Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

Posted on May 18, 2026 by mininganalystnow

Allegations of Environmental, Social, and Security Abuses —

Case Studies and Accountability Pathways^{^[1]}

[New book – republished from Wilson, John C. Buried in Practice: Freeport in West Papua, Indonesia—and the State Department Human Rights Report That Disappeared. Resource Capital Research, 2026. Archives of a Wall Street Analyst, vol. 2.]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.. 78

A Modern Take on the Resource Curse. 78

Common Patterns in Extractive Conflicts. 79

Which Companies Stand Out—and Why. 79

Greater Sunrise: ASIS – A Failure of Australia’s Security State. 80

From Investment Screening to Legal Accountability. 82

Conclusion. 82

SECTION I – COMPANY-PROJECT PROFILES. 83

1. Freeport – Grasberg mine – West Papua, Indonesia. 83

2. Chevron/Texaco – Lago Agrio – Ecuador. 85

3. BP – Tangguh LNG – West Papua, Indonesia. 87

4. Shell – Ogoniland, Niger Delta – Nigeria. 89

5. ExxonMobil – Arun gas field – Aceh, Indonesia. 91

6. PTTEP – Yadana gas field – Myanmar (TotalEnergies – former partner/operator) 93

7. Ecopetrol – Casanare – Columbia (BP former owner) 95

8. Goldcorp – Marlin gold mine – Guatemala (acquired by Newmont) 97

9. Petroperú (39% partner) – Lot 192, Achuar – Peru (Occidental Petroleum – former owner) 99

10. Glencore – Cerrejón Coal – Columbia. 101

11. Canadian Oil Sands – Alberta, Canada. 103

12. Chiquita Brands – banana regions – Colombia. 105

13. Perupetro — Peruvian Amazon exploration blocks – Peru (ConocoPhillips – former owner) 107

14. Southern Copper — Tía María copper project – Peru. 109

15. Vale — Onça-Puma nickel complex – Brazil 111

16. Norilsk Nickel — Arctic industrial pollution – Siberia, Russia. 113

17. Repsol — La Pampilla oil refinery – Peru. 115

18. Petrobras — Foz do Amazonas – Brazil 117

19. Nile Petroleum Corporation – oil – South Sudan (Lundin Energy – former owner) 119

20. Kumul Minerals (Ok Tedi) Limited — Ok Tedi mine – PNG (BHP – former owner) 121

21. Orinoco Mining Arc — mining zone – Venezuela. 123

22. Eramet, Weda Bay Nickel – Halmahera projects – North Maluku, Indonesia. 125

23. Cinta Larga — Diamond Rush – Brazil 127

24. Rio Tinto — Juukan Gorge – WA, Australia. 129

25. Nevsun Resources – Bisha mine – Eritrea (acquired by Zijin) 131

26. Vedanta Resources — Niyamgiri bauxite mine – India. 133

27. BHP — Fundão tailings dam (Mariana) disaster – Brazil 135

28. ASIS/Australian Government — Greater Sunrise Espionage – Timor-Leste/Australia. 137

29. Vedanta Resources plc — Sterlite Copper smelter – India. 139

30. ABG/BML — Panguna (Bougainville) copper mine (Rio Tinto former owner) – PNG …… ……..…….141

SECTION II – EXCLUSION DECISIONS OF SELECT SOVEREIGN WEALTH AND PENSION FUNDS. 144

1. Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global 144

2. Swedish AP Funds (AP1–AP4) 147

3. New Zealand Superannuation Fund. 148

4. KLP (Norway) 150

SECTION III – EXXONMOBIL IN ACEH, INDONESIA – US LITIGATION.. 151

Case win against ExxonMobil, Indonesia. 151

Implications for Freeport-McMoRan and BP in Indonesia. 152

Factual Hooks for US-Based Legal Exposure. 152

INTRODUCTION

This chapter documents emblematic cases in which extractive resource companies have been accused of serious human rights and environmental abuses involving Indigenous peoples and local communities. The examples span a wide range of contexts—from land dispossession and pollution to violent repression and the criminalization of protest. Some entries describe clear security-force involvement, while others center on environmental risk: large-scale contamination, tailings failures, or industrial projects whose footprint or design threatens Indigenous lands and waters.

The cases are presented as illustrative, not exhaustive. They represent a cross-section of a much broader global pattern rather than a ranked or comprehensive list. The selection aims to show recurring forms of harm and contestation across the resource sector—typically in remote regions and in low- and middle-income countries—documented by reputable news outlets, NGOs, and judicial and official findings. Outcomes vary—from court victories, settlements, and corporate exits to unresolved conflicts that persist decades later—but a common thread runs through them all: slow or absent remedy for affected communities and the continuing risk to cultural survival, environmental integrity, and public health.

Where relevant, company responses and legal outcomes are included. Many of the firms named have formally denied wrongdoing or disputed the allegations, and in several instances proceedings remain active. Inclusion here does not imply legal guilt; it reflects the existence of credible, publicly documented claims significant enough to have drawn sustained scrutiny from courts, regulators, investors, or the media.

Taken together, these cases point to structural problems rather than isolated failures: the externalization of environmental and security risks, weak oversight in frontier regions, and the persistent imbalance of power between multinational resource companies and the communities living at the extraction sites.

A clear pattern emerges from these examples: resource wealth often concentrates power and risk rather than shared prosperity. The next section examines this dynamic—the resource curse—and how it continues to shape outcomes in today’s extractive frontiers.

A Modern Take on the Resource Curse

The patterns documented here are part of what political economists long ago termed the resource curse—the paradox in which countries rich in minerals, oil, or gas often experience slower development, higher inequality, corruption, and conflict rather than prosperity. It was flagged in the 1970s and 1980s after seeing how natural-resource dependence tends to weaken democratic institutions, perpetuate captive watchdogs, reward well-connected elites, and concentrate power in security forces charged with protecting lucrative assets. In many developing regions, these dynamics persist: extraction zones become enclaves of revenue and coercion, while Indigenous and rural populations bear the ecological and social costs. The case studies in this chapter illustrate the modern continuation of this pattern. Despite decades of environmental and social-governance reform, the same structural drivers—weak oversight, impunity for security abuses, and the global appetite for raw materials—remain firmly in place.

Resource Conflicts – What We See Across the Cases

Across jurisdictions, several trends recur. First, security provisioning around extractive assets often externalizes violence. Operations are accompanied by emergency decrees, militarized policing, and “public–private” security partnerships that blur accountability. In some contexts, paramilitary or mercenary actors have been implicated, leaving communities trapped between corporate and state coercion. Second, consent failures are systemic: projects advance without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) or through processes that divide Indigenous governance structures, setting elected leaders against customary or hereditary authorities. Third, remedy is slow and uneven—years of litigation, confidential settlements with no admission of wrongdoing, and abrupt corporate exits that leave behind polluted rivers, tailings, or toxic spoil heaps. Fourth, gender-based violence appears repeatedly where security personnel interface with local populations, exposing persistent protection gaps for women and girls. Fifth, environmental risk is chronic and cumulative: tailings seepage, pipeline ruptures, produced-water contamination, and mercury exposure often undermine livelihoods for Indigenous fishers and farmers. Sixth, the transition to “green” or “critical” minerals—nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium, rare earths—has simply shifted the frontier of extraction into new and often fragile ecosystems, frequently overlapping territories of uncontacted or recently contacted peoples. Finally, investor pressure and ESG screening are increasing—led by sovereign wealth funds such as Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and Sweden’s AP Funds—but enforcement of standards and access to remedy still depend on national institutions, transnational litigation, and the persistence of community advocacy.

Which Companies Stand Out—and Why

Among the most serious allegations are cases where corporate operations intersected directly with coercive state security. Freeport-McMoRan’s Grasberg mine in Papua/Indonesia epitomizes this pattern: decades of claims involving uncompensated land use affecting the Amungme and Kamoro peoples, riverine tailings disposal, and documented payments to Indonesian military and police units guarding the site. The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and Bougainville Minerals Limited (BML) now control the Panguna Mine in Papua New Guinea—historically operated by Bougainville Copper Limited and formerly majority-owned by Rio Tinto. It stands out as a flagship foreign-owned mine that became the flashpoint for a militarized security response and a decade-long civil war that killed up to twenty thousand people, turning a “development project” into a state–corporate–security-force conflict with enduring environmental and political fallout.

ExxonMobil’s Arun gas field in Aceh, generated litigation over torture, killings, and sexual violence by soldiers contracted to protect its facilities, culminating in a US settlement in 2023. In Colombia, OCENSA pipeline system (BP former owner; now owned by Ecopetrol) and Glencore – Cerrejón projects have been linked in reporting and NGO/community claims to intimidation and patterns of paramilitary-related displacement. In the case of Cerrejón, in 2020 the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment remarked that “the El Cerrejón mine and the Wayúu indigenous people is one of the most disturbing situations that I have learned about in my two and half years …”^[2] Both companies have consistently denied commissioning or paying armed groups and in both cases the companies deny wrongdoing and have not been found liable in court.

