 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: No regard for facts
By the time you read this, Newmont Mining chairman Wayne Murdy will probably have put his award from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Affairs on a shelf — the presentation was set for last night — and dissenting faculty members will be off in search of other targets on which to vent their well-honed sense of moral outrage.
But let’s not move on with them just yet. Professors who object to their school’s decision to give Murdy its International Bridge Builders Award are obliged to make at least a nod in the direction of a balanced appraisal, however difficult it might be to judge accusations hurled at Newmont from such remote locales as Indonesia, Peru and Ghana, as well as the state of Nevada.
Perhaps some exhibit this fairness. But associate professor Tom Rowe failed that test in sorry fashion Thursday in a column in The Denver Post, which read more like an activist’s indictment than a fair-minded assessment.
Several paragraphs into Rowe’s column, for example, we learned that “In Indonesia, controversy continues to swirl around the environmental damage to Buyat Bay and the health consequences for local villagers.” No hint, if you can believe it, that an Indonesian court acquitted a Newmont executive and the company on all charges at the heart of the “controversy” five months ago.
If the “controversy continues to swirl,” it is because local activists and close-minded fellow-travelers such as Rowe refuse to admit that the charges were based upon what largely turned out to be fabrications, which had begun to unravel long before the verdict.
Villagers at Buyat Bay were not afflicted with terrible skin conditions unique to the site. Baby Andini, the alleged poster child of chemical poisoning, apparently died of a condition related to malnutrition. The bay was not dangerously contaminated with mercury, international experts concluded in 2004.
Yet, as the court itself pointed out, with each setback the activists shifted the focus of their complaints against Newmont. The goal was to discredit the company somehow; the means became immaterial.
Does Rowe play similarly fast-and- loose with his other regurgitated allegations? I can’t tell in all cases, not having examined, for example, the claims and counterclaims involving Ghana and Peru. But consider Rowe’s curious treatment of the situation in Nevada.
“In North America,” Rowe writes, “Newmont operates on Western Shoshone lands without their permission, damaging the environment and paying no royalties to the tribe for taking their resources.”
Wouldn’t a scholar interested in fairness have mentioned that this mining land, while claimed by the Western Shoshones under a 19th century treaty, is in fact among holdings of the federal Bureau of Land Management, as Newmont has repeatedly pointed out? Isn’t it more than a tiny bit inflammatory to suggest to readers that Newmont is simply occupying tribal lands as a rogue multinational?
If Rowe sympathizes with the Western Shoshone and considers Newmont’s behavior atrocious, so be it. Make the case. But at least acknowledge that the mining property is, say, within “ancestral Western Shoshone lands,” as less biased activists do.
Even Oxfam America, which is solidly in the Western Shoshone camp, acknowledges that “Newmont is mining on disputed lands” that the U.S. government also claims.
Is Rowe contemptuous of all government title to public lands, or only when it suits his purpose of bashing a large corporation?
I’ve never met Murdy, let alone followed his career, and have no idea whether he deserves a bridge builder award. But if we’re going to dispense awards, let’s not neglect professor Tom Rowe, who surely deserves a nomination in whatever contest honors the Best Hit Jobs of 2007.
Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.
Did you ask the Post about the unfortunate edits they made to Tom Rowe's letter?
The media should be held accountable for doing nothing more than putting out sound bites rather than the whole story. Tom Rowe has repeatedly made an honest and well documented attempt within the university and at last resort to the media to denounce this troublesome award. It was the University of Denver and the Denver Post that failed in kind. Thanks to you we can now add the Rocky Mountain News to the list. Maybe you should've commented on the original letter rather than the Denver Post's shortcomings?
Posted by Kara Martinez on August 31, 2007 09:42 AMCarroll raises a good point about Newmont's mining on the disputed Shoshone lands. After reading the Oxfam report, I would expect that the winner of the bridge builders award would be working with the Western Shoshone to address their concerns. I though corporate responsibility was about doing what was right, not necessarily what is simply legal.
I guess I am still unclear on what Newmont or Mr. Murdy has done to actually earn an award.
This demonstration was attended by the U.C. Boulder Professor Ben Whitmer, who wrote about it on his blog.
On August 31, 2007, the University of Colorado's Professor of Ethnic Cleansing "Wansee" Whitmer celebrated and disseminated "overheard" terroristic threats against Americans deemed "Little Eichmanns"---a mine operator, a former government official, and even children.
Why didn't Professor of Ethnic Cleansing "Wansee" Whitmer, report the people whom he claims he overheard making these death threats to the police instead of celebrating their threats on his blog?
Here are three death threats that the C.U. Professor of Ethnic Cleansing Benjamin Whitmer claims he overheard at the demonstration against Newmont Mining:
“How’s about we throw Wayne Murdy off a bridge?"
