JULY/AUGUST 2006

July 1st, 2006

In this issue there are reports given at the AGM in May. Barbara looks back at 2005 and there is good news of the diocesan ethical investment policy.

EDITORIAL In this issue there are reports given at the AGM in May. Barbara looks back at 2005 and there is good news of the diocesan ethical investment policy. We also cover CAFOD’s latest campaign UNEARTH JUSTICE which looks at some of the problems caused by the extraction industries. There is a wealth of evidence of the damage to the environment and to indigenous peoples from mine working. Over the past decade ‘partnerships’ between mining companies and NGOs have enjoyed increasing currency. They are supposed to both mitigate the impact of potentially damaging projects and stimulate ‘sustainable development’. Barbara writes of the new organization set up to help the most disadvantaged of asylum seekers and refugees in the Tees Valley. Justice First seeks to help those who have been refused asylum and therefore have no money at all, to survive and most importantly, to obtain legal representation. This is vital and would make a very worthwhile project for parishes to support. Chris Dove Note: the views expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily coincide with those of the Commission. ANNUAL REPORTS 2006 Chair’s report. As I was preparing this report I looked again at our three year plan which encompassed the years 2003 – 2006 to reflect on the past year in the light of the aims in that document. Our first two aims are to explore and understand issues of justice and peace and to share our concerns with others in the diocese. This is the focus of our public meetings. During this year we have had speakers from CAFOD, the Medical Foundation for the victims of Torture, Yorkshire CND and Christian Ecology Link. We have had excellent speakers and all these meetings have been both informative and challenging. For the second year our November meeting was given over to students and young people – this time from All Saints School in York. It was superbly stimulating – a dozen students – spanning all the year groups gave different presentations concerning subjects about which they were passionately concerned – including fair trade, war, arms trade, terrorism, prejudice of many kinds, children and poverty, endangered animals, and the experience of autism. It was a truly magnificent morning. Connection with other groups and organisations continues – this year we collaborated with the Richmond Parliamentary Constituency Group to facilitate a diocesan study day at Ampleforth looking at citizenship within Europe and our relationships with our European neighbours and the developing world. Our third aim is to undertake practical actions and campaign for change . Last year much activity centred on the Make Poverty History Campaign – with local events leading up to the day of protest in July in Edinburgh which many of us attended. Other campaigns we have taken part in have been focused on trade justice, Asylum issues, and Trident missile replacement. Much practical work is happening in all areas of the diocese – focusing on the needs of those living in poverty, and of those seeking asylum – both in local action and in broader campaigns aimed at an increasingly ‘hostile’ Home Office. A focus on Fair Trade is also central to our work – supported by our Vice Chair – and we hope to work towards Middlesbrough becoming a Fair Trade Diocese. We continue to support the activities of local groups throughout the diocese – particularly activities of young people and look forward to working closely with Dave Cross, our recently appointed Diocesan CAFOD officer. We are, as always, grateful to Bishop John for his on-going support and encouragement and look forward to the coming year which will include a strong focus on the Wilberforce commemorations in 2007. Barbara Hungin Diocesan Ethical Investment If at first you don’t succeeed….. The process began in 1995 when the J&P Commission set up a working party to consider the need for a Diocesan Ethical Investment Policy. In August 1997 the diocese announced the formation of an Ethical Investment Consultative Committee on which the Commission was given a place. We began offering suggestions for such a policy in 1998 and in December 2000, the Trustees agreed The Policy. Following an ethical screening process in April 2003 it was found that, as we had forecast, because the holdings were mostly in the form of Managed Funds, (whose managers decide on where to invest regardless of any ethical considerations) the major part of the diocesan portfolio was found to be non-compliant with the Policy! Since 2005 non-compliant funds have been sold, and further investment has been made in compliant stocks so that the percentage of non-compliant funds held has moved from 77% in June 2005, to the present figure of 16.4% of their investment portfolio. We must congratulate the Trustees on their achievement. If we are members of a Pension fund we are entitled to ask its managers about their investment policy and can argue for one that is ethical. Looking back at references to this subject in past newsletters perhaps I may quote from the May/June 1997 issue which was devoted to the single issue of ethical investment. “In all honesty we need to consider an ethical policy for our own savings or investments. It seems to me that we are in danger of being misled. The growth of poverty in the midst of affluence, rising global unemployment, and environmental degradation suggest