Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

318 john braysecurity manager working for an exploration company in Asia tells ofa recent incident where reliance on the government proved to be afatal mistake. 26 An exploration team was ambushed, and a geologistwas killed. At first sight, it was not obvious where the attack camefrom. The company considered whether the ambush stemmed from adispute between company employees who came from rival ethnicgroups or was the work of refugee guerrillas from a neighboring country.It turned out that the attack had been ordered by a local triballeader. He was not opposed to exploration per se, but he expected thecompany to pay due deference by coming to see him before it began tooperate in his territory. The ambush was a demonstration of his powerin his own territory.During the construction period, the company will need to employa substantial work force. Ideally, a large proportion of employeesshould be locals, but it is usually also necessary to import skilled laborfrom other parts of the country or abroad. It is important to providethem with adequate security, while minimizing the social tensions thatmay arise from their presence. In Papua New Guinea the presence ofworkers from other parts of the country—who are often regarded as“foreigners”—has been a major source of tension and has led to violenceand blockades of mining sites. This is one of the factors that led toclosure of the Bougainville copper mine in 1989, and it has been an issueat the Ok Tedi mine near the Papua New Guinea–Indonesian border.Land rights also are a major concern, and again Papua New Guineais a prominent example. It may be difficult to identify precisely who isgenuinely entitled to customary land rights and therefore to compensation,particularly in a society where land rights belong to clansrather than to individuals. Customary land rights may not be formallyregistered, but people who believe their land rights have been infringedupon may react violently. Similar issues arise in Africa and in manyother societies where access to land is the most important source ofwealth and prestige. The company needs to ensure that it has addressedthe concerns of everyone who has a genuine entitlement.Some of the most sensitive community issues involve small-scaleminers: local companies or individuals who use simple technology(picks and shovels) to exploit surface deposits. In many cases thesemay cause more environmental damage than more mainstream commercialmining, for example, when they use mercury—which thenpollutes local water supplies—as part of the gold extraction process.Conflict is most likely to arise if the company claims exclusive miningrights and tries to dislodge small-scale miners from what they regardas their territory.