 On Point Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes his On Point column most weekdays. He is also an author and freelance writer. Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com. |
Carroll: The Newmont verdict
‘First the fish began to disappear.”
Uh oh. We’re in for high drama. This will be a modern tale of plagues, beginning with vanishing fish in a bay in Indonesia, as recounted by The New York Times in a front-page article that helped set off an international furor 21/2 years ago.
“Then villagers began developing strange rashes and bumps,” reporters Jane Perlez and Evelyn Rusli declared. “Finally in January, Masna Stirman, aided by a $1.50 wet nurse, gave birth to a tiny, shriveled girl with small lumps and wrinkled skin” — who eventually died.
The article quickly closed the loop: “The infant’s death came after years of complaints by local fishermen about waste being dumped in the ocean by the owner of a nearby gold mine, the Newmont Mining Corp., the world’s biggest gold producer, based in Denver.”
The 2,200-word article on Sept. 8, 2004, was replete with one damning claim after another. Perhaps the most shocking involved medical examinations in Buyat Bay, near the mine: “Thirty of the villagers had tumorlike growths, said one of the doctors, Jane Pangemanan. ‘I was shocked by what I saw,’ she said in an interview. Of the 60 people she examined, about 80 percent showed symptoms of poisoning by mercury and arsenic, she said.”
The only problem with those lurid accusations is that they amounted to a hoax. That’s what one company official had the guts to call them in the early going, and that assessment has been vindicated by this week’s acquittal in an Indonesian court of Newmont’s Richard Ness and the company on charges of violating that country’s pollution laws. Even without the verdict, the charges had been crumbling on their own for two years.
Pangemanan herself signed a statement retracting her claims just five months after the Times article, although I could find no timely mention of this in the Times archives. More than a month later, Perlez reported the retraction, but by way of informing Times readers that the doctor had come to regret reversing course.
If Pangemanan regretted her retraction, she could have rectified the error when she testified at Newmont’s trial. Instead, she confirmed she had not identified mercury or arsenic poisoning.
And what of Perlez, the woman whom Ness once dubbed “the other Jane,” co-author of the original Times bombshell as well as major followups? She received an Overseas Press Club Award for what Editor & Publisher called her “exposé of abuses by a mining corporation in Indonesia.”
Life isn’t fair, of course, but why does it have to be ridiculous?
Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountain
News.com.
I remember reading multiple stories for years about the evil perpetrated upon Indonesians by Newmont. This is the first time I've heard anything about the verdict. What a surprise....
Posted by Bruno on April 25, 2007 07:05 AMYeah, all those business deals between Newmont and the Indonesian government a week before the verdict obviously had nothing to do with Ness walking, did they?
You clean up (whitewash) very well, Vince.
Posted by Dick on April 25, 2007 07:37 AMThe judges verdict was 260 pages long and was read to the public before finding Mr. Ness and Newmont not guilty. Fair to say the verdict was a detailed brutal expose' of the false allegations, and unethical activities of those who accused Newmont. It eviscerated with the law and with factual evidence each layer of the scam that had been perpetrated on Newmont. Anyone who would suggest this verdict was somehow influenced was not in the courtroom and couldn't hear the judges decision because if you had been you would most definitely feel otherwise.
Posted by jss on April 25, 2007 09:01 AMIs that you, Omar Jabara? How's life on the dark side?
Posted by Dick on April 26, 2007 07:33 AMI truly appreciate hearing about the final positive outcome. I have come to feel that we have forgotton how important the "innocent until proven guilty" concept is. Not just for people or entities accused, but also to keep public resources from being wasted on wasteful activities.
Thanks for your editorial.