Imperialism and Resistance: Canadian mining companies in Latin America

Abstract

David Harvey's concept of accumulation by dispossession is a useful framework for understanding the predatory activities of Canadian mining companies in Latin America. Capitalist imperialism is rooted in the logic of a socioeconomic system that is driven by the competitive pursuit of profit based on the exploitation of labour, and which is prone to over-accumulation. Capital, backed by state power, pursues a spatial fix to resolve the systematic crisis of over-accumulation. The creation of new spaces of accumulation is not an innocuous process; it inevitably involves the forceful and violent reorganisation of peoples' lives as they are subordinated to the whims of capital. Strategies of accumulation by dispossession by capital therefore commonly spawn popular resistance from the affected communities. The Canadian mining industry is the largest in the world, and much of its outward investment targets Latin America. The Canadian company share of the larger company exploration market in Latin America (and the Caribbean) has grown steadily since the early 1990s, up to 35% by 2004, the largest by far among all its competitors, with seven Canadian companies among the top 20 mineral exploration investors in the region from 1989 to 2001. This paper charts these trends of Canadian mining expansion in Latin America and then focuses on the community, environmental and worker resistance it is generating in the cases of Chile and Colombia.

Notes

1 There is a long history of left nationalism in Canada that we cannot go into in this article. It is prevalent in unions, ngos and important left-wing magazines like Canadian Dimension.

2 TD Clark & L North, ‘Mining and oil in Latin America: lessons from the past, issues for the future’, in L North, TD Clark & V Patroni (eds), Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility: Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin America, Toronto: Between the Lines, 2006.

3 It is also fundamental, of course, that anti-imperialist movements within Canada mount struggles against the Canadian state and mining capital. However, this subject lies outside the scope of this paper.

4 David Harvey, ‘The “new” imperialism: accumulation by dispossession’, in L Panitch & C Leys (eds), Socialist Register, Halifax: Fernwood, 2003, p 64.

5 K Marx, The Communist Manifesto, New York: International, 1995 [1848], p 13.

6 Harvey, ‘The “new” imperialism’, p 74.

7 Ibid, p 76.

8 D Black & P McKenna, ‘Canada and structural adjustment in the South: the significance of the Guyana case’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 16 (1), 1995, pp 55 – 78; M Burdette, ‘Structural adjustment and Canadian aid policy', in C Pratt (ed), Canadian International Development Assistance Policies: An Appraisal, Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994, pp 210 – 239; C Pratt, ‘Humane Internationalism and Canadian Development Assistance Policies', in Canadian International Development Assistance Policies, pp 334 – 370. For a more recent elucidation of the government's position on this, which avoids the use of ‘structural adjustment’ but effectively is calling for it, see Departments of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Finance, Report on Operations Under the Bretton Woods Related Agreements Act, Ottawa: International Trade and Finance Branch, 2004; and cida's section of Canada's new international policy statement, International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Influence in the World—Development, Ottawa: Canadian International Development Agency, 2005.

9 J Daudelin, ‘Foreign policy at the fringe: Canada and Latin America’, International Journal, 58 (4), 2003, pp 637 – 667.

10 www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/tna-nac/dispute-en.asp, accessed December 2006. The International Institute for Sustainable Development monitors international investment treaty developments, including arbitrations. See www.iisd.org.

11 D McNally, Another World is Possible, Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 2002, p 38.

12 Ibid, p 38.

13 Ibid, p 38.

14 J Seoane, ‘Movimientos sociales y recursos naturales en América Latina: resistencias al neoliberalismo, configuración de alternativas’, osal , 6 (17), p 93.

15 E Galeano, ‘No es suicidio, es genocidio y ecocidio’, osal , 6 (17), 2005, pp 15 – 19; and E Leff, ‘La geopolítica de la biodiversidad y el desarrollo sustentable: economización del mundo, racionalidad ambiental e apropiación social de la naturaleza’, osal , 6 (17), 2005, pp 263 – 273.

16 World Bank, Mining Reform and the World Bank: Providing a Policy Framework for Development, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003.

17 H Campodónico & G Ortiz, Características de la inversión y del mercado mundial de la minería principios de la década 2000, Chile: eclac, 2002; and Metals Economic Group, Special Report on World Exploration Trends, 2006, at www.metalseconomics.com, accessed January 2007.

18 Metals Economic Group, Special Report on World Exploration Trends.

19 These are copper, diamond, gold, iron, nickel, Platinum Group Minerals, silver and zinc. See A Lemeiux, ‘Canada's global mining presence’, Canadian Mineral Yearbook, 2004, Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada, 2004.

