffering of many countries!

Worse, in Cajamarca, Murdy’s award will not be seen as something far removed from our history.  According to the logic of the Dean of the business school at Denver University, certainly Pizarro, the Spanish conqueror, should be awarded a prize because over 500 years ago, also out of greed for gold, he murdered thousands of indigenous people and killed Atahualpa, the Inca ruler, a curious way in which the powerful of the North think they are creating relationships between our countries.  It is unacceptable that a University would be complicit in this.

Sincerely,
Father Marco Arana Zegarra
Recipient of the National Award for Human Rights, Peru

Word also has it that Tom Rowe has responded to Vincent Carroll’s horseshit column (first update).  Anyone wanna take a bet on whether the Rocky Mountain News prints it?

Stay tuned.

I’ve been concentrating on Newmont Mining so hard that I let a couple of other things slip by. One of the biggest was Denver Post hack David Harsanyi’s column about a group that’s near and dear to my heart: Re-create 68.

It being Harsanyi column, it begins with a cringe-inducing joke. Of course.

While many of you have a tendency to romanticize the ’60s, clearly, there are certain events no one wants to relive: Vietnam. Assassinations. Abbie Hoffman.

Keep reading.

Get it? Because, like, Abbie Hoffman’s as bad as Vietnam! Well, except maybe for those couple of million dead Indo-Chinese . . .

Anyway, somebody ought to send Harsanyi a memo: according to our fearless leader, we are reliving Vietnam. And, guess what? We’re still the fucking bad guys.

Anyway, following the lame joke, there came an equally lame attempt at, like, constructing an argument.

Re-create 68 claims to be anti-war, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, and though all of it is framed in boilerplate freshman-year Marxist inanity, like any other group they deserve all the protections provided by the First Amendment.

But they don’t deserve exclusive perks.

Keep reading.

Funny, as I understand it, all the gentle(wo)men at Re-create 68 are asking is exactly that their First Amendment rights be protected. The last time I read the Constitution, there were those nifty little right to assemble and freedom of speech bits. I don’t remember the fucking amendment that added, “as long as it’s in a designated Free Speech area.”

See, Mr. Harsanyi, the problem with Free Speech areas is they seem to indicate the First Amendment is null and void outside them. Something which should, methinks, have Thomas Jefferson clawing his way out of his tomb any night now to gnaw out your fucking throat.

As I said here, no one with a fucking sliver of self-respect would file willingly into one of those barb-wired pig-pens where shitbirds like you would cage protestors. The concept is a fucking abomination.

Re-create 68 has every right to demand their Constitutional rights. And they have every right to exercise them, no matter what you, the mayor, or the Denver Police Department thinks about it. You don’t get a say.

These are Constitutional rights, and just because you and the city of Denver are willing to violate them at the drop of a hat, doesn’t make them any the less rights. It just makes the Denver city council fucking hypocrites in that they purport to hold their citizenry to laws to which they don’t adhere. And considering you claim yourself a conservative, it makes you, Mr. Harsanyi, a fucking liar.

Update: Only a drooling idiot would take Denver PD’s word on their dedication to Constitutional principles, by the way. That should go without saying.

(New readers: I haven’t repeated all the backstory on this protest, but you can find all you like here.)

As I said yesterday, the Newmont Mining protest went swimmingly. It was good rough, lively fun. As long as you weren’t one of the Korbel Dinner guests, that is. From what I could tell, the guests were having no fucking fun at all, and my money is that the Marriott will never, and I mean never, host anything like this again.

Western Shoshone elder Carrie Dann received her award. Graduates of the University of Denver’s Graduate School in International Studies burned their degrees. Newmont Mining stockholders burned their stock certificates. And a gorgeous puppet of Wayne Murdy was given a citation.

(You can’t see the lady walking ahead of the puppet, but she’s wearing signs that read “Pimp that School!” and “Hey! We’re Talking $$$ Here!” and leading Mr. Murdy’s doppleganger with a carrot. An allusion to Tom Farer’s singularly stupid explanation for giving a serial human rights violator a humanitarian award.)

