SAVE LAKE COWAL

Traditional Owner further delays Lake Cowal gold mine expansion

Media Release 1 July 2009

In the NSW Supreme Court of Appeal today, Wiradjuri Traditional Owner, Neville Chappy Williams, has further delayed the expansion of Barrick Australia’s Lake Cowal gold mine.

Barrister Bret Walker SC and assisting counsel Dr Sarah Pritchard, engaged by the Environmental Defenders’ Office representing Mr Williams, challenged Barrick’s appeal to the February 2009 Land and Environment Court decision that put the mine expansion on hold.

In that case, Williams v Barrick Australia Limited, Justice Biscoe found that Barrick’s proposed E42 Modification to the Lake Cowal gold mine was a “radical transformation” and not a “modification” of the mine.

The case concerned Barrick’s application to the Department of Planning to significantly expand and intensify its mining operations at Lake Cowal—almost doubling the size of the mine and extending its operational life by 11 years. The Court held that the application was not a modification request for Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. The Court also made findings against the validity of decisions made (or to be made) by the Director-General of the Department of Planning and the Minister for Planning that relate to Barrick’s application.

“We are fighting on the cultural side and the environmental side and we have taken the fight on for all people,” Mr Williams said.

“Barrick are pumping water from the Kalara (Lachlan) River and from the Bland Paleochannel, an underground river and ancient Dreaming track. Now the company wants to increase water use at the mine by about 42% and 55%, but they are very cagey about how much water would really be needed if the mine was expanded. The surrounding agricultural region is one of NSW’s and the ACT’s bread baskets.

“There have been many large dust storms across the Central West. And what could be mixed in the dust? Cyanide, arsenic, cadmium, aluminium and toxic wastes.”

Mr Williams is a Traditional Owner representing the Mooka and Kalara Traditional Owners of Lake Cowal—the sacred heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation. He is also a custodian and native title applicant of the land and waters in which the gold mine is located. The mine has been the subject of intense and ongoing community concern for more than 14 years.

Today NSW Appeal Court Justices Basten, McColl and Sackville reserved their decision in Barrick v Williams & Ors. It is expected that they will hand down their judgment in between one to three months. In the meantime the expansion cannot go ahead.

“Hopefully this further delay to the expansion will mean the mine will close for ever. You can’t eat gold and you can’t drink cyanide. We must remember water is more precious than gold. Water is life,” Mr Williams said.

Contacts:

Neville Williams 0447 841 560
Ellie Gilbert 0421 795 639

PRESS CONFERENCE and ACTION

All welcome: come and support Uncle Chappy

Media Alert 30 June 2009

Neville Chappy Williams on behalf of Mooka and Kalara united families within the Wiradjuri Nation

Outside Law Courts Building on Macquarie St, Sydney.

9.30am WEDNESDAY 1st JULY

Neville Chappy Williams is defending the decision handed down by the NSW Land and Environment Court in February, 2009, to restrain the NSW Minister for Planning from approving a proposal to expand the Lake Cowal Gold mine to twice the present size.

Uncle Chappy is being represented by one of Australia’s most senior Barristers, Brett Walker SC, along with Sarah Pritchard and the Environment Defenders Office in Williams v Minister for Planning

10.15am Court of Appeal, Level 12, Supreme Court Building,

In 2008 Barrick had applied to the NSW Minister for approval for the expansion as a “modification”, which means the proposal did not require a rigorous environmental assessment.

Also if the proposed expansion is assessed as a “modification” it does not allow objectors to appeal against Ministerial approval.

The appeal case on 1st July has important public interest ramifications as a number of mining operations in NSW have been attempting to use the “modification” clause in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act as a loop hole to allow unfettered expansions of operations without thorough environmental assessment.

Barrick have lodged an Appeal in the NSW Supreme Court to overturn the LEC decision. The case was successfully argued by Al Oshlack of IJAN, the Indigenous Justice Advocacy Network. The proposed expansion will see increased overall mining and processing for a further 11 years. Resulting in tailings dams 17 and 15 stories high full of toxic waste left on the floodplain forever.

There is a simultaneous protest outside the Orica Cyanide factory in Gladstone, QLD.