For environmental destruction, standouts include allegations of Chevron/Texaco’s legacy pollution in Ecuador, Ok Tedi (BHP former owner), Freeport’s Grasberg mine in West Papua, Vale/BHP’s Samarco disasters in Brazil, and Norilsk Nickel’s Arctic contamination. For cultural destruction, Rio Tinto’s destruction of the Juukan Gorge sacred site in Australia stands out in recent years.

Two cases are especially egregious for their legal posture: in Sweden, prosecutors have taken former Lundin Oil executives Ian Lundin and Alex Schneiter to court for alleged complicity in war crimes tied to oil operations in what is now South Sudan (1999–2003). This is a landmark, multi-year trial the defendants contest, with prosecutors also seeking major asset confiscations from Orrön Energy (formerly Lundin Energy). The defendants deny wrongdoing and are contesting the charges. In the United States, Chiquita Brands pleaded guilty in 2007 to paying the AUC, a US-designated terrorist organization, and paid a US$25 million fine; in 2024 a Florida civil jury further found Chiquita liable to Colombian families for funding the AUC and awarded US$38.3 million in damages (the company says it will appeal). Together, these proceedings underscore that corporate complicity can attract both criminal prosecution and civil liability.

In another case, the post-judgement phase of the Chevron/Texaco v. Lago Agrio plaintiffs (Ecuador Amazon) case became a wide-ranging transnational battle involving enforcement actions, fraud litigation, treaty arbitration, and a sustained fight over public legitimacy after the roughly US$9.5 billion 2013 ruling against Chevron/Texaco. In 2014, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) found the Ecuador judgment had been procured by fraud and barred enforcement against Chevron in the United States; the Second Circuit later affirmed. Against that background, to convey the scale of the post-judgment litigation phase, Harvard Law School alumnus Steven Donziger has publicly characterized Chevron’s campaign against him and the Ecuadorian plaintiffs — including his house arrest in New York — as involving “60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers.”

Separately, in Chevron/TexPet v. Republic of Ecuador (II) under the Ecuador–US Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), the tribunal ruled for Chevron/TexPet against Ecuador in its 2018 Track II award, and the PCA case remains active through later damages-phase proceedings, including a February 5, 2026 correction decision on Track III. Litigation remains ongoing.

The Bilateral Investment Treaty between Ecuador and the US covers the reciprocal protection of investment. It is the treaty basis Chevron/TexPet used in 2009 to bring a separate investor–state arbitration against the Republic of Ecuador — not against the Lago Agrio plaintiffs. The PCA docket lists this as Chevron Corporation and Texaco Petroleum Company v. The Republic of Ecuador (II). In plain terms: the Lago Agrio case is the private plaintiffs’ environmental case against Chevron/Texaco in Ecuadorian courts, while the BIT case is Chevron/TexPet’s treaty arbitration against Ecuador over Ecuador’s conduct (including issues tied to the Lago Agrio litigation). UNCTAD lists the BIT case as an investor–state dispute and still shows it as pending.

Greater Sunrise: ASIS – A Failure of Australia’s Security State

ASIS: Threat to Australian Values—and to Regional Influence

The case of Woodside Energy, supported by Australia’s intelligence service—the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS)—conduct widely regarded as unlawful under international law, stands out as an egregious example of state abuse – a situation later examined in proceedings at The Hague that resulted in findings adverse to Australia. The episode reveals disturbing hypocrisy in Australian government conduct and stated values of its then leaders.

The East Timor spying scandal exemplifies a unique dimension of the resource curse: the “predatory neighbor” effect, where a developed state weaponizes its national security apparatus to strip assets from a fragile, resource-rich nation. In 2004, ASIS masqueraded as aid workers to bug Timor-Leste’s cabinet offices during sensitive negotiations over the Greater Sunrise gas fields. By intercepting private government discussions, Australia secured a maritime boundary that bypassed international law, effectively siphoning billions of dollars in potential revenue away from one of the world’s newest and poorest countries to benefit the commercial interests of Woodside Energy.

Allegations center on the leadership of Australia’s intelligence agencies—not on Woodside, for which there is no evidence of directing or participating in the operation. In 2004, as Timor-Leste negotiated the oil and gas revenues that would shape its future, ASIS planted listening devices in Dili’s cabinet offices under Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, with David Irvine as ASIS Director-General, Dennis Richardson heading the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and Ashton Calvert was Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

This operation allowed Australia to manipulate one of the world’s poorest nations into a maritime treaty that deprived it of its rightful share of undersea resources, effectively prioritizing Australian economic gain over international law and regional stability. The objective was not counter-terrorism but commercial leverage.

Furthermore, the aftermath of the operation exposed a troubling “revolving door” between the Australian government and the resources sector, a classic hallmark of the political resource curse. Key figures who managed the espionage or the subsequent treaty, including Downer and DFAT Secretary Ashton Calvert, later secured lucrative roles as consultants or board members for Woodside. Ashton Calvert (Secretary of DFAT, 1998–2005) was the top diplomat overseeing the department during the bugging. He joined the Woodside Board of Directors in 2005, shortly after his retirement from the public service. Alexander Downer (Foreign Minister, 1996–2007) authorized the ASIS operation. After leaving parliament in 2008, he became a paid consultant for Woodside.

When a senior ASIS officer, known only as Witness K, attempted to blow the whistle on what many see as a misuse of national security resources for corporate gain, the Australian government responded with years of aggressive legal prosecution and raids. Witness K first “blew the whistle” by initiating formal internal complaints in early 2008, eventually escalating to public revelations in 2012–2013. A critical peak was reached in 2013 when Witness K prepared to provide a formal witness statement for Timor-Leste at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. To prevent this testimony, the Australian government (under Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis) authorized ASIO raids on December 3, 2013, seizing Witness K’s passport and legal documents from Collaery’s office. Witness K received a suspended sentence in 2021, and charges against Collaery were dropped in 2022 under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

This highlights the lengths to which a state may go to protect resource-linked interests, often at the expense of its own democratic transparency and the sovereignty of its neighbors. The episode shows how political and bureaucratic incentives—career advancement, policy “wins” for re-election, and institutional prestige—can be shielded by reference to corporate interests and “national security”. With revolving-door lobbying in the background, “national interest” became a convenient cover for actions that damaged Timor-Leste and undermined regional trust. The strategic blowback on Australia is larger than any single project: trust erodes, strategic neighbors alienated, and competitors—notably China—positioned to deepen influence across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Australia, as a first-tier economy, using its security services to buttress corporate revenues is behavior more often associated with lower- and mid-tier or autocratic states featured elsewhere in this review.

This case illustrates how the resource curse can erode the domestic integrity of a “stable” democracy through institutional capture and the “revolving door” phenomenon. The architect of the operation, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, and his department head, Ashton Calvert, both moved into lucrative roles with Woodside shortly after their public service. When the whistleblower Witness K exposed the operation, the Australian state prioritized corporate secrecy over ethical accountability, launching a decade of punitive legal prosecutions against him and his lawyer. Ultimately, the scandal reveals that the pursuit of resource wealth can compel a government to subvert its own democratic values and international reputation to serve as a high-stakes enforcer for the extractive industry.

Oversight failed. Despite public outcry and calls for justice, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) appeared silent and impotent. The Hope Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (1974–1977; 1983–1984) had recommended a standing royal commission to ensure continuous oversight of ASIS, ASIO, and IGIS—a reform never implemented, leaving Australian oversight highly compromises. The result is a framework that projects accountability while delivering little of it—an enduring warning to all Five Eyes partners about the accumulation of opaque caustic power within their intelligence agencies.

From Investment Screening to Legal Accountability

This chapter is organized into three parts. The first presents twenty-six concise case studies as reference material for ethical and institutional investors seeking to understand high-risk projects and their community impacts. They have been arbitrarily selected for review here and represent a far wider collection of companies within the extractive resource sector faced with similar issues and/or allegations. The second section surveys the exclusion and divestment decisions of sovereign wealth funds and public pensions that blacklisted Freeport-McMoRan and other companies, tracing how ESG assessments are now used to manage reputational and governance risk. The third turns to the courts—focusing on the ExxonMobil in Aceh litigation—as a concrete example of how allegations of human rights abuse tied to project-security arrangements can evolve into liability at the parent-company level.

Conclusion

Taken together, these cases show that the harms at issue are not isolated failures but structural features of an extractive model that too often discounts Indigenous rights and environmental limits. Where projects proceed without robust FPIC, independent security oversight, or binding remediation plans, abuses proliferate—and once land, water, and sacred places are damaged, restoration is rarely complete. Yet the record also shows what can drive change: credible investigations, persistent community organizing, strategic litigation, and sustained investor scrutiny. Aligning capital, corporate practice, and state regulation with those standards—before permits are issued and throughout the life of the project—is the necessary precondition for preventing the next generation of “resource-curse” conflicts.