But the most effective tactic, as alluded to above, was the hectoring of the shindig’s attendees. They were ravaged, starting as they waited at a dead stop in a line of cars to unload, where protestors were assailing them through the car-windows with a litany of Newmon Mining abuses, and giving ’em holy hell for taking part in, as one commenter put it, “Eichmannalooza.” (Catchy, no?) Then, of course, they had to totter from their luxury cars into the Marriott. Over-dressed, incredibly-quaffed, pinch-mouthed, upper crust shitbirds, just begging for ridicule.

And, oh boy, did they get it.

There was the rather restrained, but always effective, “you should be ashamed of yourselves,” but there were also a few, shall we say, more vigorous folks. Some of the best lines I heard:

“Newmont Mining poisons people for money. Hey, do you think we could pay the Marriott to do the same?”

“How’s about we throw Wayne Murdy off a bridge? How’s about we throw Madeleine Albright off an even bigger bridge?”

“How’s about we feed a cyanide cocktail to your kids?”

“You guys should read Ward Churchill. He’d scare the hell out of you, because you’re,” then after a dramatic pause, in a wonderful game-show announcer’s voice, “little Eichmanns!”

And, my favorite, at a woman in a ridiculous hat that looked something like a very large rat eating a partridge, “holy shit, look at that hat! You look like a little Eichmann train wreck!”

If nothing else, the Marriott paid in spades for its Director of Event Planning, Joe Humerickhouse’s, cowardice and servility. I doubt there was a Marriott guest during the four-hour protest that wasn’t really, really wishing they’d stayed somewhere, anywhere else. (Nor, for that matter, a Marriott employee that wouldn’t rather have been working anywhere else.) It was an excellent example of the ways in which, with only a megaphone and a vicious sense of humor, non-corporate entities — meaning, people — can bring their own kind of pressure.
(The goon in the suit is, of course, Omar Jabara, Newmont Mining PR hack. The young man with the bullhorn is Nick Brown of the delightful Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement - Denver. Mr. Brown was responsible for the vast majority of the great one-liners hurled at the Eichmannalooza attendees.)

Needless to say, the $500-a-plate crowd entered the Marriott flustered, red-face and muttering to themselves. Just as funny was the contingent of Denver’s finest who just stood there fuming and purpling.

One enterprising businessman stalked over to make his outrage at being called a “little Eichmann” known. Unfortunately for him, he picked Glen Morris of Colorado AIM to vent on. Mr. Morris takes no shit, and didn’t take any from this gentleman. He laid into him, running down a whole litany of things he was rather outraged by. Like, say, a fucking butcher being awarded a humanitarian award. Needless to say, Mr. Morris had the gentlemen walking on his own tongue before their lively discourse ended.

Then, as if we weren’t having enough fun, Omar Jabara, Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations for Newmont Mining, came out and made a horseshit pretense of taking the concerns of the protestors seriously for the local media.

The highlight of that exchange came from the Ghanan WACAM representative Awon Atuire, who told Mr. Jabara in no uncertain terms that he’d like him to get out of his country and stop killing his people. Predictably, Mr. Jabara protested that Newmont Mining worked with many Ghanan leaders. To which Mr. Atuire responded, “And you know what those people are? They’re slave traders. And so are you.” That shut Mr. Jabara down fairly effectively.

All in all, it was a gas. Oh, and I didn’t get to meet Madeleine Albright, but Al Lewis of the Denver Post introduced himself. It happened while Carrie Dann was speaking. There were a group of protestors still hanging around Mr. Jabara, arguing with him. I’ve never thought much of the concept of trying to argue with little Eichmanns. You can’t educate them. They know what they’re doing, they just consider their own financial gain, how shall I put it, worth the cost. As such, it seemed to me that these folks might be better served listening to Carrie Dann. I walked over and told them as much. Al Lewis, who was following Mr. Jabara around dutifully all evening, kind of grinned and turned around, held out his hand and introduced himself.