Contact: Neville Williams 0447 841 560 and 0421 795 639

Changing Landscapes Photo Exhibition

What: Changing Landscapes Exhibition Opening & Mining and Water Pubic Forum
When: Wednesday 1st July 2009, 6pm
Where: Tortuga Studio, 31 Princess Highway, St Peters Sydney (opposite BP garage in Sydney Park)

Changing Landscapes is a photographic exhibition documenting the story of Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold miner, and their operations in the culturally and ecologically significant area of Lake Cowal. Lake Cowal is an ephemeral lake experiencing periods of flooding and drying in 20-year cycles. The Lake is not only a Nationally significant wetland but is known as the Sacred Heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation.

Covering a 10 year period the exhibition explores the beauty of Lake Cowal and the stark changes on the landscape through gold mining. Exploring the natural changes through drought and the changes created by human intervention Changing Landscapes aims to inform the community and wider public about the environmental impacts of Barrick’s gold mine at Lake Cowal. The photographs tell a dramatic story of struggle and beauty in the face of the resource boom.

As part of the exhibition opening there will be Speakers including Uncle Neville Chappy William of the Mooka Kalara United Families and Darren Bloomfield, on the history of the Lake Cowal campaign and sovereignty. There will also be music and a bar.

INFORMATION NIGHT and FUNDRAISER@The Front, Wattle St Lyneham

MINING DISASTER – Emergency Funds Needed Forced Evictions & Burning of Homes in Papua New Guinea Where Canadian Company Barrick Gold Operates Gold Mine

“Mr. Munk, your mine has destroyed our land, our water, our safety and our ability to feed ourselves.  We know that we can no longer live on our ancestral land.  We know that we must leave our place so that our children can have a future.  But rather than offer us fair terms for our relocation you are calling for military action and our houses and lands are being torched.”

“Barrick’s Porgera Mine is a textbook case of what can go wrong when large-scale mining confronts indigenous peoples, ignoring the impacts of its projects and resorting to goon squads when people rebel against it. This outrages the conscience of local Indigenous communities, especially when the mine is right next to our homes; my people are exposed to dangerous chemicals like cyanide and mercury; some of our people drown in the tailings and waste during floods; and fishing stocks, flora and fauna are depleted down the river systems, leading to indigenous food sources being threatened.”

Activists Try to Block Start of Pascua Lama Mine

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, May 18 (IPS) – As Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold gets ready to start construction at the Pascua Lama mine, straddling the Argentine-Chilean border, activists in Chile are scrambling to block the ambitious mining project while calling for an investigation of supposed irregularities committed in the approval process.

Public opposition to Pascua Lama resurged on May 7 when the company announced simultaneously in Toronto, Santiago and Buenos Aires that it had the necessary permits to start construction on the mine at 4,000 metres altitude in the Andes mountains, and that work may begin in September – at the start of the southern hemisphere spring – or even earlier.

The governments of Chile and Argentina, which issued environmental permits for the mine in 2006 and 2007, respectively, reached an agreement a few weeks ago on how the firm is to be taxed. Barrick blamed the delay in the project on this complex negotiation between the two countries.

The announcement that work would begin catalysed activists. But what really riled them was the participation of Chile’s mining minister, Santiago González, in the press conference in which the company announced the start of construction work on the mine.

At the news briefing, González said Pascua Lama was “very important” to the government, as the world’s first binational mining project and the first to be carried out under the mining integration treaty signed by Chile and Argentina in 1997.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández, who received the Barrick executives in the seat of government, made similar remarks.

But five days later, on May 12, Rodrigo Weisner, director of the General Directorate of Water (DGA) stoked the controversy when he said his office was still studying two permits needed to start work on the mine.

In an e-mail interview with IPS, the vice president of corporate affairs and communications at Barrick South America, Rodrigo Jiménez, said the company has the “key construction permits” that “enable it to begin to assign contracts and start to move in terms of development of infrastructure.”

By the time the “large-scale” construction gets underway, in September or earlier, the company plans to have the pending permits that are now in the process of being granted, he said.

For those opposed to Pascua Lama, this complicated scenario is part of a string of irregularities that have marred the evaluation and approval process for the mine, which will involve an investment of between 2.8 and 3.0 billion dollars.

The open-pit gold and silver mine will be located 4,000 metres up in the Andes mountains. Approximately 75 percent of the mineral reserves to be tapped by the company are in the northern Chilean region of Atacama, and the rest are in the northwestern Argentine province of San Juan.

