-Caveat Lector-
UK'a Guardian And Observer
Sued Over Report On Bush
My Paper Sued By Company Over Investigation
Into Links To Bush, Human Rights Abuses
From Gregory Palast
http://www.GregPalast.com
7-5-1
In retaliation for the investigative story about the
finances
of the George W. Bush campaign, Barrick Gold Mining of
Canada has sued my paper, the Observer of London, for
libel. The company, which hired the elder Bush after his
leaving the White House, is charging the newspaper with
libel for quoting an Amnesty International report which
alleged that 50 miners may have been buried alive in
Tanzania by a company now owned by Barrick.
The company has also demanded the Observer and its
parent, Guardian Newspapers, force me to remove the
article from my US website, an frightening extension of
Britain's punitive libel laws into the World Wide Web. The
company has also issued legal threats against Tanzanian
human rights lawyer, Tundu Lissu, one of the Observer's
independent sources and an investigator of the mine-site
allegations.
The attack by Barrick and its controversial Chairman,
Peter Munk, one of the wealthiest men in Canada, who
boasts of his propensity to sue, also aims to gag my
reporting on his company's purchase of rights to a gold
mine in Nevada - containing $10 billion in gold - for a
payment of under $10,000 to the US Treasury.
My Observer story, Best Democracy Money Can Buy,
looked into the activities of several corporations linked to
the Bushes. It was in that article I first disclosed that
over
50,000 Florida voters, most of them Black, were wrongly
tagged as ,�?felons,' and targeted for removal from the
voter rolls. My follow-up reports in Salon.com, Nation and
the Washington Post and on BBC-TV's Newsnight
provided the basis for the US Civil Rights Commission
finding of massive, wrongful voter disenfranchisement in
Florida.
My entire continuing investigation is in jeopardy. It is
difficult to imagine how my paper, owned by the non-profit
Scott Trust, myself and human rights lawyer Lissu can
withstand the financial punishment of litigation by the
centi-millionaire Munk and his corporation.
In its latest Annual report, Amnesty says it cannot verify
the allegations of the mine killings because the
government continues to resist an independent
investigation. Yet, Barrick wants our paper to state what
we know to be untrue, that independent investigation
found the charges completely baseless. Yet our quoting
Amnesty is no defense. Americans cannot conceive of the
medieval operation of British libel law. It does not permit
the defense of "repetition" - straightforward reporting on
the statements of human rights groups is banned, a gag
nearly as effective as Burmese law.
Independently of Amnesty, attorney Lissu went to the mine
site and provided our paper with witness statements.
Tanzanians have offered their services to help defend
against censorship in Britain, a poignant reversal for our
paper which, with imperial pomp, has launched a 'Press
Freedom Campaign' to excoriate developing nations over
gagging journalists.
'10 Little Piggies,' Adnan Khashoggi, and The Greatest
Gold Heist Since Butch Cassidy
Peter Munk's reputation proceeds him. Last year, Mother
Jones named him one of America's ,�?Ten Little Piggies'
for his US gold mine's literally 'poisoning the water'
through what environmentalists consider polluting
extraction practices.
How Barrick got the gold mine is something they would
rather we not report.
First, Munk was set up in the gold business by funds from
Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. We are being sued
for discussing this connection although the information
comes from Peter Munk himself , quoted in his biography.
Second, Barrick struck it rich when the company used (or
misused, say many) an old Gold Rush law to claim rights
on a Nevada mine containing $10 billion in gold by paying
the US Treasury less than $10,000. They are suing my
paper for publicizing this extraordinary transaction which
US Interior Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt called,
"the biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy,"
and "a form of legalized extortion."
Barrick's suit claims the Observer libeled them by failing
to
state that Barrick had to spend money to buy other rights
and equipment to dig the gold out of the ground. What an
odd misreading of our words. We never said the US
government mailed the gold bars to Barrick in Canada.
We only said that Barrick got the gold mine and the public
got the shaft.
The company's CEO has also demanded his lawyers slice
a pound of our journalistic flesh for mentioning that he,
"made his name in Canada in the 1960s as the figure in
an infamous insider stock-trading scandal." Yet, we read
this in the Canadian magazine Macleans: "The failure of
[Clairetone Corporation] cost Munk his business and his
reputation. Most damning were allegations of insider
trading that were made after it was discovered that he and
[his partner] had sold shares in 1967 just before some of
Clairetone's most serious problems became known."
Lynching by Libel Law
The clear purpose of the suit is, as Barrick says, to force
the Observer to say, the investigation "should never have
been published" an inquiry into those who purchase the
favor and influence of the Bush family, not just Barrick.
The article was about the blizzard of money whirling
around a family of Presidents and their associations.
Among other paid favors for Barrick, the former President
wrote the dictator Suharto to convince him, successfully,
to grant another gold concession to Barrick.
And more than Barrick came into our investigative
cross-hairs. There was Chevron Corporation, and
ChoicePoint, the firm at the center of the racially-charged
voter purge in Florida. This suit with malicious tone
attempts to besmirch our entire investigation and to
undermine ours and others further investigations into
Bush and Barrick.
The Observer's official history quotes a media critic's
statement that the paper's new editor, "... is expected to
continue the paper's tradition of crusading reporting as in
the Lobbygate investigate investigation."
In that 'Lobbygate' story, well-known in the UK, I went
undercover with my partner Antony Barnett to expose
corruption at the heart of the Blair cabinet.
But the wrath of a Prime Minister is easy to dismiss - and
our awards were a pleasant salve. The withering, costly
pounding of an enraged corporate power with too much
money to spend has chilled reporters' and British
newspapers' will to take on the tougher investigative
matters. Amnesty is, "silent on the advice of lawyers." And
so, the witness statements of those who watched the
bodies exhumed, and one who dug his way from the mass
grave, will now also remain entombed in legal silence.
How much longer I can hold the line if abandoned by the
Guardian's Scott Trust - which is cracking under the
weight of legal bills - I cannot say. And the consequences
of capitulation to our source and defender, Tundu Lissu
and his Tanzanian human rights organization, we cannot
imagine.
Gregory Palast http://www.GregPalast.com
MainPage
http://www.rense.com
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