A rare moment happened last month at a Barrick mine site in Tanzania. In one day, at least five people were shot and killed by a Barrick-paid police force known for wide-spread corruption. At least four of these people were shot in the back while fleeing an onslaught of bullets that injured at least a dozen more within a largely unarmed crowd. The attack was not an isolated incident – community members report similar killings in the past.  What set this incident apart was that Barrick was actually caught trying to cover it up. 

Jocelyn Edwards from the Star happened to be near Tarime, Tanzania when news first hit that seven “aggressive intruders” had been killed at Barrick’s North Mara mine. The company claimed that the killings were the result of 1,500 local people storming the mine with machetes and stones, looking to steal gold ore. When Edwards arrived, she found trucks of police in full riot gear patrolling the streets, while relatives of the deceased were huddled together in a compound. The police then raided the mortuary, stealing four of the victim’s bodies and arresting an environmental lawyer and a Member of Parliament, along with seven other people who had been guarding the bodies. They were arrested, beaten and put in the back of a truck while the bodies were dumped on the side of the road.

Edwards was soon deported from Tanzania and formally charged with “engaging in journalism activities without permission”.

Next, the Globe and Mail’s African Bureau chief Geoff York arrived on the scene. Despite being hosted in part by Barrick in Tarime, he couldn’t avoid being confronted by a reality that was much different than the story that Barrick tried to convey. He found that far from a raid on the minesite, hundreds of villagers were regularly allowed on the site to take bags of crushed ore in exchange for bribes. Violent confrontation would occur, he found, when the police would try to extract more money from the scavengers. Even in York’s interview with Constantine Massawe, the regional police commander in Tarime, he was told that nobody attacked the police with machetes, and the seven injuries among the police were all caused by stones. The Globe and Mail veteran described the area surrounding Barrick’s mine as “an atmosphere of conflict and intimidation” and  questioned Barrick’s decision to continue “operating in the anarchic conditions around its mining site, where violent confrontations are common, allegations of police abuses are frequent and deaths are inevitable.”

After relaying the details of the corruption and violence near the mine site – including fresh allegations of gang-rape by Barrick security – York expresses skepticism that Barrick’s promises of investigating the matter will bring justice. “In each case, however, the police will be investigating themselves,” he writes, “something that is unlikely to reassure the 68,000 people in the villages around the mine.”

When considering that 40,000 small-scale miners were forcibly displaced to make way for the large-scale gold mine, it is no surprise that conflict continues at this site, alongside widespread poverty in the region. And while Barrick profits and the local community is criminalized, Barrick’s chairman Peter Munk is honored in Canadian society for his philanthropy. Hopefully, as news spreads beyond the control of Barrick’s spin masters, Canadian society will wake up to the harsh reality of this vanity industry.