Environmental organisations, local residents of the Huasco Valley below the mine, representatives of the Catholic Church, Diaguita Indians claiming the land as their own, and local and foreign activists have been protesting the project for years.

Their main fears are the dangers posed to three glaciers near the mine and the pollution of the key sources of water for 70,000 small farmers in the Huasco Valley, the only valley in northern Chile that has not yet been affected by the operations of mining corporations, say activists.

Environmentalists and other activists blame the water crisis plaguing the arid north of Chile on the uncontrolled expansion of private sector mining in the last two decades.

After Barrick received the environmental permits for the mine in 2006 and 2007, the company submitted other parts of the project to the evaluation process.

According to opponents of Pascua Lama, this means the initiative was never evaluated as a whole, but in bits and pieces, which made it impossible to gauge its real impact. They also complain that many aspects were modified along the way, bypassing Chile’s environmental laws.

In a May 14 meeting with foreign correspondents, Chile’s environment minister Ana Lya Uriarte acknowledged that several parts of the project were approved separately, but said the most critical aspect, the construction and operation of the mine itself, was approved on the basis of strict criteria in 2006.

Activists are also sceptical of the effectiveness of the glacier and river management and monitoring plans designed by the company to fulfil the main condition set by the centre-left government: that “the company will only remove the minerals in such a way that the Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza glaciers will not be removed, relocated, destroyed or physically affected.”

The company had initially proposed “moving” the glaciers.

“From the point of view of the care and use of water resources, for example, there will be 49 monitoring points for overseeing the quality of water in Chilean territory, 26 of which are automatic,” as well as 38 points in Argentina, said Jiménez.

The Barrick executive argued that the mine “will not modify water quality.”

In addition, he said the multi-million dollar agreement reached with the Junta de Vigilancia del Río Huasco – a committee that represents around 2,000 farmers in the Huasco Valley holding water usage rights – in which the company pledged the construction of a dam and other water works would even improve on the current availability of water in the valley.

But even prior to approval of the mining project, the DGA had found that the glaciers in the area were retreating as a result of years of prospecting and exploration by Barrick.

That conclusion was supported by a study by the Military Geographical Institute, the National Agriculture Association (SNA), and the Sustainable Chile Programme, a prominent local environmental group.

“In the sixth year of construction of the mine, the company also plans to destroy a rock glacier, to install the Nevada Norte waste dump there,” the head of Sustainable Chile, Sara Larraín, wrote in a May 11 opinion column in which she also pointed to Barrick’s bad environmental reputation around the world.

According to Barrick official Jiménez, the DGA report “was based on a visual inspection” that was not checked against technical measurements. In any case, he argued, the changes undergone by the glaciers were found during the environmental impact assessment process to have been caused by climatic factors, like the El Niño weather phenomenon or global warming.

In response to a question from IPS about whether the government can ensure that the construction and operation of the mine will not affect water quality and quantity in the Huasco Valley, minister Uriarte said that because of its characteristics, the project “will require month-to-month, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and second-to-second monitoring.”

In this respect, “the big challenge facing our country is to have an oversight mechanism,” like the one currently being discussed in Congress, which would include the creation of an environment ministry to replace CONAMA (the national environment commission headed by Uriarte), an environmental impact assessment service and an environmental regulatory agency.

Uriarte hopes the new institutions will be approved before the end of socialist President Michelle Bachelet’s term, in March 2010.

According to the company, around 5,500 workers will be needed during the construction phase at the mine, and 1,600 permanent jobs will be created. In addition, it estimates that some 4,000 indirect jobs will be generated.

But while the company highlights its social, educational and cultural efforts in the area, it is accused in Huasco Valley, especially by the small farmers, who are mainly Diaguita Indians, of “buying off consciences” and dividing the communities by means of donations.

If the rivers are polluted, the damages to the region’s natural and cultural heritage and to traditional sources of work like farming would far outweigh the benefits offered by the company, say activists.

On May 14, about 100 activists, mainly young people, held a demonstration outside the ministry of mines in the Chilean capital to protest the announced start of work at the Pascua Lama mine, denounce irregularities, and call for a moratorium on mining.

“A review of all aspects of the Pascua Lama project would require, in our view, the declaration of a moratorium on any enterprise that could qualify as large-scale chemical mining that intends to operate at the headwaters of our rivers or in glacier ecosystems,” says a statement that the protesters sent to mining minister González.