I actually asked him later why he was following the Newmont Mining flack around all night, and he protested that he was a journalist. So I asked him why he wasn’t getting the other side. He asked me if I’d read his first article. I said I had, and that it was pretty good. He said, “wait until you see the next one, dude.”

I have no idea what that means. Could be he’s decided to go hard pro-Newmont as we so offended him, or it could be that the next article’ll be much tougher on them. But I told him I’d reserve judgment, and I will.

Update: Vincent Carroll has weighed in on Wayne Murdy’s award, castigating Tom Rowe for his guest editorial in the Denver Post. It’s a shoddy piece of work by even Mr. Carroll’s usual standards. The predictable Indian hating whopper comes here:

“In North America,” Rowe writes, “Newmont operates on Western Shoshone lands without their permission, damaging the environment and paying no royalties to the tribe for taking their resources.”

Wouldn’t a scholar interested in fairness have mentioned that this mining land, while claimed by the Western Shoshones under a 19th century treaty, is in fact among holdings of the federal Bureau of Land Management, as Newmont has repeatedly pointed out? Isn’t it more than a tiny bit inflammatory to suggest to readers that Newmont is simply occupying tribal lands as a rogue multinational?

If Rowe sympathizes with the Western Shoshone and considers Newmont’s behavior atrocious, so be it. Make the case. But at least acknowledge that the mining property is, say, within “ancestral Western Shoshone lands,” as less biased activists do.

Keep reading.

Speaking of playing fast and loose with the facts, these are “ancestral Western Shoshone lands,” sure, but they’re also lands guaranteed the Western Shoshone by the Treaty of Ruby Valley. It’s the only agreement ever signed by the US government and the Western Shoshone, and the land granted therein has never been ceded. The Bureau of Land Management can claim to own anything they like — hell, I can claim to own Vincent Carroll’s house, that doesn’t make it mine — but the Ruby Valley Treaty is the law. And, as we all know from Article VI of the US Constitution, them treaties are the supreme law of the land.

As always, I’m a little awestruck by Mr. Carroll’s casual contempt for the US Constitution, not to mention those principles of property rights he’s always on about. A little awestruck, but never surprised. As we all know from long experience, any pretense of principle goes out that Colfax window when Mr. Carroll gets an opportunity to express his pathological hatred of Indians.

Update II: RAIMD’s recap of events is up. They got to see Madeleine Albright. Motherfuckers. I’ve been hating Ms. Albright since they were playing cops and Assata with AK-47 squirt guns. (Yeah, I’m old.) Anyway, more good stuff from Mr. Brown and all those positively charming lads and lasses whom I hope and pray we shall be hearing from for a long time to come. Read it.

Update III: Slapstick Politics and The Legend of Pine Ridge are shocked and offended that I’ve endorsed Newmont Mining’s methods be applied to people who aren’t brown and poor. Being that they don’t seem like the quickest pair of guns in the right-wing blogosphere, I’ll point out the obvious: if poisoning people’s kids is terrorism when advocated by leftist cat-callers, then it’s sure as shit terrorism when actually fucking done by corporations. If you don’t like the logic, press for an end to terrorism. I’d start with, as the folks at RAIMD have so eloquently put it, tossing Wayne Murdy and Madeleine Albright off a bridge.

Update IV: Snapple’s been working overtime. All my life I’ve pined for some lunatic stalker, and I’ve finally found him (or her). Now if only he could find it within himself to manage an accidental lobotomy while chewing on his pencil.

Update V: Al Lewis’ promised article is up. It’s kind of revealing, in that Al Lewis indicates he considers Newmont Mining flack Omar Jabara a fucking liar, right before slobbering all over him and buying the poor dear a drink. It’s shit, of course. The kind of shit that would get any reporter in any respectable newspaper reassigned to suburban pie-baking contests. Luckily for Mr. Lewis, he doesn’t work for a respectable newspaper.

