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I spy with my little Omai What was Cambior's communications director doing at a UN-sponsored tribunal? by PHILIP PREVILLE
"He was trying to pass himself off as a CBC journalist," says tribunal organizer Margaret Decaries, a member of the human rights caucus of non-governmental organizations for the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. "I made a private intervention," King told the Mirror in response to Decaries's comments. "I happened to be in New York on personal business and knew the tribunal was going on, so I decided to attend. But I was not speaking on behalf of anybody." The tribunal was held in conjunction with Earth Summit II in New York City on June 22 and 23; the tribunal heard a number of cases, including that of the Cambior-owned Omai gold mine in Guyana. Guyanese residents Elisabeth and Judith David, who are representing the people of Guyana in the Quebec court case against Cambior, presented their case at the tribunal. (Cambior is being sued in Quebec court over the August 9, 1995 spill of 3.2 billion litres of cyanide-laced effluent from the Omai gold mine into the Omai and Essequibo Rivers.) According to a videotape of the tribunal obtained by the Mirror, the microphone opened for comments from the audience after the Davids had given their presentation. A man rose to the microphone, introduced himself as Geoff King and said, "I am a journalist by training and I'll admit right away that I do some work for Cambior." He went on to suggest that the Davids were in a conflict of interest because they were presenting at the tribunal at the same time that they had a court case outstanding in Canada. He explained that the Omai gold mine is responsible for 20 to 25 per cent of Guyana's gross national product and said that the tribunal should investigate the effects of cyanide on the ecosystem, since cyanide is biodegradable. Afterwards, one individual asked King if he could be quoted as an official of Cambior. King stated that, while he did work with Cambior, he had worked with the CBC and that the CBC had followed the story, he was nonetheless speaking as an individual. Nicole Bélanger, regional director for the CBC, says their records show that King worked as a researcher for the CBC radio program Daybreak in the early '80s and as a production assistant with Radio-Canada International last year. According to Bélanger, CBC lawyers contacted King after viewing the videotape themselves. She says that, strictly speaking, King never made any false claim about his connection to the CBC; nevertheless, "we can see how it's possible that [the tribunal] was left with the belief that he worked for us. The onus was on him to be perfectly clear about who he was, and to correct something that went on the record." King reassured the Mirror that he had no covert intentions, but says that such a perspective--combined with the confusion around his actual job--may explain the unfriendly reception he received at the tribunal. "That kind of thing wasn't even on my mind," King says. "They [the people at the tribunal] are probably more experienced in these things than I am. "I hadn't even planned to say anything. But nothing was being said about finance, economics or the marketplace. If we are going to make progress on these issues, the role of the marketplace has to be addressed." |
When Montreal-based mining company Cambior Inc. didn't respond to an invitation to speak at a New York City tribunal on human rights and the environment, tribunal organizers figured no one from the company would be present. So they were surprised when a man named Geoffrey King took the microphone at the tribunal to speak in the company's defense. They were even more surprised to discover that King was Cambior's director of communications--especially since he never identified himself as such.