“There is still a series of pending bureaucratic steps and irregularities that have not been resolved by the company (Barrick), which in our understanding call for a more in-depth reflection, not only with regard to this project in particular but with respect to mining and environmental policies in general, on the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary of Chile’s independence” from Spanish rule, to be commemorated in 2010, the statement adds.

Lucio Cuenca of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), one of the groups that called last week’s protest, complained about the government support the company has received, despite the protests and demands from local residents and activists.

In the activists’ view, Minister González acted as a “spokesman” for Barrick in the press conference.

Cuenca also expressed concern about “the private meetings that President Bachelet has held with senior executives from the company, which the press was not even informed of.”

The environmentalists described as a “strange coincidence” the fact that neither Bachelet nor President Fernández in Argentina had backed laws to protect the glaciers.

While Fernández vetoed a law to that end passed by the Argentine Congress, the Chilean leader decided that the government would draft a policy for the protection and conservation of glaciers, which was finally approved on Apr. 14.

Instead of backing a draft law that is stalled in Congress, government officials argued that adoption of a national government policy would bring faster progress in preserving glaciers.

Uriarte clarified that, besides throwing her support behind the national policy, the president signed decrees creating a brand-new inventory of glaciers, which calls for an environmental impact assessment of any project affecting these fragile reserves of water. But environmentalists say the national policy and the inventory are weak instruments.

In both Chile and Argentina, the threats posed to the environment and national security by the 1997 mining treaty have been questioned, because it creates a cross-border area that would be controlled by mining companies. Environmentalists argue that Pascua Lama will pave the way for other binational mining projects.

According to Barrick, the area where the mine will operate holds 17.8 million ounces of gold and 718 million ounces of silver. In the first five years, projected annual output will be between 750,000 and 800,000 ounces of gold and 35 million ounces of silver.

If the deadlines set by the company are met, the mine will begin to operate in 2012 and production will begin in 2013.

Meanwhile, the groups opposed to the project are organising a March for Life, to be held Jun. 13 in Vallenar, in the province of Atacama. They also announced that they would strengthen ties with activists in the Argentine province of San Juan, and that other activities would be planned to prevent construction of the mine. (END/2009)

Lake Cowal Protest

28 protesters were arrested this morning at Barrick Gold’s mine operation in Lake Cowal, central western New South Wales. They were authorised to enter the mine site by Wiradjuri Tradtional Owners of Lake Cowal and its surrounds.

Image: Activist, Amanda Sekold was one of 28 peaceful protesters arrested at Barrick Gold’s mine in Lake Cowal. Photo: Fiona Lee

Entering the site at dawn the protesters climbed the bund walls into the open cut pit whilst Wiradjuri Traditional Owners performed a smoking ceremony and 15 other protesters blockaded the front gates of the mine. Over 50 workers waited patiently to get into the mine site for their shift change.

“The supporters were authorised by us, the Traditional Owners” said Neville Chappy Williams, Traditional Owner, Mooka/Kalara United Families within the Wiradjuri Nation, Lake Cowal, who have been in the courts against the world’s largest gold miner, Barrick Gold, for the past 10 years.

Image: Wiradjuri Traditional Owner, Neville Chappy Williams leads his supporters onto the mine. Photo: Fiona Lee

“We asked our supporters to enter the mine site to bear witness to the destruction and document the mine’s impact. It is important that Wiradjuri maintain access to our cultural sites.”

Lauren Campbell was arrested in the mine site having made the journey from Adelaide to Lake Cowal.

“Before going onto the mine this morning I looked at some recent aerial photos of Barrick Gold’s operation, but it didn’t prepare me for the devastation of what we saw. Walking onto country and standing in the mine was an affirmation of why we are here.”

Image: Protesters enter the open cut pit. Photo: Fiona Lee

Another arrested protester, Nectaria stated, “To be charged with trespass after being invited onto Wiradjuri country by Traditional Owners undermines and discredits any claims by the federal and state governments that they are taking on the issues of the environment, aboriginal health and Aboriginal sovereignty. It seriously highlights the continuation of cultural genocide in Australia.”

“When we were arrested the police kept stressing to us that we didn’t get permission from Barrick Gold, inferring that we did have authority from the Wiradjuri Traditonal Owners of the Lake Cowal area.” said arrestee, Amanda Seckold from Melbourne.

Protesters overheard security telling the police that the mine would shut down in the next year or so because Wiradjuri and their supporters would win against Barrick Gold.

