The North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Blog

I thought you would like to see the question Richard Solly asked at the BHP Billiton shareholders meeting in London earlier today.

Avi

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BHPBilliton plc AGM, London, 26 October 2006

Question from Richard Solly, shareholder

My question concerns the Cerrejon mine in northern Colombia, of which BHPBilliton owns a one-third share. I would like to know the company’s response to a number of recent and planned events concerning the mine and some of its customers. I am sure that the Board is well aware of all of them.

A Witness for Peace delegation from the US and Canada which in August visited communities displaced, or about to be displaced, by the Cerrejon mine, found that many people there had urgent health needs which were not being addressed, which seems odd if the mine is bringing prosperity to the region. A further delegation from US and Canada will visit the area again next week, taking health supplies, visiting communities affected by the mine, meeting with mine management and with workers’ union SINTRACARBON.

Contract negotiations between SINTRACARBON and the company will begin next month. The union is expected to include the demands of displaced communities, and communities facing displacement, in its own bargaining position. Community demands will include collective negotiation, collective relocation and reparations.

There have been protests in recent weeks in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada because local power companies buy coal from the Cerrejon mine. Protesters in New Brunswick called for the power company to pressure the mine to respect the rights of displaced communities. In Nova Scotia they called for the closure of the Trenton power plant. The power plant in Salem, Massachusetts, buys coal from Cerrejon, and both the plant owner and the City Council have called on Cerrejon Coal to respect the rights of displaced communities. In August, the Danish Government announced that further coal purchases from another Colombian coal mine would be suspended until the company involved, US-based Drummond Coal, had established its innocence in the matter of human rights abuses at its operations. At some stage, Cerrejon Coal’s failure to accept the reasonable demands of displaced communities and those facing displacement may affect sales.

Numerous organizations and prominent individuals are calling on the company to honour the rights of both workers and communities, to accept their demands, to ensure that their lives and liberty are respected during and after negotiations, and that in the event of a dispute there will be no military occupation of the mine as there was several times in the 1990s, before BHPBilliton became involved. The list of those supporting worker and community demands and pledging to continue monitoring conditions around the mine includes the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the United Steelworkers union in the USA, the Mayor and City Council of Salem, Massachusetts, members of the Massachusetts State Legislature and the US House of Representatives, electoral candidates and members of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, the Colombia Solidarity Campaign in Britain, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents BHPBilliton workers at the Ekati diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, who have had their own experience of pressure from company management and seem keen to forge bonds with workers and communities in Colombia. Letters from these people will be presented to mine management next week by the delegation from North America and I have copies to give to the Board today.

What is the company’s response?