that we face a huge challenge. The economic content of party politics has narrowed. The tabloid press has defined the issue: no party can get elected if it tells the truth, which is that an ever rising standard of living in the popular sense can no longer be an absolute.” I do not see any change today. Chris Dove Justice First. A new organisation – Justice First – came into being on May 1st. It is committed to helping people in the Tees Valley who have been refused asylum to survive destitution and to achieve justice through re-engagement with the legal process. Many honest people come to the UK, apply for asylum, and have their applications refused. Applications fail for many different reasons; some procedural, some because they do not fulfil the very narrow confines of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and many because, even though they have had horrific experiences, applicants are unable to prove to the courts that they occurred. Cuts to legal funding have made it more difficult for many to access the quality solicitors that they need to advocate for them. Many of the most vulnerable people have fled at short notice and are unable to even prove their nationalities, yet alone the nature of the ordeals they have endured. The most urgent needs of people refused asylum is for re-engagement with the legal process and for practical support to survive destitution. The organisation will work closely with the Mary Thompson Fund. There are two staff members – John Rogers, (Practice Manager) and Kath Sainsbury (Field Officer). The office base is at 9 Cromwell Avenue, Stockton TS 18 2EF Unearth Justice The current CAFOD Campaign is called “Unearth Justice!” which exposes how mining industries damage the poor communities in which they operate. CAFOD and their partners wish to stop mining companies harming the communities where it takes place. It focuses on extractive industries – in other words industries which mine resources such as gold, oil and gas. For each wedding ring made it is estimated that 18 tonnes of waste are produced, and much of that will be very toxic as a result of the extraction and refining processes. Gold is mined in many of the world’s poorest countries, but this does not make the countries rich. Gold has helped fuel a bitter conflict in The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as warring militias fight for control over mineral-rich land. Major international companies such as Anglo Gold Ashanti have started exploring for gold in the DRC and CAFOD is concerned that any new activity by international mining companies is conducted in such a way as to promote peace rather than to spark off further conflict. CAFOD is calling on the gold mining companies to adopt an ethical, social and environmental code of practice which respects the rights of local people, implements good labour standards and avoids the destruction of the natural environment But it isn’t only gold mining that is a problem. The Columbans have been campaigning for years to flag up other issues that are involved: One of the largest open cast coal mines in the world is the El Cerrejon Norte in Northern Colombia operated by a consortium owned by the British-based multinationals Anglo American and BHPBilliton together with a Swiss company Glencore. Occupying an area of 31 miles by five, the mine is constantly expanding and eating up villages, farms are deserted, the surrounding vegetation is contaminated with coal dust and many children suffer from respiratory problems and malnutrition. In Peru BHPBilliton operate a copper mine near Tintaya which has displaced communities that lived in the area for generations. Left without their land or with contaminated water, air and soil, many feel they are poorer today than 20 years go when the mine was built. Claims by the mining industry and international financial institutions that mining investment would contribute to sustainable development in Peru have not been borne out. In Argentina Xstrata is an Anglo-Swiss company owning a 50% share in and managing the Bajo La Alumbrera mine in Northern Argentina which accounts for 40% of all Argentina’s mining exports. Ranking 15th among world gold producers, it recently embarked on a major expansion programme. Communities in five Argentinian provinces have condemned the mine’s pollution of local farmland and rivers. In September 2004, concentrated minerals spilled into Vill Vil river which provides drinking and irrigation water to a large region and there was considerable alarm within the community. On Mindoro Island in the Philippines, churches, communities and social movements have campaigned for more than a decade against a large-scale nickel mining project planned by Crew Development, a UK registered company. Mindoro is a major food producing province and its watershed is critical for the irrigation of 70% of the rice farms, fruit trees and drinking water sources. A nickel processing plant is planned that would use high-pressure acid leach technology to recover nickel and cobalt from ore. Crew intend to dump its mine tailings into the sea. (This would not be allowed in this country) In March 2004, the bishop and clergy of Calapan Diocese joined those protesting over government support for the project. British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto controls two of the world’s most important uranium resources in Australia’s Northern Territory, one of which is in a national park. The indigenous Mirrar people are challenging the proposal to open the second mine.