Image: At dawn 15 protesters blockade the front gates of the mine, over 50 workers wait patiently. Photo: Drew Misko

“Wiradjuri Traditional Owners of Lake Cowal have a right to protect their cultural sites, a right to protect their cultural water flows and a right to maintain access to this site. Their knowledge has been carried down generations for thousands of years and can help us better understand how to manage this land for future generations,” said Natalie Lowrey, national liaison officer, Friends of the Earth Australia and long term Lake Cowal campaigner.

“Damage to water and water resources is the worst environmental consequences of gold mining. Water systems around mines are contaminated by cyanide, other process chemicals, and the acid mine drainage that runs off the exposed rock.”

Image: Protesters peacefully occupy the mine site for 4 hours before getting arrested. Photo: Fiona Lee

“This makes you wonder why a mine like Barrick Gold was ever approved in the heart of the Murray-Darling basin which has over three million Australians directly dependent on its water.”

All 28 arrested protesters will not plead guilty to trespassing in closed lands within the Barrick Gold mining lease in Lake Cowal.

Lake Cowal Gathering

This is a call out for the Lake Cowal Gathering to be held over the Easter weekend Friday 10 April – Sunday 12 April 2009 For the past 10 years Wiradjuri Traditional Owners and their supporters have kept their feet rooted firmly in the ground against the worlds largest gold mining company Barrick Gold Corporation. With their wads of cash and giant machinery Barrick Gold continues to desecrate Lake Cowal with a proposal to expand into the lake bed, doubling the size of the mine and extracting a further 53 million tonnes of ore from the open cut pit. This will add another 11 years to the life of the mine (until 2024). Barrick’s water usage would increase to over 5GL per year. Neville Chappy Williams, (Mooka/Kalara United Families within the Wiradjuri Nation, Lake Cowal) recently won an injunction restraining the NSW Minister of Planning from determining the E42 Modification Request for the proposed expansion of Barrick Gold’s mine in Lake Cowal. The Save Lake Cowal campaign needs your support in 2009! This is a campaign about sovereignty, the battle against corporate greed and the ongoing fight to protect an ecologically significant and sacred land Get involved and support the campaign. NSW, TAS, ACT & WA Nat - natalie.lowrey[at]foe.org.au 0421 226 200 VIC & SA Mia - bar-barrick[at]yahoo.com.au 0415 380 808 Northern NSW and QLD Saffire - saffiredust[at]yahoo.com.au 0428 414 402 Download the Lake Cowal Gathering poster A3 poster A4 poster A5 flyer Download MAP of how to get to Lake Cowal from West Wyalong.

Wiradjuri Elder exposes mine pit collapse at Lake Cowal

This photo shows the collapsed wall at Barrick’s gold mine at Lake Cowal 20 March 2008. Photo: Damian Baker

Wiradjuri Traditional Owner exposes a massive collapse at Barrick’s Cowal Gold Project in Lake Cowal, 45 km north-west of West Wyalong, central western NSW.

After a flight with Friends of the Earth Australia yesterday Neville ‘Chappy’ Williams stated, ” It is hard to bear the pain of the destruction of our sacred site. Barrick has ignored our demands to protect cultural objects and the ecological significance of the lake.”

Lake Cowal is an ephemeral lake lying in the Lachlan River plain within the Murray-Darling Basin.

“We are deeply concerned about the mine’s impact on local aboriginal and farming communities particularly the mines massive consumption of water”, says Natalie Lowrey, National Liaison Officer, Friends of the Earth Australia. “The pit wall collapse also creates a major concern for workers at the mine site.”

Up to 100 Wiradjuri and their supporters will be converging at Lake Cowal to voice their opposition to the mine over the Easter weekend.

Aboriginal elders occupy Barrick Gold’s Australian head office

Elders and supporters of the Wiradjuri Aboriginal Nation have occupied the Australian head office of the world’s
largest gold mining company, Barrick Gold.

Around 35 people peacefully occupied Barrick Gold’s Australian headquarters in Perth, Western Australia on Wednesday in a bid to force the company to meet Wiradjuri protocols relating to people with bloodlines to Lake Cowal in Central
New South Wales where Barrick is operating a gold mine.