20 J Kuyek, ‘Legitimating plunder: Canadian mining companies and corporate social responsibility’, in North et al, Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility, pp 205 – 206.

21 J Petras & H Veltmeyer, ‘The peasantry and the state in Latin America: a troubled past, an uncertain future’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 29 (3), 2002, pp 41 – 82.

22 World Bank, A Mining Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean, Washington, DC: World Bank, 1996, pp 79, 25; and World Bank, Mining Reform and the World Bank: Providing a Policy Framework for Development, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003, p 11.

23 Canadian Mining Industry, ‘Escalating market access concerns and economic implications for the Canadian minerals and metals industry’, Brief to the 1999 Mines Ministers Conference, Charlottetown, 13 September 1999, at www.mining.ca, accessed April 2005, pp 3, 4; and Mining Association of Canada, Annual Report, Human Resources Committee, 2005, at www.mining.ca, accessed April 2005, p 3.

24 E Bastida, ‘A review of the concept of security of mineral tenure: issues and challenges’, Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law Policy, 17 (7), 2000, at www.dundee.ac.uk/cepmlp/journal, accessed July 2005. The recent rise of popular movements, and governments supported by these movements, in Venezuela and Bolivia has been a cause of concern for the Canadian mining industry. These governments are restructuring their natural resources sectors, including increasing royalties on foreign companies and limiting foreign ownership. How extensive these reforms will be is still unclear at this point.

25 J Hristov, ‘Indigenous struggles for land and culture in Cauca, Colombia’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 32 (1), 2005, p 110.

26 Kuyek, ‘Legitimating plunder’, pp 205 – 206.

27 Most of this is provided through Export Development Canada (edc), which only takes into consideration the human rights implications of a project to the extent it could impact on their investor's profits, and hence its investments. Since edc revised its disclosure policy (as a result of public pressure) in November 2005, it has financed Bema Gold's Kupal gold and silver mine in Russia and Alcan's (with two foreign partners) construction of a 350 000-tonne/year aluminum smelter in Oman. Currently edc is considering financing Gold Reserve's Brisas gold and copper project in Venezuela, Tiberon Minerals' Nui Phao mine in Vietnam, Equinox Minerals' Lumwana copper project in Zambia and Falconbridge's Koniambo ferronickel mine in New Caledonia. See http://www.edc.ca/english/disclosure_9238.htm.

28 ‘Government response to the fourteenth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade—Mining in Developing Countries—Corporate Social Responsibility’, 2005, at //cmte.par.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteeList.aspx?Lang=1&PARLSES=381&JNT=08SELID=e24_&COM=8979, accessed November 2006; and Halifax Initiative, ‘Moving beyond voluntarism: a civil society analysis of the government response to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade's 14th report, “Mining in Developing Countries—Corporate Social Responsibility,” 38th Parliament, 1st Session’, 2005, at www.halifaxinitiative.org/updir/Final_Civil_Society_Analysis-Eng.pdf, accessed October 2006.

29 Kuyek, ‘Legitimating plunder’, p 210.

30 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Sixth Annual Report on Canada's State of Trade, Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 2005; and Cansim Datatables, at www.statscan.ca, 376-0053, accessed September 2006.

31 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Sixth Annual Report on Canadaa's State of Trade.

32 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Opening Doors to the World: Canada's International Market Access Priorities, 2003, 2003, at www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca, accessed July 2005; and Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (eclac), Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2005, Chile: eclac, 2006.

33 Industry Canada, Trade and Investment Monitor, Ottawa: Industry Canada, Microeconomic Policy Analysis Branch, 2004; and eclac, Canada's Trade and Investment with Latin America and the Caribbean, Washington, DC: eclac, 2003.

34 Lemeiux, ‘Canada's global mining presence’, p 7.3.

35 Ibid, pp 7.4, 7.6.

36 These countries are, in order: Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and French Guiana. Ibid, p 7.7.

37 Ibid, p 7.9.

38 Ibid, p 7.11; and Campodónico & Ortiz, Características de la inversión.

39 WI Robinson, ‘Global crisis and Latin America’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 23 (2), 2004, pp 135 – 153.

40 ‘The Latinobarómetro poll: the democracy dividend’, The Economist, 9 December 2006, p 46.

41 TD Clark, ‘Canadian mining in neo-liberal Chile: of private virtues and public vices', in North et al, Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility, p 90.