SECTION I – COMPANY-PROJECT PROFILES

Selected cases (1990–2025). Allegations reported by cited sources; not all issues apply to every case. Includes company statements and legal outcomes where available.^{^[3]}

1. Freeport – Grasberg mine – West Papua, Indonesia

Company/Project: Freeport-McMoRan — PT Freeport Indonesia (Ertsberg mine, Grasberg mine)

Dates: 1967–present

Location: Mimika Regency (Grasberg/Ertsberg; Ajkwa/Tsinga valleys), West Papua — Indonesia

Indigenous Communities: Amungme (highlands) and Kamoro (lowlands) peoples.

Ownership and Control: Freeport’s current interest in Grasberg mine is 48.76% through PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), which operates the mine and is consolidated in Freeport-McMoRan’s financials; the remaining 51.24% is held by Indonesian interests led by MIND ID (and a Papua regional entity), marking a shift from the 1967 Contract of Work era when Freeport effectively controlled ~90.6% (Indonesia ~9.4%) and when Rio Tinto held a separate production-linked participation interest (1996–2018), to today’s structure where Indonesia has majority legal ownership while Freeport retains day-to-day operational and technical control.

Security-Force Abuses: Longstanding reports of intimidation, arbitrary detention, beatings and killings by Indonesian police and military securing mine roads and facilities; company support and payments to security units.

Triggering Event: Initial 1967 Contract of Work and subsequent expansions from Ertsberg to the Grasberg open pit and large underground block caves, and exploration ground about the size of Switzerland; intensified impacts from riverine tailings disposal along the Ajkwa system.

Issues: The Grasberg district is one of the world’s largest copper-gold operations; today it mines primarily via the Grasberg Block Cave and other underground zones, moving ore to a mill and piping concentrate to the coast. Process residue (tailings) is managed through a “controlled riverine” system that directs fine waste into engineered lowland deposition areas within the Ajkwa estuary, with levees and channels to contain sediments. Critics say this has raised riverbeds, buried wetlands and expanded mudflats along the coast; Indonesian authorities have required a multi-year tailings “roadmap” to reduce suspended solids and strengthen controls. The mine’s corridors also host a persistent police and military presence involving regular reports of excessive violence.

Allegations: Indigenous leaders and NGOs have alleged inadequate recognition of customary land, forced or under-compensated relocations, and lack of free, prior and informed consent, to riverine deposition, and especially through the 1990s transition to Grasberg open pit. Human rights assessments describe patterns of torture, sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, and restrictions on movement around mine areas. Media (generally denied access to the province) and advocacy groups have also highlighted company “support” to security units; Indonesian officials and the company have stated such support is regulated and provided for legitimate institutional needs. Peer-reviewed work further critiques how extractive projects entrench racialized marginalization in West Papua.

Outcomes/Status: Operations continue with underground mining; after incidents in 2025, Freeport reported remediation at the Grasberg Block Cave while production and exports have been subject to periodic Indonesian permit decisions tied to domestic smelting policy. The environment ministry has issued decrees (2018/2019) mandating a tailings-management roadmap (2018–2024) and targets for total suspended solids. Disputes over land, benefits and policing recur, while local programs and government revenue sharing continue alongside ongoing oversight and advocacy.

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Core sources:

Abrash, Abigail July 2002, Contemporary Forms of Slavery in Indonesia: Freeport Case Study, La’o Hamutuk. https://www.laohamutuk.org/Oil/LNG/Refs/002AbrashFreeport.pdf
TAPOL December 17, 2020, PT Freeport Indonesia and its tail of violations in Papua, TAPOL. https://tapol.org/sites/default/files/PT_Freeport_Indo_tail_of_violations_in_Papua_Dec20.pdf
Eichhorn, S. J. 2023, Resource extraction as a tool of racism in West Papua, The International Journal of Human Rights (Taylor & Francis). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2022.2036722
Freeport-McMoRan accessed November 1, 2025, INDONESIA — Grasberg operations, Freeport-McMoRan. https://www.fcx.com/operations/indonesia
Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (KLHK) — Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Indonesia) January 10, 2019, Clarification on Ministerial Decrees for Freeport tailings roadmap (SK 175/2018; SK 594/2018), NUSANTARANEWS.co. https://nusantaranews.co/klarifikasi-klhk-soal-pencabutan-kepmen-175-tahun-2018-ihwal-aturan-tailing-freeport/ ; see also: Freeport-McMoRan 2022, PTFI Environmental Audit — Executive Summary (2021–2022; referencing SK 594/2018 & SK 101/2019), Freeport-McMoRan. https://www.fcx.com/sites/fcx/files/documents/sustainability/audits/2021-2022PTFIEnvironmentalAuditExec.pdf

Additional sources:

Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights January 2006, West Papua Report (security force abuses and mining context), RFK Memorial Center. https://wpik.org/Src/WPJAN2006.pdf
Mongabay January 14, 2019, With its $3.85b mine takeover, Indonesia inherits a $13b pollution problem, Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/with-its-3-85b-mine-takeover-indonesia-inherits-a-13b-pollution-problem/
World Bank October 31, 2016, Indigenous Peoples: Emerging Lessons, World Bank. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/447361478156710826/pdf/109710-REVISED-PUBLIC-IP-lessons-text-10-31-16web-links.pdf
The Guardian December 29, 2005, Indonesian military admits being paid by US mining firm, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/30/indonesia.johnaglionby
Human Rights Watch June 20, 2006, Too High a Price: The Human Rights Cost of the Indonesian Military’s Economic Activities, Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/06/20/too-high-price/human-rights-cost-indonesian-militarys-economic-activities
Bohane, Ben; Thompson, Liz; & Elmslie, Jim 2003, West Papua: Follow the Morning Star, Prowling Tiger Press, p95.

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

2. Chevron/Texaco – Lago Agrio – Ecuador

Company/Project: Chevron (Texaco Petroleum/TexPet) — Lago Agrio/Oriente operations (Chevron merged with Texaco in 2001)

Dates: 1964-1992 (operations); 2011-present (judgement/enforcement)

Location: Sucumbíos and Orellana provinces (Lago Agrio/Oriente), Amazon — Ecuador

Indigenous Communities: A’i Cofán (Cofán), Siona, Secoya (Siekopaai), Kichwa, Shuar, Waorani

Security-Force Abuses: Reports of harassment and legal pressure on community leaders and advocates; policing demonstrations at oil sites; contentious prosecutions linked to the litigation.

Triggering Event: Legacy pits, produced-water discharges and chronic spills from 1960s–1990s operations; 2011 Lago Agrio judgment against Chevron for ~US$9.5 billion (upheld by Ecuador’s courts) and subsequent cross-border enforcement battles.

Issues: Plaintiffs and allied NGOs allege systematic dumping of toxic produced water and crude into unlined pits, contaminating soils and waterways and affecting community health across the Oriente. The dispute centers on responsibility for legacy contamination where Texaco operated through 1992 and on the scope and sufficiency of a 1995–1998 remediation and release with Ecuador. Chevron argues that state oil company Petroecuador became sole operator in 1990 and is responsible for subsequent spills, that Texaco completed a government-approved cleanup, and that epidemiological claims are unproven. Parallel forums (Ecuadorian courts, US courts, and treaty arbitration) have issued conflicting rulings, creating a protracted enforcement stalemate.

Allegations: Plaintiffs claim Texaco knowingly chose cheaper waste practices, discharged billions of gallons of toxic water, and left hundreds of pits that leach into rivers and groundwater, causing elevated cancer and other harms. They assert Chevron is jointly liable as Texaco’s successor and that the 1990s remediation was narrow and did not address widespread impacts. Chevron counters that the Ecuador trial was tainted by fraud, bribery, ghostwriting, and coercion of judges and experts, and that the 1998 settlement released TexPet from further liability, leaving any remaining issues to Petroecuador and the state. Each side cites extensive record evidence, inspections, and expert reports to support their positions.

Outcomes/Status: On November 12, 2013, Ecuador’s National Court (Supreme Court) affirmed liability and set damages at about US$9.5 billion, which stands domestically; subsequent constitutional proceedings did not annul the judgment. In 2014, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) found the Ecuador judgment had been procured by fraud and barred enforcement against Chevron in the United States (RICO judgment against Donziger), and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in 2016. The US Supreme Court later declined review. As context on scale, Donziger stated Chevron’s post-judgment campaign against him and the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, including his New York house arrest, involved “60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers.”