Elders Neville “Chappy” Williams and Ron Gardner sought from Barrick:

• copy of the Cowal Gold Project Ancillary Deed between Barrick Australia Limited and the so-called “Wiradjuri Condobolin Native Title Claim Group”
• a response to an eviction notice delivered to Barrick
• a meeting with Barrick senior management, and
• any legal papers the company has that are the property of the Wiradjuri Elders.

Barrick’s response was to call the police and to ask the protesters to leave the premises saying they were “trespassing on private property”. After a sit-in lasting around an hour and being threatened with arrest, the Elders and supporters agreed to leave on the condition that Barrick agree to respond to the Elders” verbal and written demands in writing.

“We’re fed up with Barrick’s lack of courtesy to Wiradjuri Elders so we’ve been forced to take this kind of action. We’ve been trying to get a copy of the ancillary deed and other documents like a full inventory of artefacts collected at Lake Cowal for a long time now,” Mr Williams said.

“All the Wiradjuri with ties to Lake Cowal have a right to see the deed and the inventory, not just the five sell-outs who have signed away our ancient cultural heritage. We’ve gone through the correct channels, through Freedom of Information, letters to Barrick and a request I made personally to Barrick Chairman, Peter Munk in Canada on only 2 May at their AGM. They keep saying the deed is “commercial-in-confidence”. So what have they got to hide? They should be open with all of us Wiradjuri people, but they keep on acting in secret and putting a lot of spin on their publicity about the mine and its so-called “benefits”. Their Perth public relations officer was extremely rude to us and showed us no respect at all.”

“Barrick has not gone through the appropriate protocol, nor have they spoken to the right Wiradjuri people about Lake Cowal” Ron Gardner said. A nine-year veteran of the campaign to stop the gold mine in the Wiradjuri Nation’s heartland, Gardner has strong feelings about the mine. Until recently ill health has kept him away from the lake.

“I was shocked and emotionally upset to the point of tears when I saw the mine infrastructure on our sacred place,” he said.

“There are burials out there and it’s a massacre site. There are thousands of artefacts and scarred trees in the area that are testament to our People’s long and continuing occupation of the region, yet Barrick won’t release an inventory of all the artifacts they have collected or tell us what has happened to the scarred trees that have been removed to make way for the mine.”

“The mine has split the Wiradjuri community. You don’t know who you can talk to or trust any more. Barrick continues to deal with just a small group over the $9.2 million deal they made. They’ve set up the Wiradjuri Condobolin Corporation (WCC) but you have to join to become a member. As Chappy says, “We know who we are. You’re born into Wiradjuri. You don’t need a membership application”.

“The WCC is not benefiting the majority of Wiradjuri people. Most of us still have the same problems, poor health, housing in need of maintenance and upgrade and lack of education and job prospects.

“Barrick are wrecking the ecology out there at Lake Cowal. The company is drawing up to 3650 megalitres of water a year out the groundwater and Lachlan River near the lake and we’re still in the worst drought in recorded history.”

“They are using cyanide to leach gold from the ore. This inevitably leaches into the soil and can make its way into the water system. Despite what the company says in its PR spin, gold mining is just not safe. One teaspoon of 2% cyanide can kill a human and a lot of cyanide spills have occurred around the world. They are digging up a massive mount of earth out there and will leave a pit 1 kilometre long, 825 metres wide and 325 metres deep. It will be there forever, never to be filled in, a legacy for future generations.”

“They’ve cut down thousands of old trees that take hundreds of years to grow and provide habitat for lots of native species. Yes, they’ve replanted some vegetation but thousands of trees have died because they weren’t watered in the continuing drought”, Mr Gardner said.

“So we’re not going to stop our protests against Barrick until we get some justice,” Mr Williams said.

“They’ve made their position very clear and looks like they won’t budge. But we’re not alone. We have many rock solid supporters here in Australia like Kungarakan/Gurindji Elder Speedy McGuinness from the Northern Territory, who is fighting his own battle against new uranium mines on Aboriginal land there.”

“We have great support from the students who sat in at Barrick’s Perth head office and our Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal friends across Australia and the world in the Coalition to Protect Lake Cowal. We’ve also got a great international coalition going with First Nations peoples where Barrick is damaging and destroying Aboriginal lands in Africa and North and South America. We’ll never give up the fight until the mine is stopped and our land is returned to us,” he said.

This is an ongoing story. Barrick faxed a letter to the Elders yesterday afternoon Perth time in response to their demands. The Elders have referred it to their legal counsel for advice.