42 M Taylor, ‘From national development to “growth with equity”: nation-building in Chile, 1950 – 2000’, Third World Quarterly, 27 (1), 2006, p 72.

43 Ibid, p 76; and P Winn, ‘The Pinochet era’, in Winn (ed), Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973 – 2002, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004, p 21.

44 Winn, ‘The Pinochet era’; and TM Klubock, ‘Class, community, and neoliberalism in Chile: copper workers and the labor movement during the military dictatorship and restoration of democracy’, in Winn, Victims of the Chilean Miracle, pp 209 – 260.

45 Clark, ‘Canadian mining in neo-liberal Chile’, p 92.

46 Ibid, p 92.

47 Winn, ‘The Pinochet era’, p 51.

48 Ibid, p 59.

49 Taylor, ‘From national development to “growth with equity”’, p 81.

50 O Sepúlveda, ‘Chilean students launch mass protests: biggest mass movement since Pinochet’, International Socialist Review, 49 (5), 2006, at http://www.isreview.org/issues/49/chilestudents.shtml, accessed 16 January 2007; and ‘A worrying precedent: Chile's miners’, The Economist, 9 September 2006, p 58.

51 M Jiménez, ‘Chile's new leader to stay course’, Globe and Mail, 17 January, p A18.

52 Clark, ‘Canadian mining in neo-liberal Chile’, p 94.

53 Ibid, p 95.

54 Ibid, p 97.

55 Ibid, pp 97 – 99.

56 Ibid, p 101.

57 Lemeiux, ‘Canada's global mining presence’.

58 K Patterson, ‘Struggle at the top of the Andes’, The Ottawa Citizen, 1 October 2006, p A6.

59 J Ross, ‘Glaciers under threat by mining in Chile’, nacla Report on the Americas, 39 (3), pp 16 – 19.

60 Clark, ‘Canadian mining in neo-liberal Chile’, p 105.

61 ‘Barrick Gold tells Chilean hearing it's “perfectly feasible” to move three glaciers’, National Post, 20 April 2005, p FP3; ‘Greens bid to block Barrick in Chile’, National Post, 10 February 2006, p FP4; J Ross, ‘Moving heaven, Earth and glaciers’, Toronto Star, 4 June 2005, p H5; and S Pratt, ‘Are mining companies running over human rights in foreign lands?’, Edmonton Journal, 30 October 2005, p A18. Here we focus on Chilean resistance, but it should be noted that there are also opposition groups active in Argentina. See MC Cotarelo, ‘Recursos naturales y conflicto social en la Argentina actual’, osal , 6 (17), pp 67 – 77.

62 Quoted in Ross, ‘Glaciers under threat’, pp 16 – 19.

63 Ibid.

64 Clark, ‘Canadian mining in neo-liberal Chile’, p 106.

65 Ross, ‘Glaciers under threat’, pp 16 – 19.

66 Patterson, ‘Struggle at the top of the Andes’, p A6.

67 Clark, ‘Canadian mining in neo-liberal Chile’, p 108; and Ross, ‘Moving heaven, Earth and glaciers’, p H5.

68 Patterson, ‘Struggle at the top of the Andes’, p A6.

69 Ross, ‘Glaciers under threat’, pp 16 – 19.

70 R Foot, ‘Anti-mine protesters greet Harper on Chile visit’, Vancouver Sun, 19 July 2007, p C4.

71 Clark, ‘Mining in neo-liberal Chile’, p 110.

72 R Foot, ‘Anti-mine protesters greet Harper on Chile visit’.

73 F Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, London: Verso, 2006, pp 80 – 86.

74 J Hristov, ‘Uribe and the paramilitarization of the Colombian state’, New Socialist, 59, p 14.

75 W Avilés, ‘Paramilitarism and Colombia's low-intensity democracy’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 38 (2), p 380.

76 International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (icftu), Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights, 2006, at http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991223986&Language= EN, accessed January 2007.

77 C Campbell, ‘Addicted to blood coal’, Maclean's, 20 March, p 36.

78 F Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination: How US Corporate Power is Destroying Colombia, trans Aviva Chomsky, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2005, pp 86 – 87.

79 Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, p 4; and Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, pp 84 – 85.

80 Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, p 85.

81 Central Intelligence Agency (cia), cia : World Fact Book, Washington, DC: cia, 2006, at https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/co.html, accessed January 2007.

82 Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, pp 82 – 83.