The only interesting tidbit comes in Mr. Lewis’ professed terror of the protesters. And that he didn’t even bother asking Carrie Dann for comment. I guess I’m one of the people with “menacing stares” who “hassled him” until he identified himself. I don’t believe I was rude to the tender soul, I just wanted to know why he was following a fucking Newmont Mining PR flack around, and entirely ignoring folks like Carrie Dann who have to live with the consequences of Newmont Mining’s actions.

The answer now seems obvious: he’s Omar Jabara’s media counterpart: a chickenshit flack, who, as he put it, didn’t dare “look her in the face.”

Which was probably a wise move.

They’ve finally printed Tom Rowe’s letter. In a redacted form. With a biography that overlooks Mr. Rowe’s being a former dean of the department. But, hell, what’re you gonna do?

The University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) tonight will award Wayne Murdy, chairman of Newmont Mining Corp., the International Bridge Builders Award. This conflicts with the school’s long-standing tradition of concern with advancing the rights of marginalized and oppressed individuals and groups.

Tom Farer, the dean of the school, has justified the award with the argument that Murdy has pushed Newmont toward greater social responsibility. In reality, however, Newmont’s operations on the ground do not measure up to the values to which the company claims to be committed.

The majority of the permanent faculty members at the GSIS have opposed the award on the grounds that the commitment to human rights and social responsibility seems to be mainly for public relations.

Since he served for years as CEO and chairman of Newmont, Murdy must bear responsibility for what the corporation does as well as what it says. We have had enough cases of senior leaders receiving awards while misbehavior is blamed on subordinates.

At Newmont’s Yanacocha mine in Peru, ongoing controversies have produced widespread violence and intimidation of critics of the company’s operations. Newmont could do much more to stop the violence. A recent publication from the World Resources Institute uses Newmont’s mine in Peru as a case study of what corporations should not do if they want to operate effectively and fairly within local communities.

In Indonesia, controversy continues to swirl around the environmental damage to Buyat Bay and the health consequences for local villagers. In Ghana, thousands of local farmers have been displaced and traditional livelihoods destroyed by Newmont’s mining operations, and local activists contend that Newmont works with local authorities to mistreat and imprison critics.

In North America, Newmont operates on Western Shoshone lands without their permission, damaging the environment and paying no royalties to the tribe for taking their resources.

In all of these cases, Newmont says it operates in accordance with local laws, which may be true. But evidence suggests a much too cozy relationship with local governments and officials. Moreover, if Newmont were really committed to behaving responsibly, it could simply do the right thing, whether legally required to do so or not.

It is at best premature for the GSIS to give any award to Murdy or Newmont. At Newmont’s shareholders’ meeting this spring, because of the controversies, it was decided there needed to be an independent study of Newmont’s operations and their impact on local communities. To advance the cause of corporate social responsibility, the GSIS ought at least to await the conclusions of that review before giving plaudits to anyone.

If the GSIS is truly concerned with advancing human rights, there are more appropriate people to honor than the chief executive of a huge corporation that has disrupted the lives of individuals and communities around the world.

One possibility might be Carrie Dann, the Western Shoshone activist who will be honored tonight by groups protesting the GSIS award to Murdy. She is a courageous woman who has fought for years for the rights of American Indians against the U.S. government and mining companies, including Newmont.

Another worthy honoree might be Mirtha Vasquez Chuquilin, who has been threatened with rape and murder for her work in Peru on behalf of communities protesting Newmont’s operations.

Still another might be Masnellyarti Hilman, the deputy minister of environment in Indonesia and Newmont’s nemesis there because of her accusations of terrible environmental damage at Buyat Bay. (She was educated at the Colorado School of Mines.)

These and other unsung activists who struggle on a daily basis for human rights and a decent environment, often at great sacrifice, are those who truly carry the burden of change and improvement. They may not be wealthy or individually powerful, but they should be recognized and honored for their attempts to build bridges to a better world.

Tom Rowe is an associate professor at DU’s Graduate School of International Studies.