In 2018, a Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal ruled for Chevron/TexPet against Ecuador, holding Ecuador had breached the Ecuador–US Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and that the Lago Agrio judgment should not be recognized or enforced abroad. (This BIT case is a separate investor–state arbitration brought by Chevron Corporation and Texaco Petroleum Company (TexPet) against Ecuador — not against the Lago Agrio plaintiffs — and was initiated in 2009, with the PCA administering the case.) In the continuing Chevron/TexPet v. Republic of Ecuador (II) PCA proceeding, the tribunal’s damages phase later produced an award reported at about US$220 million, with a Decision on Correction of the Fourth Partial Award on Track III issued on 5 February 2026. Community advocacy and ancillary proceedings continue; no comprehensive cleanup financed by Chevron has resulted from the Ecuador judgment to date.

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Core sources:

Chevron August 26, 2018, Ecuador Lawsuit: Company perspective and case documents, Chevron. https://www.chevron.com/ecuador
Public Citizen December 1, 2013, Ecuador’s Highest Court vs. a Foreign Tribunal, Public Citizen. https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/chevron-decision-2013.pdf
US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) March 4, 2014, Chevron Corp. v. Donziger (RICO decision), US District Court (SDNY). https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/2992-chevron-v-donzigerpdf
US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit August 8, 2016, Chevron Corp. v. Donziger (affirmance), US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca2-14-00832/pdf/USCOURTS-ca2-14-00832-0.pdf
William & Mary Law School March 27, 2014, Overview of Lago Agrio litigation and arbitration, William & Mary Law School. https://law.wm.edu/faculty/documents/Chevron.pdf
National Court of Justice (Ecuador) November 12, 2013, Final Sentencia (CNJ) in Chevron case (Spanish), Corte Nacional de Justicia del Ecuador. https://chevroninecuador.org/assets/docs/2013-11-12-final-sentence-from-cnj-de-ecuador-spanish.pdf

Additional sources:

Donziger, Steven. March 8, 2024, Urgent Appeal to President Biden (includes press-release text dated March 20, 2024), Steven Donziger. https://www.stevendonziger.us/pardonletter/
Reuters June 19, 2017, U.S. top court hands Chevron victory in Ecuador pollution case, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/environment/us-top-court-hands-chevron-victory-in-ecuador-pollution-case-idUSKBN19A1V3/
Perrone, Nicolas M. 2020, International Investment Agreements, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice: The Texaco/Chevron–Ecuador case, Journal of International Economic Law. https://academic.oup.com/jiel/article/23/2/455/5878138
Kimerling, Judith 2006, Indigenous Peoples and the Oil Frontier in Ecuador, NYU Journal of International Law & Politics. https://nyujilp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/38.3-Kimerling.pdf
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre 2015–2024, Top Ecuador court upholds $9 billion ruling against Chevron / enforcement efforts overview (case hub), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/top-ecuador-court-upholds-9-billion-ruling-against-chevron/
Surma, Katie December 18, 2022, Their Lives Were Ruined by Oil Pollution, and a Court Awarded Them $9.5 Billion. But Ecuadorians Have Yet to See a Penny From Chevron, Inside Climate News. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18122022/steven-donziger-chevron-ecuador-oil-pollution/
Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). February 5, 2026, Chevron Corporation and Texaco Petroleum Company v. The Republic of Ecuador (II) (PCA Case No. 2009-23): Decision on Correction of Fourth Partial Award on Track III (listed in case documents docket), PCA-CPA. https://pca-cpa.org/fr/cases/49/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

3. BP – Tangguh LNG – West Papua, Indonesia

Company/Project: BP — Tangguh Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project (Berau, Wiriagar, Muturi gas fields) — West Papua gas

Dates: Mid-1990s discoveries; construction ~2002–2009; production 2009–present; Train 3 online 2023; Production Sharing Contract (PSC) extension to 2055.

Location: Onshore LNG plant near Babo District on the south shore of Bintuni Bay with offshore platforms in Bintuni Bay, West Papua — Indonesia.

Indigenous Communities: Irarutu, Wamesa, Sebyar, Sumuri, Kuri, Soub, Moskona and other Indigenous Papuan communities whose customary land and seas overlap the concession, alongside large transmigrant populations.

Security-Force Abuses: Rights groups and journalists link Tangguh’s strategic role to intensified militarization, surveillance of community leaders, intelligence operations and cooperation with Indonesian police/military in a province with a record of arbitrary arrests, raids and intimidation; risk of company-linked security enabling abuse is repeatedly flagged.

Triggering Event: No single emblematic massacre; controversy arises from siting and expansion of a flagship LNG hub in a region marked by historic repression and unresolved Papuan self-determination claims, combined with relocation of Tanah Merah village to Tanah Merah Baru for the plant site, acquisition of Sumuri clan lands (Soway, Wayuri, Simuna), and early demands for a moratorium until Free, Prior and Informed Consent and human rights concerns were addressed.

Issues: High-impact LNG complex in a biodiverse, fisheries-dependent mangrove bay; disputed FPIC, resettlement and compensation; narrow definitions of “affected” communities; dependency on a security-heavy, low-oversight context where state revenue and geopolitical value may trump Indigenous rights and environmental safeguards.

Allegations: Civil-society and community sources allege lack of genuine FPIC, coerced/unequal land deals, flawed resettlement, exclusion of Papuans from skilled roles and contracts, and security arrangements that facilitate surveillance and pressure on peaceful activists; scholarship questions whether “community-based security” and voluntary standards materially constrain state-force abuses.

Outcomes/Status: Tangguh is entrenched as a key export and domestic gas hub with Train 3 and Ubadari–CCUS framed as “lower-carbon” growth. BP cites the Voluntary Principles, advisory panels and social programs and denies involvement in abuses; Papuan organizations and NGOs continue to demand land and marine rights recognition, transparency around security arrangements, independent monitoring and meaningful Papuan control over future project decisions.

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Core sources:

Down to Earth 2011, Tangguh, BP and International Standards (report on commitments, seven tribes, land and resettlement), Down to Earth. https://www.downtoearth-indonesia.org/story/tangguh-bp-and-international-standards
Asian Development Bank n.d., Tangguh LNG Project in Indonesia (project page), Asian Development Bank; and Asian Development Bank September 2016, Tangguh LNG Expansion Project: Resettlement and Ethnic Minority Development Plan (REMDP), Asian Development Bank. https://www.adb.org/projects/ino-tangguh-lng-project and https://www.adb.org/projects/documents/ino-tangguh-lng-expansion-sep-2016-remdp
Global Energy Monitor n.d., Tangguh LNG Terminal; and Tangguh Gas Project (Indonesia), Global Energy Monitor. https://www.gem.wiki/Tangguh_LNG_Terminal and https://www.gem.wiki/Tangguh_Gas_Project_%28Indonesia%29
Gillard, Michael 2018, BP in West Papua – Slow Motion Genocide, High Speed Profit, New Matilda / TAPOL. https://newmatilda.com/2018/11/05/special-investigation-bp-west-papua-slow-motion-genocide-high-speed-profit/
McKenna, K. 2015, Corporate security practices and human rights in West Papua (Conflict, Security & Development), ANU Open Research Repository.
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstreams/71e38d64-1fe6-4754-8de1-812159b38e2d/download

Additional sources:

Environmental Justice Atlas n.d., BP’s Tangguh LNG Project, West Papua (case overview; social and human rights concerns), EJAtlas. https://ejatlas.org/conflict/human-rights-violations-surrounding-tangguh-lng-project-west-papua
Down to Earth n.d., BP – Tangguh (archive and follow-up pieces), Down to Earth. https://www.downtoearth-indonesia.org/campaign/bp-tangguh
BP & Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel (TIAP) n.d., Reports on Tangguh security and community programs (company position and monitoring), BP. https://www.bp.com
Trend Asia & Recourse September 2025, Tangguh LNG: Big project, huge risks (critique of expansion and CCUS framing), Recourse. https://re-course.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ENGLISH_Tangguh-LNG-project_Trend-Asia_Recourse.pdf
Various authors 2020–2025, Recent scholarship on state-corporate violence, Indigenous rights, and gas expansion in West Papua (articles referencing Tangguh), Taylor & Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

4. Shell – Ogoniland, Niger Delta – Nigeria

Company/Project: Shell – Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) — Oil production and pipelines in Ogoniland

Dates: Late 1950s–1993 (active operations in Ogoniland); 1993–present (production suspended; pipelines, spills, litigation, and remediation ongoing).

Location: Ogoniland, Rivers State, Niger Delta — Nigeria

Indigenous Communities: Ogoni communities (Khana, Gokana, Tai, Eleme).

Security-Force Abuses: Violent repression of Ogoni activists in the 1990s by state forces; historic militarization around oil facilities. Human rights groups and court filings allege Shell requested or facilitated Nigerian military and police protection during the early 1990s, while forces carried out raids, detentions, torture, village burnings, and the repression of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), culminating in the 1995 executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the “Ogoni Nine.” Shell denies complicity; in Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Shell it paid US$15.5 million in 2009 as a “humanitarian” settlement.