"How’s about we throw Madeleine Albright off an even bigger bridge?”
“How’s about we feed a cyanide cocktail to your kids?”
That last threat reminded me that the Nazi Aldolf Eichmann, who coined the term "final solution," and used the cyanide compound Zyclon-B to exterminate the Jews.
Professor of Ethnic Cleansing "Wansee" Whitmer and his crew want to do it right like the Big Eichmann, I guess, and and extract gold without going through that dirty business of mining:
Full details of the threats here:
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2007/09/cu-boulders-professor-of-ethnic.html
Posted by Snapple on September 2, 2007 09:59 AMBen Whitmer is a follower of the fabricator and Colorado AIM activist Ward Churchill. They were among the leaders of this demonstration.
Churchill's crew have complained that the authorities didn't tell him about a supposed "death threat" against him.
They make threats against people and celebrate the mass murder of Americans and then claim the authorities won't defend them from assassins--who have never struck them.
Churchill ALLEGED in a 1985 article that FBI-backed death squads killed 342 AIM members and their supporters during the 1970s.
[ I guess that 1985 article got him published in a "peer-reviewed journal," the KGB's "Covert Action Information Bulletin." They specialize in defaming the CIA and FBI.]
And so does AIM. They aren't for Indians or mine safety.
Churchill claims he was AIM security on Pine Ridge in the early 1970s. How come a security minister like Wardo wasn't killed when the FBI-backed death squads ALLEGEDLY killed 342 AIMsters?
The answer is because the FBI doesn't back death squads on Indian reservations. This was just a lie that gave Wardo an entree into the KGB-sponsored "academic journal."
Why isn't Ben Whitmer reporting these death threats that he claims he overheard at the demonstration??
AIM says death threats should be reported when the are about Ward Churchill and his AIM pals. Is there another rule for people who aren't members of a communist front?
Ben Whitmer should go right to the police with his information but instead he is happy about the death threats.
I would never believe any criticism of a company or an individual made by creeps like Ben Whitmer.
Details:
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2007/09/cu-boulders-professor-of-ethnic.html
Posted by Snapple on September 2, 2007 10:34 AMClarification--AIM was one of the leaders of the demonstration. I don't know of Churchill was involved or not. Other AIM activists were.
Posted by Snapple on September 2, 2007 10:36 AMNo regard for the facts, indeed.
Call me a cynic, but I am about as surprised to see this News editorial columnist come down on the side of Newmont as I am to see a professor of human rights come down on the side of human rights.
In his hasty review of the facts, how did Mr. Carroll -- "the editor of the editorial pages" -- miss the full text of Dr. Rowe's original article?
How did the "editor" overlook the edited line "In Indonesia, as the most recent issue of MOTHER JONES indicates, controversies continue to swirl..."? Even with the edited version, how does a self-respecting journalist overlook the "most recent issue of Mother Jones" and a multi-page spread on Mr. Ness? Is Newmont disputing the article?
In his assertion of Mr. Ness's and Newmont's innocence, did Mr. Carroll look beyond the Newmont Press Release? Why no mention of the $30 million out-of-court settlement, the $1 million per month PR campaign or the lawsuit against the New York Times (which the paper later said it would "vigorously defend").
Now, I am neither an academic nor a journalist, but even a reader with a 6th grade education can see that there is still plenty of controversy over Newmont's "alleged" pollution of Buyat Bay. In fact, the only place I see no controversy is in the Newmont Public Relations department and the editorial desk of the RMN.
Perhaps Newmont or the RMN will front a trip for Mr. Carroll to take a quick dip in the Bay?
There may be some merit in DU's awarding of Mr. Murdy. I for one would have been unaware of the controversy around Newmont without it.
Posted by on September 2, 2007 11:13 AMThe full text of Dr. Rowe's original editorial can be found at http://nativeunity.blogspot.com/2007/08/human-rights-protest-marriott-revokes.html
Posted by on September 2, 2007 11:23 AMThe Mother Jones article on Mr. Ness can be found at http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2007/09/index.html. For those of you with a public library card, the same article may be accessed online through your library.
Posted by on September 2, 2007 11:25 AMThe "undisputed" facts of the case can be found at http://www.buyatbayfacts.com (Newmont PR site) or http://www.eng.walhi.or.id/kampanye/cemar/industri/070423_buyat_claims_facts_mr
Posted by on September 2, 2007 11:29 AMIn case it isn't clear enough in this article, Carroll's previous editorial should clarify his personal opinion of Newmont:
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/onpoint/archives/2007/04/carroll_the_newmont_verdict.html
Ah, yet another oppressed, right-wing victim.
Posted by joe_hill on September 4, 2007 09:06 AMAh, another oppessed rich white guy. Maybe VC should call for an affirmative action program for corporate criminaloids.
Posted by joe_hill on September 4, 2007 09:09 AM