Don’t forget, tonight’s the night. The fun will take place at the Denver Marriott, located at 17th and California, beginning at 6:00.

The Denver Post continues it’s slobber-campaign vis-à-vis Newmont Mining.

Racing down from the mountains in a rented truck, Cecilia Wunderlich on Tuesday hauled 58 boxes of medicine, blankets, clothing, shoes, toothbrushes and more donated by workers in western Colorado for earthquake victims in Peru.

Uprooted by the Aug. 15 quake that killed more than 500, thousands are now settling into camps where aid workers and survivors say they can use any help they can get.

Wunderlich, a preschool director in Silt, grew up in Peru and lived through the Yungay quake three decades ago, which killed 20,000. “I survived one earthquake in 1970. I know what it’s like,” she said. “I know people need help right now.”

Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., which runs a gold mine in Peru, stepped in to transport the aid. When Newmont officials learned Wunderlich was coming Tuesday, they held the latest of three shipments, collected at Peru’s consulate in Denver, for her.

The next loads will move by ship, said Newmont spokesman Omar Jabara. Officials also are working with Project Cure, the Denver-based medical-relief nonprofit, to send more medicine next month.

Keep reading.

Rumor has it, by the way, that the editorial staff has decided to run Tom Rowe’s editorial after all. It should appear in tomorrow’s edition. Which goes a long way towards explaining why, according to my site stats, this post on the subject seems to have been forwarded to half the email inboxes in Denver.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, now and then you can count on the Denver Post to do the right thing. As long as they’ve exhausted all other options.

Well, it seems that my letter to the Denver Post ain’t the only one that the editorial staff has chosen to ignore. Dustin Craun, an independent researcher who has spent time in Ghana investigating Newmont Mining’s impact, provides two more, as follows. The first is from Mr. Craun himself. The second is from Tom Rowe, a former Dean of DU’s Graduate School of International Studies.

Dustin Craun:

In his August, 10 response to Al Lewis’s article about the Newmont Mining corporation, “Not All that Glitters is Good,” Gary R. Krieger writes that, “…our evaluations of Newmont projects in Ghana indicate that the company has been a tremendous force for positive economic and health impact in communities adjacent to the mining operations.” As an independent researcher who traveled to Ghana to evaluate Newmonts impacts on the mining communities in this West African nation in the spring of 2006, I can say that this statement is completely false. Newmont has had a huge impact on the communities I visited near the Ahafo mine in central Ghana, near the city of Kenyase. For starters Newmont removed 10,000 farmers from their land, paid them unfair compensation for the land, and re-settled them in Western style homes, with no access to jobs, or training anywhere in their future. All of the people who I interviewed in Ghana say they are much poorer now then before Newmont came when at least they could grow their own food. As for health issues, there are about 40 communities who were left behind during the relocation and their lands are almost completely surrounded by a lake that Newmont created from a stream, for water usage during the mining. This standing body of water in sub-Saharan Africa has increased malaria rates in the children of these communities to a rate that they reported as 1 incidence in every 3 days, with no access to health care. I encourage the Denver Post to send reporters to Ghana themselves to see the damage this corporation has caused to some of the most economically impoverished people in the world. The University of Denver should be ashamed of itself for giving a person such as Wayne Murdy a humanitarian award.

Dustin Craun

Tom Rowe:

A Questionable Award

On Thursday, August 30, the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS), University of Denver, will honor Wayne Murdy, Chairman of Newmont Mining Corporation, with the International Bridge Builders Award at GSIS’ annual Korbel Dinner. This unfortunate action conflicts with GSIS’ long-standing tradition of concern with advancing the human rights of marginalized and oppressed individuals and groups. The award has been justified by the notion that Murdy has struggled to push Newmont, a company with a deplorable environmental and human rights record and a negative image in many communities around the world, toward greater social responsibility and a greater commitment to human rights. In reality, however, as Murdy moves toward retirement, after 15 years as a senior executive with the company, Newmont’s operations on the ground do not measure up to the values to which it claims to be committed. Having served for years as CEO and Chairman of Newmont, surely Murdy bears some responsibility for what the corporation does as well as what it says. We have had enough cases of senior leaders receiving awards while all misbehavior is blamed on subordinates.