Triggering Event: Decades of spills/leaks and legacy pits. The 2011 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Environmental Assessment confirmed extreme, systemic contamination and called for an initial US$1 billion, multi-decade clean-up.

Issues: Shell/SPDC operated dense infrastructure across Ogoni farmlands and mangroves with chronic spills from corroded equipment, poor maintenance, and contested sabotage claims. UNEP found oil in soils to 5 m, creeks coated in hydrocarbons, and drinking water at Nisisioken Ogale with benzene over 900 times World Health Organization guidelines, disputed cleanup.

Allegations: Systematic contamination of land/drinking water; failure to remediate legacy sites; inadequate consultation/benefit-sharing with affected communities. Ogoni communities and NGOs allege Shell systematically under-reported spills, misattributed leaks to “third parties,” failed to maintain aging pipelines, and enabled state violence against peaceful protesters, causing long-term destruction of fisheries, crops, and water. Amnesty and partners argue Shell knew the risks and continued harmful operations. Shell contests these claims, emphasizing sabotage and its stated commitments.

Outcomes/Status: Nigeria created the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) and a USD 1 billion Ogoni clean-up, but UN/NGO and leaked assessments describe corruption, unqualified contractors, and failed sites; vast areas remain polluted. Shell’s onshore SPDC assets were sold to Renaissance (2025), yet rights groups stress divestment does not extinguish Shell’s liability. Ongoing UK/EU litigation by Ogoni communities and debate over possible restart of Ogoni oil production keep legal and political pressure high.

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Core sources:

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 2011, Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, United Nations Environment Programme. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/environmental-assessment-ogoniland
EarthRights International & Center for Constitutional Rights n.d., Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Shell (case overview), EarthRights International & Center for Constitutional Rights. https://earthrights.org/case/wiwa-v-royal-dutch-shell/
Amnesty International June 18, 2020, No cleanup, no justice: Shell’s oil pollution in the Niger Delta, Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/no-clean-up-no-justice-shell-oil-pollution-in-the-niger-delta/
Amnesty International September 4, 2025, Nigeria: Shell remains responsible for cleaning up historic oil pollution despite divestment, Amnesty International.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/nigeria-shell-remains-responsible-for-cleaning-up-and-remediating-historic-oil-pollution-despite-divestment/
Ed Davey December 23, 2024, Nigerian agency ‘failed completely’ to clean up oil damage despite funding, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/8c7533ad31d1aad5c0e3933a41891579

Additional sources:

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) n.d., Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland: Executive Summary & Site Fact Sheets, UNEP.
https://www.unep.org/resources/assessment/environmental-assessment-ogoniland-site-factsheets-executive-summary-and-full
Amnesty International UK 2025, Shell: A criminal enterprise?, Amnesty International UK. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/shell-criminal-enterprise
Platform London n.d., The Death of Ken Saro-Wiwa (background dossier), Platform London. https://platformlondon.org/background/the-death-of-ken-saro-wiwa/
Lindén, O. & Pålsson, J. 2013, Oil Contamination in Ogoniland, Niger Delta, AMBIO 42(6), 685–701. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23749556/
Oil Change International n.d., Analyses of Shell’s Niger Delta divestment and liability (overview), Oil Change International. https://priceofoil.org/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

5. ExxonMobil – Arun gas field – Aceh, Indonesia

Company/Project: ExxonMobil — Mobil Oil Indonesia/PT Arun LNG

Dates: Late 1990s–present (core allegations 1999–2003; US litigation 2001–2023)

Location: North Aceh (Arun gas field and surrounding villages) — Indonesia

Indigenous Communities: Acehnese communities living in and around Lhoksukon, Lhokseumawe, and nearby villages.

Security-Force Abuses: Reports of unlawful killings, torture, sexual violence, beatings, arbitrary detention, and village raids by Indonesian security units guarding the Arun facilities and roads (1999–2003).

Triggering Event: Intensified militarization around the Arun gas complex during the Aceh conflict; Indonesian armed forces (TNI) and other security forces assigned to protect “vital national objects” including Arun/ExxonMobil sites.

Issues: The case sits at the intersection of corporate security, conflict-era governance, and liability for state forces’ conduct. Rights groups documented widespread abuses in Aceh during 1999–2003, while policy shifts in 2004–2006 formalized protection of “national vital objects,” often by TNI, amid questions about company payments for security. In US courts, Acehnese villagers sued ExxonMobil in 2001, alleging the company knew or should have known about abuses by soldiers guarding its operations. Appellate and district rulings over two decades addressed extraterritoriality, aiding-and-abetting standards, and common-law tort claims, shaping the path to trial.

Allegations: Plaintiffs contend Indonesian soldiers assigned to guard ExxonMobil’s Arun facilities committed torture, sexual assault, killings, and other abuses in nearby villages, and that ExxonMobil provided logistical support, payments, and facilities that aided those units. They argue company personnel were aware of risks and failed to prevent or remediate abuses. Human rights reporting from the period describes patterns of arbitrary detention, torture, and sexual violence in North Aceh, aligning with the complaint’s time window. ExxonMobil has consistently denied wrongdoing, stating it condemns human rights abuses and that no employees directly harmed plaintiffs.

Outcomes/Status: After two decades of US litigation, a July 27, 2022, memorandum opinion cleared several claims for trial. The parties then reached a confidential settlement on May 16, 2023, resolving “all matters”; no liability was admitted. ExxonMobil denies wrongdoing; plaintiffs were represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. The case continues to shape debates over corporate liability for security-force abuses and the governance of state protection of “vital object” projects in Indonesia.

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Core sources:

Human Rights Watch August 1, 2001, Indonesia: The War in Aceh, Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/08/01/indonesia-war-aceh
US District Court for the District of Columbia July 27, 2022, Memorandum Opinion, Doe v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, via Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/pdf-john-doe-viii-v-exxon-mobil-corporation-memorandum-opinion/
Cohen Milstein January 30, 2023, ExxonMobil — Villagers of Aceh Litigation (case overview), Cohen Milstein. https://www.cohenmilstein.com/case-study/exxonmobil-aceh-indonesia/
ExxonMobil May 16, 2023, Statement regarding settlement of Indonesia (Aceh) litigation, via Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/indonesia-after-two-decades-exxonmobil-settles-case-of-alleged-human-rights-abuses-including-torture-brought-by-aceh-villagers/
Amnesty International October 7, 2004, Indonesia: New military operations, old patterns of human rights abuses in Aceh, Amnesty International.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/asa210332004en.pdf

Additional sources:

Harvard Law Review December 1, 2007, Doe v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 473 F.3d 345 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (case note), Harvard Law Review.
https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/doe_v_exxon_mobil.pdf
International Center for Transitional Justice & KontraS August 27, 2008, Indonesia/Aceh: ExxonMobil litigation backgrounder, ICTJ / KontraS. https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Indonesia-Aceh-Exxon-2008-English.pdf
Justia July 8, 2011, John Doe VIII v. Exxon Mobil Corp., D.C. Circuit opinion summary, Justia. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/09-7125/09-7125-1317431-2011-07-08.html
Human Rights Watch June 20, 2006, Too High a Price: The Human Rights Cost of the Indonesian Military’s Economic Activities, Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/06/20/too-high-price/human-rights-cost-indonesian-militarys-economic-activities
Al Jazeera May 16, 2023, Oil giant ExxonMobil settles long-running Indonesia torture case, Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/16/oil-giant-exxonmobil-settles-long-running-indonesia-torture-case
EarthRights International September 15, 2010, Amicus Brief in Doe v. ExxonMobil, EarthRights International. https://earthrights.org/publication/amicus-brief-in-doe-v-exxonmobil/
Global Energy Monitor October 18, 2025 (accessed), Arun LNG Terminal, Global Energy Monitor. https://www.gem.wiki/Arun_LNG_Terminal
Firdaus Yusuf December 9, 2022, Mass Graves in ExxonMobil’s Gas Fields: Acehnese Recall Decades of Torture, Project Multatuli. https://projectmultatuli.org/en/mass-graves-in-exxonmobils-gas-fields-acehnese-recall-decades-of-torture/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

6. PTTEP – Yadana gas field – Myanmar (TotalEnergies – former partner/operator)

Company/Project: PTTEP — Yadana offshore gas field and Moattama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC) onshore pipeline (TotalEnergies – former partner/operator)

Dates: 1992–present (exports since 1998; TotalEnergies exit effective 2022; Chevron exit 2024).

Location: Yadana offshore gas field & pipeline corridor, Tanintharyi Region — Myanmar

Indigenous Communities: Primarily Mon and Karen communities along the militarized corridor; villages situated near patrol routes and wayleaves during construction and early operations.

