Dear friends,
Below, please, find a petition to the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank, Standard
Chartered, ANZ and others to urge them to withdraw their support for
Lafayette mine Inc. on Rapu-Rapu island in the Philippines. The mine is
causing a lot of hardship for the inhabitants and brings destruction of the
environment to this beautiful island.
With a click on the link below, you will go to the site with the petition
were you can put your signature.
The initiative for this patition is taken by BankTrack, a network of civil
society organisations and individuals tracking the operations of the private
financial sector (commercial banks, investors, insurance companies, pension
funds) and its effect on people and the planet.
Please pass on this petition to as many as possible other groups and
individuals.
Regards,
For FGN
Evert de Boer
Filippijnengroep Nederland (FGN)
Philippine Solidarity Group Netherlands
Brigittenstraat 15
3512 KJ Utrecht
The Netherlands
tel. 030-2319323
Postbank 4075793
E-mail: fgn.nl planet.nl
www.filippijnengroep.nl
www.tambuli.nl
Stop Lafayette mine Philippines
support petition to financiers
URGENT: DO IT NOW, BEFORE THURSDAY FEBRUARY 8
Sign up here:
http://www.banktrack.org/index.php?show=aletter&va=76
more information; www.banktrack.org. -> dodgy deals
(documents, links, pictures, videos, contacts)
PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS TO BEFRIENDED ORGANISATIONS
folks,
BankTrack is organising international support for a petition of the
communities of Rapu Rapu island, Philippines, and surrounding areas.
The petition asks the financiers of the mine (ABN AMRO, Standard
Chartered, ANZ and others to withdraw their support for Lafayette mine Inc.
It is very likely that the Lafayette mine on Rapu Rapu island will receive
a so called Permanent Lifting Order this week Thursday, February 8. This
will effectively put the mine into full operation.
The island communities have started a petition campaign, asking the
financiers to withdraw their support for a project that is bringing a lot
of hardship and destruction to this beautiful island.
The main aim of the petition is to make clear to the banks involved that
contrary to what is claimed by Lafayette Inc the mine lacks a ’social
license to operate’. In other words; people do not want to see their
island turned into a mine site. Banks need to be made aware that continued
financing the mine will make them a party to this conflict.
please SUPPORT!
We need URGENT SUPPORT for this petition. please click on the link
mentioned at the top of this message and sign on.
Also forward it to all your working contacts. NOTE; This petition is not
yet public as we try to collect a lot of signatures first. Do not post it
on a public website somewhere.
The philippine language version of this petition is circulated widely on
the island and elsewhere in the Philippines.
Thanks,
best, Johan Frijns
coordinator BankTrack
PETITION - PETITION
TO:
ABN AMRO (Netherlands),
ANZ (Australia)
Standard Chartered/KFSC (United Kingdom, Korea),
and all other financiers of Lafayette Philippines, Inc.
Petition Seeking the termination of financial assistance
to Lafayette Philippines, Inc.
and its sister companies in the Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic Project
in Albay Province, Philippines
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF RAPU-RAPU ISLAND IN ALBAY, UNITED UNDER
SAGIP ISLA SAGIP KAPWA, Inc., along with Church leaders, environmental
organizations, members of the academe, scientists, peoples’ organizations,
and other concerned citizens, both in the Philippines and the rest of the
world, hereby call upon the financiers of the Rapu-Rapu Polymetallic
Mining Project to terminate their financial support to the project. This
in consideration of the following:
That the project through the Rapu-Rapu Mining Inc. (RRMI) and Rapu-Rapu
Processing Inc. (RRPI) both managed and owned by Lafayette Philippines
Inc. (LPI), a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary of an Australian mining
company, has caused two destructive mine spills, toxic contamination and
fish kill incidents in surrounding coastal municipalities, and economic
dislocation of thousands of local fisher folk;
That Rapu-Rapu—an island directly located in the Philippine ’typhoon
belt’ with a hilly terrain and steep slopes -is inherently vulnerable to
natural disasters such as tropical storms and landslides, which may
significantly damage critical mine infrastructures and the surrounding
communities in the same way that two typhoons have damaged the area and
killed at least 11 residents last November and December 2006.
Similar or more tragic incidents are highly probable to occur again during
or even after the mine-life of the polymetallic mining project and you, as
financiers of this project, would be equally accountable as LPI and
related companies are;
That, contrary to what is routinely claimed by LPI and communicated to
its financiers, the project utterly lacks local community support,
therefore operating without having obtained the ’social license to
operate,’ as required in covenants as the ’Equator Principles’ that are
supposed to govern your investment decisions.