It is true that Newmont, under Murdy’s leadership, now says it accepts some voluntary guidelines for protecting communities, human rights and the environment. The United Nations’ “Global Compact” and the “Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance” are among the agreements. These do not create legal obligations and are not enforceable, so it is difficult to use them to bring real change in corporate behavior. But they do give the appearance of positive measures. Indeed, it is this formal commitment to social responsibility that the Dean of GSIS believes justifies an honor for Murdy, not the actual behavior of the corporation.

The majority of the permanent faculty members at GSIS have opposed the award to Murdy on the grounds that the commitment to human rights and social responsibility seems to be for public relations purposes, since these values are not reflected in Newmont’s operations. In Peru, at Newmont’s Yanacocha mine, on-going controversies and protests have led to widespread violence, intimidation and even murder of critics of Newmont’s operations. A recent publication from the World Resources Institute actually uses Newmont’s mine in Peru as a case study of what corporations should NOT do if they want to operate effectively and fairly within local communities. In Indonesia, as the most recent issue of MOTHER JONES indicates, controversies continue to swirl around the environmental damage to Buyat Bay and health consequences for local villagers. In Ghana, thousands of local farmers have been displaced and traditional livelihoods have been destroyed by Newmont’s mining operations; and local activists contend that Newmont works with local authorities to abuse and imprison critics. In North America, Newmont operates on Western Shoshone lands without their permission, damaging and destroying sacred sites and the environment and paying no royalties to the Western Shoshone for taking their land or resources. In all of these cases, Newmont contends that it operates in accordance with local laws, which may be true. But evidence suggests a much too cozy relationship with local governments and officials. Moreover, if Newmont were really committed to behaving responsibly, it would simply do the right thing, whether legally required to do so or not. Newmont should not use weak laws to justify its own abusive behavior!

For all of these reasons, it is at best premature for GSIS to give any award to Murdy or Newmont. At Newmont’s shareholders’ meeting this spring, it was decided that, because of the widespread controversies and negative reports, there needed to be an independent study made of Newmont’s operations and their impact on local communities. If GSIS wants to advance the cause of social responsibility and human rights protection, it ought at least to await the conclusion of that review.

If GSIS is truly concerned with advancing human rights, protection of the environment and social responsibility, however, there are more appropriate individuals to honor than the chief executive of a huge corporation which has disrupted the lives of individuals and communities around the world. One possibility might be Mirtha Vasquez Chuquilin, who has been threatened with rape and murder for her work in Peru on behalf of communities protesting the operations of Newmont’s Yanacocha mine there. Another might be Carrie Dann, a courageous woman who has fought for years for the rights of American Indians against the US Government and Newmont and other mining companies. She and other activists have received strong support for their efforts from the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States. Still another might be Masnellyarti Hilman, the Deputy Minister of Environment in Indonesia and Newmont’s nemesis there because of accusations of terrible environmental damage to Buyat Bay and the villagers living around that Bay. Ms Hilman studied at the Colorado School of Mines on a US State Department fellowship in the 1990s. Or the honor might go to Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, the Executive Director of WACAM in Ghana, a nonprofit that has struggled to protect the rights of thousands of villagers displaced and inadequately compensated for farmland and forests destroyed to make way for Newmont’s mining.

These and other unsung heroes who struggle on a daily basis for human rights and a decent environment, often at great sacrifice and sometimes even at considerable risk to their lives, are those who truly carry the burden of change and improvement. They may not be wealthy or individually powerful but they are nonetheless those GSIS should be recognizing and honoring for their attempts to build bridges to a better world.

Tom Rowe, Associate Professor, has been a faculty member for 33 years at DU’s Graduate School of International Studies. For 15 of those years, ending in 1996, he served as Associate Dean and then Dean of the School.