Ownership and Control: Today PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) operates and effectively controls day-to-day operations at Yadana gas field and the Moattama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC) pipeline company following former operator TotalEnergies’ withdrawal (2022), and Chevron’s formal exit effective April 2024; ownership is now essentially split between PTTEP at 62.963% and Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) at 37.037% (after Chevron’s stake was redistributed), compared with the pre-exit MGTC split of TotalEnergies 31.24%, Chevron 28.26%, PTTEP 25.5%, and MOGE 15%.

Security-Force Abuses: Rights groups documented forced labor, beatings, rape, killings, and relocations by Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) units assigned to secure the corridor in the 1990s–2000s; later reporting cites intimidation and civic-space restrictions around pipeline areas.

Triggering Event: Pipeline construction through conflict-affected areas under military rule in the 1990s; after the February 2021 coup, scrutiny intensified over gas-revenue flows via Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).

Issues: Yadana couples offshore production with ~409 km of onshore pipeline in Myanmar and ~240 km in Thailand, supplying Thai power plants (via PTT Public Company Limited (PTT)) and Myanmar industry under long-term sales. Revenues tied to MOGE were significant; Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) reported ~MMK 1.18 trillion (≈USD 900 million) in commodity-trading receipts in 2017–2018. The field and pipeline have been major sources of foreign-currency earnings for Myanmar, rendering associated revenues politically sensitive post-coup. Supporters cite reliable power and economic benefits for Thailand and Myanmar. Critics argue that construction occurred amid conflict, security-linked abuses persisted for years, and post-2021 payments to state entities risk entrenching military control.

Allegations: EarthRights International documented systematic forced labor and violence by army units guarding the corridor; related US litigation (Doe v. Unocal) under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) ended in a 2004–2005 settlement with villagers. HRW urged restrictions on oil-gas payments absent credible safeguards. Companies denied liability and highlighted social programs; after the 2021 coup, TotalEnergies and Chevron adjusted payment practices and moved to exit.

Outcomes/Status: TotalEnergies exited in July 2022 and Chevron in April 2024, handing greater control to MOGE and Thailand’s PTTEP—a transfer critics argue tightened the junta’sgrip on gas cash rather than curbing it. Yadana gas still flows; communities still report trauma without justice; and some legal experts cite Yadana as a landmark case of corporate complicity in authoritarian violence. Villagers who endured rape, torture and forced labor await truth, accountability, and meaningful reparations.

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Core sources:

Htoo, Naing; Smith, Matthew F.; Donowitz, Paul; et al. April 30, 2008 (rev. 2009), Total Impact: The Human Rights, Environmental, and Financial Impacts of Total and Chevron’s Yadana Gas Project in Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar), EarthRights International. https://earthrights.org/publication/total-impact/ EarthRights International+1
Human Rights Watch March 24, 2007, Burma: Natural Gas Project Threatens Human Rights, Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/03/24/burma-natural-gas-project-threatens-human-rights
Offshore Technology September 8, 2009, Yadana Gas Field, Offshore Technology. https://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/yadana-field/
TotalEnergies July 20, 2022, TotalEnergies Has Definitively Withdrawn from Myanmar, TotalEnergies. https://totalenergies.com/media/news/press-releases/totalenergies-has-definitively-withdrawn-myanmar TotalEnergies.com
Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI) December 1, 2020, Commodity Trading in Myanmar: Report, MEITI. https://eiti.org/sites/default/files/attachments/meiti_commodity_trading_report.pdf

Additional sources:

EarthRights International December 15, 2009, Total Impact 2.0: A Response to Total Regarding the Yadana Gas Project in Military-Ruled Burma (Myanmar), EarthRights International. https://earthrights.org/publication/total-impact-2-0/ EarthRights International
Reuters April 9, 2024, Chevron hands Myanmar gas field stake to junta, Thailand’s PTTEP, Reuters. (Republished via multiple outlets).
PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) January 21, 2022, Statement: Changes in joint venture partner of the Yadana project in Myanmar, PTTEP. https://www.pttep.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/260/statement-changes-in-joint-venture-partner-of-the-yadana-project-in-myanmar
The Business Times April 9, 2024, Chevron hands Myanmar gas field stake to junta, Thailand’s PTTEP, The Business Times. https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/asean/chevron-hands-myanmar-gas-field-stake-junta-thailand-s-pttep

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

7. Ecopetrol – Casanare – Columbia (BP former owner)

Company/Project: Ecopetrol — Cusiana and Cupiagua fields; OCENSA crude pipeline (~848 km, Llanos–Coveñas) (Former owner/operator – BP Exploration Company (Colombia) Ltd (BPXC))

Dates: Mid-1990s construction; mediated settlement July 22, 2006; UK High Court judgment July 27, 2016; BP divestment August 3, 2010.

Location: Cusiana/Cupiagua fields and OCENSA corridor (Casanare to Coveñas) — Colombia

Indigenous Communities: Caño Mochuelo resguardo (multi-ethnic: Sikuani/Guahibo, Sáliba, Amorúa, Wamonae, and others).

Ownership and Control: Following BP’s 2010 sale of its Colombian upstream/transport business (BPXC) to a consortium led by Ecopetrol and Talisman Energy, the Cusiana field and Cupiagua field are controlled and operated by Ecopetrol (Cusiana: operator with ~98% interest; ~2% held by partners), while the ~848 km OCENSA crude pipeline (Llanos–Coveñas) is controlled through Ecopetrol’s indirect 72.65% ownership stake. The OCENSA pipeline moves crude from the Cusiana-Cupiagua area in Casanare to Coveñas on the Caribbean coast and is part of the broader “Casanare” oil system.

Security-Force Abuses: Guardian investigations reported eighteen BP payments to the Army’s 16th Brigade totaling ~US$312,000 (May 1996–August 1997) and a shipment of 60 night-vision goggles to the XIV Brigade. Amnesty warned the BP/OCENSA–Defence Systems (DSC) security model and BP backed “spy networks” and links between pipeline security and notorious army units operating along the route risked violations. BP/OCENSA denied wrongdoing and a government probe into BP closed without charges.

Triggering Event: Construction and operation of the cross-country OCENSA export pipeline through smallholder farms and waterways.

Issues: Farmers alleged right-of-way works cut drainage, caused erosion/landslides, and reduced yields; companies argued damage was unproven or compensated. As a strategic asset during Colombia’s conflict, protection involved private security (DSC) coordinating with state forces along a corridor with guerrilla and paramilitary presence, heightening intimidation risks for community leaders and claimants. The Machuca pipeline explosion in October 1998 (at least 47 civilians killed) underscored the corridor’s civilian risk during pipeline warfare.

Allegations: Failure to ensure safe grievance channels and protect civilians; complicity claims tied to security provisioning.Payments and equipment support for military units with abusive records. NGOs alleged BP/OCENSA’s model—via DSC—blurred lines between corporate security and state/paramilitary actors: lethal-skills training offers; informant networks; procurement for units implicated in abuses; and cash support/intelligence sharing with brigades operating in the corridor. Union leader Gilberto Torres alleged his 2002 kidnap/torture by AUC paramilitaries involved OCENSA actors; firms deny commissioning violence.

Outcomes/Status: Allegations peaked in the late 1990s; a first cohort consisting of thousands of farmers claims over land/environmental harm led to payouts in 2006 (no admissions). Later UK litigation over farm damage (Arroyo/Equion) resulted in a 2016 High Court dismissal of further collective claims. BP sold its Colombian unit to Ecopetrol/Talisman for US$1.9 billion in 2010; operations continue under successors. The company denies wrongdoing.

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Core sources:

Amnesty International September 1998, Colombia: Human Rights and the OCENSA Pipeline (AMR 23/079/1998), Amnesty International.
https://www.amnesty.org/fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/amr230791998en.pdf
The Guardian October 17, 1998, BP hands ‘tarred in pipeline dirty war’, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/1998/oct/17/1
The Independent July 22, 2006, BP pays out millions to Colombian farmers, The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bp-pays-out-millions-to-colombian-farmers-6094738.html
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre September 2016, BP lawsuits (re Casanare, Colombia), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/bp-lawsuits-re-casanare-colombia/
BP August 3, 2010, BP agrees to sell Colombian business to Ecopetrol and Talisman, BP. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/press-releases/bp-agrees-to-sell-colombian-business-to-ecopetrol-and-talisman.html

Additional sources:

Pearce, Jenny June 1, 2004, Beyond the Perimeter Fence: Oil and Armed Conflict in Casanare, Colombia, Crisis States Research Centre (LSE) / ETH Zurich. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/18431/DP32.pdf
Taylor, Diane November 11, 2009, BP faces damages claim over pipeline through Colombian farmland, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/11/colombia-farmers-sue-bp-pipeline
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre May 22, 2015, Colombian takes BP to court in UK over alleged complicity in kidnap and torture, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-human-rights.org/en/latest-news/colombian-takes-bp-to-court-in-uk-over-alleged-complicity-in-kidnap-and-torture/
Global Energy Monitor December 4, 2024, OCENSA Oil Pipeline, Global Energy Monitor. https://www.gem.wiki/OCENSA_Oil_Pipeline
Unidad para las Víctimas (Government of Colombia) July 22, 2019, Indígenas de Caño Mochuelo en Casanare reiniciaron la ruta de reparación colectiva, Unidad para las Víctimas . https://portalhistorico.unidadvictimas.gov.co/es/asuntos-etnicos/indigenas-de-cano-mochuelo-en-casanare-reiniciaron-la-ruta-de-reparacion-colectiva
Carson, Mary; Gatton, Adrian; Vázquez, Rodrigo; O’Kane, Maggie May 22, 2015, Colombian takes BP to court in UK over alleged complicity in kidnap and torture, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/colombian-takes-bp-to-court-in-uk-alleged-complicity-kidnap-and-torture

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

8. Goldcorp – Marlin gold mine – Guatemala (acquired by Newmont)

Company/Project: Goldcorp — Marlin gold–silver mine; (Newmont acquired Goldcorp in 2019).