83 Hristov, ‘Uribe and the paramilitarization of the Colombian state’, p 14.

84 A Ismi, ‘Profiting from repression: Canadian investment in and trade with Colombia’, Americas Update, 2000, at www.http://141.117.225.2/∼asadismi/colombiareport.html, accessed January 2007.

85 K Dermota, ‘Greenstone goes for the gold mining’, Globe and Mail, 15 June 1993, p B7.

86 ‘Colombia not safe, Foreign Affairs Ministry says’, Vancouver Sun, 4 May 2002, p A2. Forrest Hylton provides a portrait of the 1990s: ‘If multiple sovereignties and fractured territories had been a notable feature of the political landscape in the 1980s, both the insurgencies and the paramilitaries made qualitative leaps in control over resources, population, territory, and transport routes during the 1990s. This was achieved through greater recourse to terror, especially on the paramilitary side, as counterinsurgency operations were increasingly privatized and subcontracted.’ Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, p 80.

87 Ismi, ‘Profiting from repression’.

88 www.northernminer.ca, accessed January 2007.

89 Lemeiux, ‘Canada's global mining presence’, p 7.12.

90 P Knox, ‘Canada's role in Colombia probed’, Globe and Mail, 1 June 2001, p A11.

91 K Patterson, ‘The trouble with junior: small-scale companies dogged by controversy’, Ottawa Citizen, 3 October 2005, p A4.

92 ‘The brutal price of fly-by-night mining’, Toronto Star, 21 January 1999, p A1.

93 Ismi, ‘Profiting from repression’.

94 Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, p 91.

95 D Pugliese, ‘Soldiers of fortune’, Ottawa Citizen, 12 November 2005, p A1.

96 ‘Colombia not safe’.

97 A Robinson, ‘Mining conference to tackle range of controversial issues’, Globe and Mail, 13 May 2002, p B3.

98 C Arsenault, ‘Digging up Canadian dirt in Colombia’, Canadian Dimension, 40 (6), 2006, pp 32 – 35.

99 P Harris, ‘Colombia's troubles pale next to golden opportunities’, Globe and Mail, 4 January 2006, p B6.

100 Ibid, p B6.

101 Ibid, p B4.

102 Quoted in ibid, p B4.

103 Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, p 105.

104 Ibid, p 93.

105 Ibid, p 94.

106 Quoted in Harris, ‘Colombia's troubles pale next to golden opportunities’, p B4. For Hristov, ‘Uribe's re-election [in 2006] signifies: 1) The continuation of a system characterized by unequal, exploitative, alienating and exclusionary social relations; 2) The aggravation of the country's subordinate position in the global capitalist hierarchy; 3) The consolidation of US imperial (military and economic) presence; 4) The legalization of illegality, a fusion of the legal and the illegal in such a creative way, that the government can claim the paramilitary no longer exists, when in reality it has profoundly penetrated the very fabric of state institutions and the national economy; 5) The initiation of a new phase of the model: the unified Colombian para-narco state; 6) The invigoration of social struggles.’ Hristov, ‘Uribe and the paramilitarization of the Colombian state’, p 15.

107 Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, p 38.

108 Ibid.

109 Ibid, p 29.

110 Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, p 129.

111 For the statement alluding to Venezuela, see Richard Foot, ‘Harper touts third way, emulate Canada not US pm says in Chile’, National Post, 18 July 2007, A1. For the statement on Colombia, see Richard Foot, ‘pm defends entering free trade talks with Colombia’, National Post, 17 July 2007, p A4.

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115 K Patterson, ‘Open veins: bloody conflicts are erupting around the world over Canadian mining projects’, Ottawa Citizen, 1 October 2005.

116 L Orellana Aillón, ‘La “Masacre de Navidad”: un fragmento de la violencia estatal y resistencia popular en Bolivia’, Nueva Sociedad, 153, 1998, pp 104 – 119; and A Roncallo, ‘Bolivia's Amayapampa and Capasirca mines: social resistance and state repression’, in North et al, Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility, pp 63 – 86.

117 W Stuek, ‘Mining firms agree to Peruvian payment’, Globe and Mail, 25 August 2006, p B5; and D Szablowski, ‘Regulating corporate and community engagement in a large mining project’, in North et al, Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility, pp 37 – 59.

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120 B Campbell, ‘Peace and security in Africa and the role of Canadian mining interests: new challenges for Canadian foreign policy’, Labour, Capital and Society/Travail, capital et société, 37 (1 – 2), 2004, pp 98 – 129.

121 K Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001 [1944].