Y’know it’s one thing to ignore letters from the likes of me, being as that I’m just your everyday loudmouth. But when the Denver Post’s editorial staff can’t see fit to publish letters from folks with these kind of credentials — even on their letters blog — one starts to wonder if they might have, well, an agenda?

In an earlier post, I noted with interest that the Denver Post editorial staff ran a slavering piece about Newmont Mining’s new boss (same as the old boss) shortly after Al Lewis dared offer mild criticism of Newmont Mining’s practices. And I asked you to connect the dots.

I think I’ll lend a hand.

Think it has anything to do with, say, this idiotic letter from Stuart A. Sanderson, President of the Colorado Mining Association? (Now there’s an organization historically situated to judge the merits of humanitarian effort, don’t you think?) Do read it. Mr. Sanderson, interestingly, seems under no confusion as to Wayne Murdy’s Little Eichmann Award being a humanitarian award, no matter what kind of horseshit DU’s claiming. The biggest whopper, though, comes here:

Mr. Lewis also raised issues relating to the Western Shoshone in Nevada saying that their claims are “remarkably like what cowboys have been doing to Indians for centuries.” Reading that statement one would think Newmont was shooting Native Americans, driving them off of their lands and forcing them onto reservations. Again, Mr. Lewis offers a sensational claim while refusing to provide any supporting evidence.

The Western Shoshone’s claims are against the United States government and the Bureau of Land Management for leasing government lands to natural resource companies, which is part of the BLM’s charter. Mr. Lewis’ characterization trivializes the plight of Native Americans and is demeaning both to their cause as well as to Newmont.

Keep reading.

Sure is nice of Mr. Sanderson to stick up for the Western Shoshone, don’t you think? Too bad the, well, Western Shoshone seem to wholly fucking disagree.

But if that letter doesn’t help you with the Denver Post’s about face, how’s about this one from Laurie A. Harvey, Executive Director of CWEE: Center for Work Education and Employment Denver, who writes in to argue that Newmont Mining is just, like, overflowing with philanthropy.

But the best comes straight from one of the Little Eichmanns, himself. (In full, because it’s so fucking stupid.)

I believe your readers should judge for themselves if Newmont Chairman Wayne Murdy is deserving of the University of Denver’s International Bridge Builders Award. The stated purpose of the award is to recognize people who have “distinguished themselves as builders of ties between Colorado and the world beyond our national frontiers.”

As such, I invite your readers to visit our 2006 sustainability report at: www.BeyondTheMine.com. This report is compiled as part of our ongoing obligations under the United Nations’ Global Compact (www.unglobalcompact.org) and in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative’s guidelines (www.globalreporting.org). In addition, World Monitors Inc. (www.worldmonitors.com) provides independent assurance of the objectivity, materiality and credibility of the report.

Also, I invite your readers to visit the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement of Denver’s Web page describing why they think Wayne Murdy should not receive the award: http://raimd.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/pre-tcd-2-for-1/

Omar Jabara
Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations
Newmont Mining Corporation
Denver

Gee, I wonder why he chose to point readers to the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement of Denver fucking blog, as opposed to say, Oxfam America? Nothing against the RAIMD, I rather like what they do, but I get the sense that Mr. Jabara’s trying to stack the deck just a little.

Anyway, it’s almost like somebody coordinated a letter campaign to the Denver Post, ain’t it? Given the Denver Post’s longstanding reputation for crumbling like a house made of cigarette ash at the slightest breeze of controversy, one can only wonder what other pressures might’ve been brought to bear.

One of our commenters, David, called the University of Denver to express his disgust over their awarding Wayne Murdy, former CEO of Newmont Mining, with anything besides the business end of a horsewhip, and offers this correction to our last post on the subject:

It looks like Murdy is not being nominated for a humanitarian award, but for a “building bridges” award… Between Denver and the rest of the world, no?

I am still appalled by his being nominated for any award, given the behavior of Newmont. But you may want to correct that. The award is called The University of Denver International Bridge Builders Award.