Dates: 2005–2017 (Goldcorp operations; operations ceased May 31, 2017; closure/reclamation 2017–late 2020).

Location: San Miguel and San Marcos — Guatemala

Indigenous Communities: Maya Mam and Sipakapense communities near mine and along affected watersheds.

Security-Force Abuses: Alleged violent evictions and arrests around mine protests. On February 28, 2011, after a community action urging enforcement of precautionary measures, local reports documented beatings and gunfire injuries near Marlin; arrests and detentions were reported.

Triggering Event: International Finance Corporation (IFC)-backed development advanced in 2004–05 amid road convoys and community resistance; Sipacapa’s June 18, 2005, municipal “consulta” voted overwhelmingly against mining. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted Precautionary Measures in 2010 – following contamination and conflict reports – requesting suspension of Marlin pending assessment; in 2011, IACHR removed the suspension and revised the measures to targeted water and health protections.

Issues: Marlin combined two open pits and an underground mine with cyanide leach/Merrill-Crowe processing, a tailings storage facility and waste rock dumps, and a 27-km powerline right-of-way. The project’s footprint overlapped Indigenous territories with distinct languages and governance, intensifying disputes over consultation, land transactions and distribution of benefits. Disputes centered on water quality and drawdown, blasting damage to homes, land acquisition and compensation, and policing of protest.

Allegations: Pollution, elevated metals and health ailments reported, water scarcity and rights violations including inadequate consultation – FPIC; violence and arrests around protests/evictions; partial/non-compliance with IACHR measures. Community leaders contend there was no Free, Prior and Informed Consent; Sipacapa’s 2005 consultations and municipal vote rejected mining by overwhelming margins. Petitioners alleged contamination, cracked homes and social conflict; the UN Special Rapporteur emphasized that projects with significant impacts like Marlin should proceed only with affected communities’ consent.

Outcomes/Status: Mine closed in 2017. Newmont (acquired Goldcorp in 2019) reports physical reclamation completed in late 2020, with ongoing documentation and grievance follow-up. Legacy health and environment concerns persist – disputes continue. Company states it iscompliant with Guatemalan law, has mitigation and monitoring programs, and engagement with authorities.

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Core sources:

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights May 20, 2010, Precautionary Measures MC-260-07 (Marlin Mine), Organization of American States / United Nations. https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/15/37/Add.8
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights April 3, 2014, Report No. 20/14, Petition 1566-07 (Marlin Mine), IACHR / OAS. https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/2014/gtad1566-07en.pdf
Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability February 14, 2023, Case Study: Goldcorp Inc.’s Marlin Mine — Environmental Contamination and Human Rights Abuses, CNCA. https://cnca-rcrce.ca/2023/02/14/case-study-goldcorp-inc-s-marlin-mine-environmental-contamination-and-human-rights-abuses/
Goldcorp Inc. 2017, Annual Report 2017 (Marlin mine closure noted), Goldcorp Inc. https://s24.q4cdn.com/382246808/files/doc_financials/mda/annual/Goldcorp-2017-Annual-Report.pdf
Newmont Corporation January 30, 2020, Marlin Mine — Status Update, Newmont Corporation. https://s24.q4cdn.com/382246808/files/doc_downloads/2020/07/MSCI-Response-Marlin-Mine-January-2020.pdf

Additional sources:

Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) March 9, 2011, Violence near Goldcorp mine in Guatemala underscores need for mine suspension, NISGUA. https://nisgua.org/en/violence-near-goldcorp-mine-in-guatemala-underscores-need-for-mine-suspension/
Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability February 2023, Case #6: Goldcorp Inc.’s Marlin Mine (case study PDF), CNCA. https://cnca-rcrce.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cnca-case-study-6-Goldcorp.pdf
Newmont Corporation August 25, 2023, Marlin Mine — Status Update, Newmont Corporation. https://s24.q4cdn.com/382246808/files/doc_downloads/2023/08/marlin-mine-update-august-2023.pdf
Oxfam America October 17, 2011, Marlin Mine: Violence and pollution lead to call for suspension, Oxfam America. https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/marlin-mine-violence-and-pollution-lead-to-call-for-suspension/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

9. Petroperú (39% partner) – Lot 192, Achuar – Peru (Occidental Petroleum – former owner)

Company/Project: Occidental Petroleum — Achuar (Peru)

Dates: 1970s–late 1990s (legacy impacts and remediation ongoing).

Location: Pastaza and Corrientes river basins, Loreto — Peru

Indigenous Communities: Achuar (Pastaza/Corrientes), with downstream Kichwa and Urarina communities.

Ownership and Control: In Lot 192, the subsurface resource is owned by the Peruvian state and the licence is administered by Perupetro (Peru’s state hydrocarbons licensing agency); Petroperú is the current 39% licence participant, while the majority operator-partner position—held by Altamesa Energy Perú S.A.C. at 61% in 2024—has remained in flux since Altamesa withdrew in 2025. Occidental Petroleum is no longer operating in the Achuar area. Its activities linked to Achuar impacts were in northeastern Peru’s Block 1-AB (later Lot 1AB, now Lot 192), which Occidental sold 100% to Pluspetrol under a deal announced December 1999 (with production described as running to late 1999); any subsequent Occidental presence in Peru has been in other, separate assets and does not change the Achuar case’s status as a legacy-operator footprint.

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Allegations center on environmental harms; security abuses less central but reports of intimidation during conflict periods.

Triggering Event: Chronic produced-water discharges and pipeline spills; medical testing found elevated contaminants prior to settlement. Achuar residents filed suit in Los Angeles in May 2007 over decades of toxic discharges; the case (Maynas v. Occidental) settled confidentially, announced in 2015.

Issues: Long-term oilfield contamination. Legacy operations in Lots 1AB (now Block 192) and 8; integrated fields–pipeline system. Rivers used for drinking and fishing contaminated; rashes, gastric illness, livestock deaths near spill sites. Oil production in rainforest watersheds with decades of produced-water dumping, unlined waste pits, pipeline spills, and mercury/lead exposures near villages and fishery zones. Hydrological connectivity amplified spread.

Allegations: Systemic toxic produced water discharges and spills harmed rivers, fish, and community health. Children/elders with high metals exposure; slow/insufficient clean-ups and fragmented compensation/medical support.Occidental knowingly discharged toxic by-products and failed to line pits or prevent spills, contaminating water and soils and causing illness and deaths. Plaintiffs also claim absent/deficient FPIC. Oxy denies wrongdoing; later operators (Pluspetrol, then Frontera) and the state point to reinjection, pipeline replacements, and remediation and health programs, while communities documented continued spills and unmet agreements during transitions.

Outcomes/Status: Peru declared environmental and public-health emergencies in affected basins and launched multi-year remediation and health interventions, alongside sanctions and enforcement actions against operators. US litigation launched by Earth Rights International for Achuar communities against Occidental concluded with a confidential settlement in 2015; company liability was not adjudicated. Block 192 has since shifted among operators under heightened oversight and continuing community negotiation, with site inventories, cleanup plans, and health monitoring ongoing. Disputes over scope, funding responsibilities, and verification of remediation outcomes remain active.

