The RIO TINTO Campaign site
BACKGROUNDER No. 6
March 1998
RIO TINTO – NAMIBIAN URANIUM – UN VIOLATIONS
“Mined by virtual slave labour under brutal conditions, transported in secrecy to foreign countries, processed in unpublicized locations, marked with false labels and shipping orders, owned by a tangle of multinational corporations whose activities are only partially disclosed and used in part to build the nuclear power of an outlaw nation....
The commodity is uranium. It comes from Namibia. It is mined, shipped, processed and sold in direct violation of United Nations resolutions, of a Decree enacted by the United Nations Council for Namibia, the legal administering authority of the Territory, and of an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.” United Nations, 1982. [1]
The company at the centre of this controvery was Rio Tinto, which owns 60% of the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia. From 1977- 1990, Rio Tinto, along with its South African partner companies, supplied western nations with uranium for power reactors and nuclear weapons. The trade in uranium from Namibia was made possible because the country was illegally occupied by the South African apartheid regime. Profits from the Rossing mine not only went to bolster South Africa's economy, but were also used to support the 70,000 South African troops occupying Namibia.
The UN declared that the trade in Namibian uranium was a trade in stolen goods, "the extraction, removal transport and sale of uranium from the Namib Desert is clearly illegal under Decree No 1 of the Protection of the Natural Resources of Namibia: the $400 million removed from Namibia every year is a theft under that law and must be accounted for when Namibia becomes independent."
However, Rio Tinto was `protected' because the company had powerful friends in the state-owned and private nuclear corporations in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the UK and the US - all of whom took receipt of Namibian uranium. The same countries also profited because the uranium was cheaper than normal due to appalling working conditions, the low taxation rate and "and the freedom from social, political and ecological or any other legal restraints in Namibia." Instead of moving to stop this trade, some customer countries showed their gratitude by allowing their nuclear technology to be used in South Africa's illegal nuclear weapons program.
Not surprisingly Rio Tinto enjoyed particular protection in its home state, the UK, where unsafeguarded Namibian uranium (not subject to the usual controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency) – was used in British nuclear weapons.
Even when Namibia gained indepdence in 1990 the expected legal repercussions never took place and to Rio Tinto still operates in Namibia. The country is too poor to stop the mine which is one of its major commercial ventures. The Namibian government is in no position to take legal action over past misdemeanours. However, despite the improvements in working conditions in the mid-80s, the health impacts of the earlier years are now coming to light - and former workers are suing Rio Tinto for the illnesses they believe were caused in working in unsafe conditions (see backgrounder no. 9).
[1] `Plunder of Namibian Uranium'. United Nations, New York, 1982
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