David is absolutely right in the nomenclature of the award, but it sounds to me like waffling on the part of DU. What does an “International Bridge Builder” mean if not a humanitarian? The bridges Mr. Murdy’s known for making across heaps of brown-skinned corpses? Anyway, that seems particularly disingenuous, given that the award is being served up at DU’s annual Korbel Dinner, an event devoted to humanitarianism. And, in his Denver Post article which I linked to here, Al Lewis seems of the same opinion as me, as he also calls it a humanitarian award, even after noting DU’s line of horseshit.

But, I strongly suggest you do what David did, and contact the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies, of which Tom Farer, Wayne Murdy’s nominator, is dean.

Graduate School of International Studies
2201 South Gaylord Street
Denver, CO 80208
USA
303.871.2544

Or, even better, let Tom Farer himself know what you think.

303.871.2539
tfarer@du.edu

Either way, don’t forget to turn out for the protest, next Thursday. If I can find a bronze Eichmann bust, I’ll be presenting Mr. Murdy my own award. And, stay tuned, I’ll be keeping on Newmont all week.

Update: It’s worth noting that, according to Al Lewis’ aforementioned article,

DU’s Daniels College of Business works as a consultant to Newmont, teaching its top executives such subjects as corporate strategy, social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

I’ll let you connect the dots on that one yourself.

Update II: It’s also worth noting that after Al Lewis’ article — the only piece that I’ve found in any of the Denver press to take note of DU’s Eichmannalooza — the Denver Post editorial staff saw fit to run this slobber-job coverage of Newmont Mining’s Eichmann replacement, Richard T. O’Brien. Pay particular attention to the comment on Newmont Mining’s collection of money and sundry items for earthquake relief in Peru. The comment left by Steve Raabe, the Denver Post staff writer who wrote the initial argument.

Again, connect the dots yourself.

(Picture from Shubel Morgan.)

The title is the money quote from a rather good article by Al Lewis on the little Eichmann celebration being planned at DU.

Life is good for Wayne Murdy.

In 6½ years, he built Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. into one of the world’s largest gold producers. During his tenure as CEO, gold soared from about $250 to $665 an ounce.

On June 30, Murdy, 63, retired with a pension valued at $19 million, plus stock and options worth millions more.

Ripping open the earth and extracting its gold is a messy business. It sometimes means dealing with corrupt governments, accidentally spilling cyanide and mercury, destroying traditional livelihoods and displacing the little people from their native lands.

Yet after leading these activities on a global scale, Murdy is about to be honored as a humanitarian.

Murdy has been chosen to receive the University of Denver International Bridge Builders Award at the 10th annual Korbel Dinner, a glitzy fundraiser for DU’s Graduate School of International Studies at the Denver Marriott City Center on Aug. 30.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will give the keynote address. The dinner, after all, is named after her father, Czech diplomat Josef Korbel, who founded the international-studies school and became its first dean. Albright was unavailable for comment for this column.

. . .

“At best it’s ironic and at worst it’s hypocritical for a human-rights program to give an award to Wayne Murdy,” said Glenn Morris, a professor at the University of Colorado at Denver.

Morris, who is also an attorney and sits on the leadership council of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, said he will help organize protests outside the Marriott on Aug. 30. Other groups say they will help organize protests as well.

“During Wayne Murdy’s tenure, we have not seen Newmont take significant steps to address the needs and rights of local communities,” said Paula Palmer, executive director of Global Response, a Boulder-based group that aids people impacted by Newmont’s activities. “I think most of the changes have been on paper.”

. . .

I asked Tom Farer, dean of the international-studies school, if he regretted choosing Murdy.

“Most of my colleagues wish that I hadn’t recommended Murdy … for the award,” he said. “I’ve taken a fair amount of abuse for it.”

Many professors in his department signed a letter asking him to reconsider. But he says he’s willing to take the heat.

Keep reading.

How’s about a new award for Mr. Murdy and Mr. Farer? Think Little Eichmann of the Year is too over the top?