That the project has ever since faced strong resistance from the people of
Rapu-Rapu, Bicol provinces and the country, who have consistently opposed
mining operations in the island, asserted their rights to the land and
resources, protected their source of livelihood, and defended the local
island’s ecosystem which is classified as an environmentally-critical
area. Such resistance has been expressed before Lafayette started its
operations and more intensively after the tailings spills in October 2005,
they include the following:
·Island protests in the form of pickets, rallies, marches from the town
center to the Lafayette mine site, and fluvial protest actions;
· Bicol-wide protest actions, numbering from hundreds to thousands,
enjoining fisherfolk, students, coastal residents, business/tourism
establishments, local government officials, churchpeople, most especially
in Albay and Sorsogon provinces. Pickets, rallies, marches, camp-outs of
DENR Region 5 office and the Provincial Capitol were held since February
2006
· Lobbying by Sagip Isla, UMALPAS KA-Bicol and Albay Alliance Against
Lafayette Mining (ALMA) and Alliance against Lafayette Mining in Sorsogon
(AKLAS) with the Roman Catholic Church Bishops, Provincial Government of
Sorsogon and Albay and Municipal Government officials, House of
Representatives and the Senate;
· Petition Signing/Signature Campaigns run by multi-sectoral organizations
in the province calling for the stopping of Lafayette mining operations,
examples of which are those signed by an overwhelming 200 Roman Catholic
priests and 6 Bishops in the Bicol region renewing calls to stop Lafayette
operations and to implement the recommendations of the Rapu-Rapu Fact
Finding Commission (RFFC) and that signed by 800 people from Rapu-Rapu,
Albay, and Metro Manila, including artists, lawyers, religious workers and
a former beauty queen signed up to petition the court for a temporary
restraining Order and/or Permanent Injunction of Lafayette and the DENR
· Prayer Gatherings and Mass Offerings to stop Lafayette operations and
call for justice to people displaced by the mining operations in Metro
Manila
· Rallies and Pickets held at the national office of the DENR, and the
Australian Embassy
· Nationwide Protests on March 3, 2006, the anniversary of the passage of
the Mining Act of 1995, highlighting Lafayette mining, before the flagship
project and most notorious mining operations of the national government;
That the local government have also expressed their rejection of the LPI
project and its further expansion through legislative resolutions such as
the Municipal Resolution signed by the Rapu-rapu Mayor Dick Galicia on
November 21, 2005 asking Pres. Arroyo and the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources (DENR) to revoke the LPIs environmental compliance
certificate, and Resolution No. 007 series of 2006 approved on January 16,
2006 by the City Council of Sorsogon calling for the closure of LPI’s
mining operations;
That concerted legal action, such as Civil Case No. 2006-7639 ( Damages )
filed at the Regional Trial Court Branch 52 of Sorsogon City and Civil
Case No. 2006-589 (Application for Temporary Restraining Order and/or
Permanent Injunction) filed by 800 people at the Regional Trial Court
Branch 142 of Makati City, Metro Manila;
That the Rapu-Rapu Fact-Finding Commission, created by President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo in March 2006 to investigate the mine spill, concluded
that LPI "did not appear to measure up to the standards of responsible
mining“and was”guilty of lapses, of a technical and management nature"
and has likewise recommended among others, the cancellation of its permit
to operate;
That the LPI has yet to present a viable solution to the problem of acid
mine drainage (AMD), which is viewed by the scientific and environmental
community as one of the largest looming threats to Rapu-Rapu;. The
sub-aqueous deposition which LPU has adopted to control AMD is not used in
hilly terrains such as in Rapu-rapu. Scientists and mine experts view that
sub-aqueous deposition may be counterproductive and actually enhance AMD;
That mining-related militarization campaigns in the province have resulted
to human rights violations and other adverse social consequences for the
local populace. In an unprecedented move, the military deployed one
company of Scout Rangers from the Philippine Army and a platoon of police
from the Philippine National Police Regional Mobile Group while Lafayette
employs at least 150 armed private guards;
That the DENR under the present administration of Se. Angelo Reyes, has
continued to turn a blind eye to the overwhelming clamor for LPI’s
permanent closure, permitting the company to embark on two extensions of
the “test runs” granted by the DENR to LPI and even allowed to trade
“incidental” metal production, despite the non-resolution of the
abovementioned environmental, economic, and social issues surrounding the
LPI project;
That ABN AMRO, ANZ and Standard Chartered, being the lead banks in the
consortium, have all adopted policies that publicly commit them to
socially and environmentally responsible banking norms, such as the
Equator Principles; that this project is in clear violation of these
aspirations, seriously putting into question the sincerity of your
commitments;
That the continued mining operations has already brought so much
anxiety among the populace for threats of further mine spills and
pollution of the rivers, water system and surrounding seas, further
landslides and mudflows with the typhoons due to its constant blasting,
sickness and death, loss of our farming and fishing livelihood,
destruction of the watershed and our rich biodiversity with the planned
expansion of the mining area; we vow to continue defending our right to
life, our rights to the land and water and the resources they bring; and
to prevent further mining expansion to our ricefields, homes and watershed
area.
IN CONSIDERATION OF THE ABOVEMENTIONED CIRCUMSTANCES, WE THEREFORE URGE
the consortium of financiers to the LPI mine in Rapu-Rapu to immediately
withdraw their assistance to this financially-unstable,
environmentally-destructive, and socially-insensitive project that
deserves nothing but outright censure and closure.