As a new high court decision in Greece puts an end to mining underneath the village of Stratoniki, Greek and Turkish anti-mining activists join forces against giant mining companies.
On December 6, 2002, the Greek State Council officially announced its ruling against the base metals mine belonging to the Canadian TVX Gold Company in the village of Stratoniki, in Northern Greece. TVX, whose planned goldmine at Olympias was banned by an earlier State Council decision on March 2002, was being touted as the largest foreign investor of the last fifty years in Greece.
The announcement of this high court decision against the base metals mine in Stratoniki has coincided with the visit of Greek anti-mining activists Tolis Papageorgiou and Maria Kadoglou to Bergama, Turkey.
Papageorgiou and Kadoglou visited the villages in the immediate vicinity of the Newmont/Normandy goldmine in Ovacik, Bergama, they met with Oktay Konyar, the spokesperson of the villagers resisting the mine, and with other Turkish anti-mine activists.
The anti-mining struggles in Greece and Turkey have followed a parallel course. But while the March ruling of the Greek State Council has put an end to the plans for a TVX gold mine in Olympias, a 1997 State Council ruling in Turkey against the Bergama goldmine was disregarded by the Turkish government, and the mine started full production in April 2002, with a special parliamentary decision that has no legal validity.
Despite the high court rulings, gold mining projects have strong governmental support both in Greece and in Turkey. In Greece there are proposed gold mine projects in Thrace, in Kilkis (Northern Greece) and on several Aegean islands. In Turkey, there are close to 600 sites already ear-marked for gold-mining.
The use of cyanide in the extraction of gold from the ore, and the inevitable activation of the heavy metals that are normally inert in the soil, make gold mining an activity that poses severe environmental risks. Now, citizens resisting mining projects on both sides of the Aegean Sea have decided to work together to prevent ecological disasters in a region of great beauty and historic importance.
Since Turkey fervently wants to join the European Union, and Greece is already a member,
Greek and Turkish activists have decided to apply together to the European Commission to bring Turkey’s disregard for its own high court ruling to the attention of the Commission, and to ensure that laws are enforced in Turkey, as they are in Greece.
For more information: Maria Kadoglou, [email protected]
Ustun Reinart, [email protected]