Suriname at risk to pollution and destructive industries.

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Date: May 20, 2004 - 10:27 AM
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
By Greg Brosnan, Reuters



NEW YORK — Indians and tribal peoples in Suriname could face a social and environmental disaster in the near future if the country does not grant them proper land rights, a Surinamese Indian group said Monday.

Some 12,000 Arawak, Carib, Trio, and Wayana Indians and 50,000 Maroons descended from runaway African slaves live in the former Dutch colony of pristine jungles and rivers on the northeastern shoulder of South America. Activists say largely unrestricted mining and logging threaten the livelihood and culture of people with no specific legal rights to the land or natural resources.

"The main problem is the state," Ellen-Rose Kambel, legal advisor to the Association of Village Leaders of Suriname, said during a visit to New York. "In the legal system, indigenous people are completely invisible."

Suriname, a country of 500,000 inhabitants that won independence from the Netherlands in 1975, has long sought to attract foreign miners. Critics say the state gives a dangerously free hand to small-scale prospectors and large international corporations such as Cambior Inc., Alcoa Inc., and BHP Billiton.

Granting Indians and Maroons rights to land and resources was a condition of peace accords that ended a 1986-1992 civil war between Suriname's Jungle Commando rebels and the state.

The United Nations has urged Suriname to put the necessary laws in place. Kambel, attending the two-week Permanent U.N. Forum on Indigenous Issues, said President Runaldo Venetiaan's government had made little movement on the issue. She said small-scale Brazilian gold miners were polluting waterways with mercury and turning riverbanks into "moonscapes" and that communities were often not told about new logging and mining concessions granted nearby.

"Until the bulldozers arrive, they don't even know what is happening," she said.

While not immediately available for comment, Surinamese officials have said indigenous and tribal peoples have been consulted prior to approval of mining and forestry projects. But officials have also said land rights issues must be reconciled with plans to open the country to investment.

Kambel said her group was particularly concerned about joint plans by U.S.-based Alcoa Inc. and global miner BHP Billiton for bauxite mining and refining operations in western Suriname that may include a hydroelectric plant. She said an area earmarked for development was dangerously close to Indian villages, and her group was worried about pollution, the availability of water, and the effects of a sudden population increase in the area.

An Alcoa spokesman said those plans were at a very early stage and that Alcoa would discuss them with locals.

Kambel said there were also concerns over the Rosebel gold mine south of the capital Paramaribo, operated by Montreal-based mining company Cambior Inc. A Cambior unit in Guyana suffered a large cyanide spill into an important river in 1995, and Kambel said there was no guarantee that would not happen again in Suriname.

Cambior did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-05-18/s_23969.asp