If extraction goes ahead, it will generate 20 million tonnes of radioactive tailings, a by-product of uranium mining with a radioactive life of 250,000 years. Despite generating millions in revenue, an inquiry found the Mirrar people gained no material benefit from the mine. Copper is Zambia’s most important commodity and production is soaring. In 2003, UK based Vedanta won the bid to develop Konkola Copper Mines (KCM). Pollution is far above acceptable standards, safety standards are poor with a high accident rate. The agreement with the government guarantees extraordinary tax concessions to KCM and exemption from prosecution for infringement of environmental and working standards. Source: Vocation for Justice Spring 2006 Take your partners The partnerships between extractive industry companies and NGOs are supposed to persuade us that though collectively representing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous of all industrial sectors, they are now reformed creatures. Three of the world’s biggest mining companies (Rio Tinto, Anglo American and BHPBilliton) decided to enlist their critics as pretended co-operators in ‘development’ and re-present themselves as defenders of human rights. However the partnerships have done little or nothing to change corporate policies or mining practice. On the contrary, over the last decade, mining companies have introduced more dangerous and potentially damaging technologies. Larger open-pits are spewing out greater quantities of wastes. The world’s biggest single mine, operated by US-based Freeport and Rio Tinto in West Papua has, since 1995, doubled its output of contaminated tailings into a vital regional river system, to around 230,000 tonnes – and that’s each day! Roughly the same amount of wastes is also being dumped daily onto the seabed from mines in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. It is a practice never employed in the Asia-Pacific before the early Nineties, and one effectively banned in countries where these companies are registered – the US, Canada and the UK. It seems obvious that ‘partnerships’ between ‘chickens’ and ‘foxes’ will only serve the interests of the more powerful, and not those of the relatively powerless. Source: Roger Moody, Managing Editor Mines and Communities. PROGRAMME FOR 2006 Date Place Theme 16 September York Asylum Seekers 18 November Youth Forum Commission contacts Barbara Hungin Chair 01642 784398 Sr Mary Walmsley CJ Secretary 01904 464919 Nan Saeki Treasurer 01904 783621 Chris Dove Editor 01947 825043 email: dove.whitby@phonecoop.coop or 22 Blackburns Yard Whitby YO22 4DS website:www.ayton.info/middlesbroughjp Lifestyle ideas Re-reading a past issue of Vocation for Justice, the excellent Columban Mission publication, I came upon this list of ideas for ‘Lifestyle’ education for Young People. It would be interesting to hear what some of our student readers think of these suggestions which came from a retired teacher. As part of the• Maths courses, schools could have lessons to offer the young on how to budget their weekly pocket money allowance, and later the management of the household bills and credit cards. Schools could lay on a simple year’s course in ecology which is compulsory for those 15-16 years old.• Deeply woven into the RE curriculum should be a distaste of waste of any sort; this would link up with ecology.• • The Gap Years for older children should be used, at least partially, to work and help with the poor in developing countries. The student would see real poverty and meet some remarkable people coping with it. Could schools discourage parents from throwing extravagant birthday and Christmas parties?• A Prayer Inspire us to act with the urgency of your quickening fire, for blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called children of God AMEN