Minutes before Barrick Gold’s annual general meeting was about to start, a spontaneous flash mob emerged from the food court at the entrance of the Hockey Hall of Fame, where Barrick’s meeting was set to take place. The flash mob was coordinated by Protest Barrick, a campaign with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network that has organized annual protests at Barrick’s Gold’s shareholders meetings for 12 years. The action brought attention to communities in the Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, and Tanzania.
People's Mic Script: (first part did not make video)
Barrick Gold
is harming communities
who live next to where
Barrick mines their wealth
In Porgera, Papua New Guinea
they dump mine waste
directly into river systems
a practice banned in almost every country
in the world
Here, people do not have access
to clean water
Barrick Mine Sites
in PNG and Tanzania
are militarized sites
where locals are killed and raped
by mine security
These victims
have no access
to equitable remedy
even though these abuses
are well documented
by amnesty international
harvard and colombia law schools
mining watch Canada
and many more
In the Dominican Republic
villagers live in fear
of the tailings dam collapsing
on 600 families
They say the water is already
leaching from this dam
They say that a haze from the mine
smells foul and gives them headaches and nausea
it irritates their eyes and makes their throats sore
In both the Dominican Republic and Papua New Guinea
Their main demand is to be resettled away from the mine
Is that so much to ask?
To be moved away from the land with gold
to land that can be farmed and raise animals on
like they did before Barrick arrived?
The worst part is
We do not need gold
We can use recycled gold
for everything we need
but yet
they abuse the lives of entire communities
they dewater streams and destroy environments
they create huge dumps of granulated waste
that will leach toxins for hundreds of years
Barrick Gold does this
They must be stopped
