US and Canadian activists are urging the World Bank to press the Tanzanian government to drop sedition charges against two environmental activists and an opposition leader who had sought an international investigation of alleged killings at a Canadian-invested gold mine.

Two members of the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT), an advocacy group based in Dar es Salaam, and Augustine Mrema, chair of the Tanzanian Labour Party, were accused by the government earlier this month of making statements which "bring into contempt or to excite disaffection against the lawful authority" of the government of Tanzania, according to news reports from the East African country.

Rugemeleza Nshala and Tundu Lissu, the two members of LEAT, say they have only been calling for an independent investigation into allegations that dozens of artisanal, or small-scale, miners were buried alive by a subsidiary of a Canadian mining corporation during the filling-in of mining pits. Tens of thousands of artisanal miners and their families, according to LEAT, were allegedly evicted with little notice when the government and Sutton Resources, a Canadian mining company, took control of the mine in 1996.

"Basically, it is a campaign to try and silence us, but we think that the facts will come through in the case," said Nshala.

The Tanzanian government and past and current owners of the Bulyanhulu mine, located about 50 kilometres south of Lake Victoria, have repeatedly denied that the killings took place. The Tanzanian embassy here was unavailable for comment on the sedition charges.

The sedition trial is scheduled to begin May 31. If convicted, the three accused could face up to two years in prison and a fine equivalent to about 10 dollars.

Put pressure

Friends of the Earth and Lissu, who is currently a fellow at the World Resources Institute here, have asked the World Bank Group — whose Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is a financier of Bulyanhulu — to put pressure on Tanzania to drop the charges.

"We believe that the filing of criminal sedition charges against these men is a transparent attempt to intimidate them into silence," said Steve Herz, policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, in a letter to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who is scheduled to visit Africa in June or July.

LEAT has been conducting independent inquiries into the Bulyanhulu allegations, and claims to have proof, including videotaped evidence, that artisanal miners were buried. In November, police searched LEAT's offices and members' homes and reportedly seized evidence given to the organisation by its clients, the families of the artisanal miners, said Lissu and Nshala.

At the time of the eviction of the miners in 1996, the Kahama Mining Corporation, a subsidiary of Vancouver, Canada-based Sutton Resources Ltd., had legal rights to the area. The Barrick Gold Corporation, based in Toronto, Canada, which was not associated with the Bulyanhulu mine at the time of the alleged deaths, purchased Kahama in 1999.

Barrick said the allegations of murder have been repeatedly investigated and dismissed. Kahama Mining, which continues to operate the mine, said officials were present during the 1996 evictions and no miners were killed.

Evidence

Vince Borg, spokesperson for Barrick, said that if LEAT has evidence supporting the allegations of killings at the mine, it should present it to the proper authorities. The company had no comment on the sedition charges.

Lissu has filed a formal complaint about the allegations with the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman office of MIGA.

In 2000, MIGA issued 115 million dollars in political risk coverage for a syndicate of banks lending to Kahama Mining and 56 million dollars in investment guarantees to Barrick Gold. Canada's official Export Development Corporation (EDC) also provided roughly 173 million dollars for political risk insurance for the 280-million-dollar mine, according to a MIGA spokesperson.

In response to Lissu's complaint, a representative from the ombudsman office visited the area in March. A report is expected as early as this month.

In March, a team of environmental organisations from the United States and Canada sent a fact-finding mission to Tanzania to investigate the claims. The team included representatives from Friends of the Earth, Mining Watch Canada, the Montreal-based group Rights and Democracy, and a video producer commissioned by Both ENDS, an advocacy organisation based in the Netherlands.

When the team tried to go to the mine site, the regional police commander, Elia Kihengu, informed the organisations that the federal Director of Criminal Investigations was denying the team access to Bulyanhulu because it had not obtained proper authorisation from the attorney general, according to Herz, who was part of the delegation.

When the team contacted the attorney general's office, an official said he was not aware of any legal authority granting the office the power to issue the authorisation. So the delegation was prohibited from entering the mining area, said Herz.

Before the mission left, the team was able to conduct several interviews with people who were evicted from the mining area.

After its trip to Tanzania, the team concluded that an independent and comprehensive inquiry into the allegations of uncompensated mass evictions of miners and mine owners is "warranted, desirable and urgent."