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Core sources:

EarthRights International March 5, 2015, Peruvian Indigenous Communities Pleased with Settlement of Pollution Lawsuit Against Occidental Petroleum, EarthRights International. https://earthrights.org/media_release/peruvian-indigenous-communities-pleased-with-settlement-of-pollution-lawsuit-against-occidental-petroleum/
Watts, Jonathan March 5, 2015, Indigenous Peruvians win Amazon pollution payout from US oil giant Occidental, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/05/indigenous-peruvians-amazon-pollution-settlement-us-oil-occidental
EarthRights International 2007, A Legacy of Harm: Occidental in the Peruvian Amazon, EarthRights International. https://earthrights.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/A-Legacy-of-Harm.pdf
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre 2015, Occidental lawsuit (Achuar communities), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/occidental-lawsuit-re-achuar-communities-contamination-peru-2/
Amazon Watch / Reuters May 10, 2007, Peru communities sue Occidental for oil operations, Amazon Watch.
https://amazonwatch.org/news/2007/0510-peru-communities-sue-occidental-for-oil-operations

Additional sources:

Cultural Survival May 27, 2015, Justice is Served: Achuar Celebrate Victory Over Occidental, Cultural Survival. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/justice-served-achuar-celebrate-victory-over-occidental
Indian Country Today Media Network (ICT News) March 2015, Achuar Lawsuit Against Occidental Ends With Settlement, ICT News. https://ictnews.org/archive/achuar-lawsuit-against-occidental-petroleum-ends-with-settlement/
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre 2013–2015, Occidental lawsuit (Achuar communities) — case timeline, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/occidental-lawsuit-re-achuar-communities-contamination-peru-2/
EarthRights International n.d., Maynas v. Occidental Petroleum (case overview), EarthRights International. https://earthrights.org/case/maynas-v-occidental-petroleum/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

10. Glencore – Cerrejón Coal – Columbia

Company/Project: Glencore – Cerrejón Coal (Glencore bought out former mine partners BHP and Anglo American in 2022)

Dates: 1980s–present.

Location: Open-pit coal complex, rail and port corridor, La Guajira — Colombia

Indigenous Communities: Wayúu and Afro-descendant communities along the mine and railway to Puerto Bolívar.

Security-Force Abuses: Alleged threats/intimidation of community leaders during relocations and protests. On August 9, 2001, hundreds of armed police, company guards, and soldiers forcibly evicted the Afro-descendant village of Tabaco as bulldozers demolished homes; witnesses reported intimidation and violence. In February 2017, riot police (ESMAD) dispersed Wayúu rail-line blockades with multiple detentions reported.

Triggering Event: 2001 Tabaco demolition and eviction; Constitutional Court and Ombudsman oversight of Arroyo Bruno water works; repeated rail blockades and strikes over dust, water, and compensation; 2020 UN call to suspend parts of operations.

Issues: High volume coal open-pit mining in a semi-arid region with chronic water stress. Blasting and haulage elevate particulate exposure; pit dewatering and channel works (incl. Arroyo Bruno) alter flows. Loss/reduction of household, crop, and herd water in drought-prone area. Settlements along the corridor report respiratory illness and dust fallout. Resettlement and grievance schemes exist but are disputed for weak baselines and uneven delivery. In 2020, David Boyd – the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment – remarked that “the El Cerrejón mine and the Wayúu indigenous people is one of the most disturbing situations that I have learned about in my two and half years …”^[4]

Allegations: State forced clearance of Tabaco (2001) and contested relocations of Roche, Patilla, Chancleta, Tamaquito II, and Las Casitas. Deficient consultation/licensing and inadequate hydrological analysis around Arroyo Bruno. Communities report state coercion, delayed or insufficient compensation, and persistent dust- and water-linked health harms. Operator monitoring and mitigation are alleged to be partial or non-compliant.

Outcomes/Status: Operations and exports continue amid periodic blockades, with ongoing litigation and international scrutiny. Negotiations and disputes continue. Constitutional Court ruling SU-698/17 ordered safeguards for water, health, and food security and mandated strengthened participation and monitoring. The Ombudsman has verified partial compliance, while audits identified material gaps. Ownership is consolidated under Glencore, with commitments to meet judicial and regulatory directives. Company denies wrongdoing, citing legal compliance, IFC-aligned resettlement, dust suppression, health/water programs, and continuous monitoring.

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Core sources:

Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide November 28, 2017, Sentence SU-698/17 (Arroyo Bruno), Colombian Constitutional Court, Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide. https://elaw.org/resource/cerrejon_arroyobruno
Defensoría del Pueblo March 31, 2023, Defensoría del Pueblo verificó en La Guajira el cumplimiento de las órdenes de la Sentencia SU-698 de 2017 de la Corte Constitucional, Defensoría del Pueblo. https://www.defensoria.gov.co/-/defensor%C3%ADa-del-pueblo-verific%C3%B3-en-la-guajira-el-cumplimiento-de-las-%C3%B3rdenes-de-la-sentencia-su-698-de-2017-de-la-corte-constitucional
ABColombia January 2022, Non-Compliance with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Cerrejón Coal Mine Case (CMC), ABColombia.
https://www.abcolombia.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/CMC-FINAL.pdf
London Mining Network August 9, 2022, 21 years since eviction of the Tabaco community in Colombia—and still no justice, London Mining Network. https://londonminingnetwork.org/2022/08/21-years-since-eviction-of-the-tabaco-community-in-colombia-and-still-no-justice/
Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos Ambientales (OLCA) February 7, 2017, El levantamiento Wayuu y la represión que no es noticia, OLCA. https://olca.cl/articulo/nota.php?id=108128

Additional sources:

Glencore January 11, 2022, Glencore completes acquisition of Cerrejón, Glencore. https://www.glencore.com/media-and-insights/news/glencore-completes-acquisition-of-cerrejon
Glencore / Fair Finance International October 2, 2023, Response to the case study “Does Cerrejón…?” (resettlements and programs), Glencore / Fair Finance International. https://www.fairfinanceinternational.org/media/2wgdi44z/glencore-response_cerrejon-case-study_oxfarm_2102023.pdf
London Mining Network July 20, 2019, Saving the river: the struggle for Colombia’s Arroyo Bruno, London Mining Network. https://londonminingnetwork.org/2019/07/saving-the-river-the-struggle-for-colombias-arroyo-bruno/
Reuters April 7, 2023, Blockade lifted at Colombia coal mine Cerrejón, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/blockade-lifted-colombia-coal-mine-cerrejon-2023-04-08/
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights September 28, 2020, UN expert calls for halt to mining at controversial Colombia site, OHCHR. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/09/un-expert-calls-halt-mining-controversial-colombia-site
Reuters September 28, 2020, UN rights expert urges Colombia to suspend some Cerrejón mine operations, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/un-rights-expert-urges-colombia-suspend-some-cerrejon-mine-operations-2020-09-28/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

11. Canadian Oil Sands – Alberta, Canada

Canadian Oil Sands (Alberta)

Company/Project: Canadian Oil Sands (Imperial (Kearl), Syncrude, CNRL et al.)

Dates: 2000’s–present

Location: Athabasca/Cold Lake/Peace River, Alberta — Canada

Indigenous Communities: Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, Fort McKay First Nation & Métis communities

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Not alleged. (Environmental/health governance focus).

Triggering Event: Imperial’s Kearl tailings seepage disclosures (May 2022–February 2023) led the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to issue an Environmental Protection Order (EPO) on February 7, 2023; followed by an AER fine in August 2024 and ongoing investigation updates in 2025.

Issues: Massive tailings ponds with seepage risks; odors/air contaminants; food security fears over fish and wild game. Bitumen open-pit mining and in-situ steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) in a boreal/sub-arctic zone with very large tailings ponds and Athabasca River withdrawals. Kearl seepage exposed monitoring and notification gaps (company RCFA and investigation results) amid ongoing AER investigations. Communities downstream report subsistence and health risks; mitigation and monitoring remain contested.

Allegations: Contamination of land and waters. Multiple leak and overflow episodes and under-reporting; carcinogens/toxics entering groundwater and surface waters; poor emergency communication to First Nations Inadequate cumulative-effects assessment and Treaty 8 impacts; tailings leaks, delayed notification, and under-remediation; odor/particulate matter (PM) exceedances near settlements.

Outcomes/Status: Fines and compliance orders; ongoing litigation, investigations and regulatory reforms. AER oversight continues (EPO, reporting, investigations/fines); production continues under approvals. Company position: operators cite legal compliance, mitigation, monitoring, and Indigenous engagement; Imperial posts running updates on EPO enforcement.

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Core sources:

Alberta Energy Regulator February 7, 2023, Environmental Protection Order re: Kearl (Imperial Oil), Alberta Energy Regulator.
https://www.aer.ca/about-aer/media-centre/announcements/announcement-february-07-2023
Reuters August 22, 2024, Alberta regulator fines Imperial Oil over tailings leak, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/alberta-regulator-fines-imperial-oil-over-tailings-leak-2024-08-22/
Government of Canada August 7, 2024, Federal Government announces support for community-led health study in Athabasca oil sands region, Environment and Climate Change Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2024/08/federal-government-announces-support-for-community-led-health-study-in-athabasca-oil-sands-region.html
Imperial Oil May 5, 2023, Kearl Seepage — Investigation Results, Imperial Oil. https://www.imperialoil.ca/-/media/imperial/files/operations/kearl/kearl-seepage-investigation-results-may-5-2023.pdf
Public Prosecution Service of Canada October 22, 2010, Sentence in R. v. Syncrude Canada Ltd., Public Prosecution Service of Canada. https://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/nws-nvs/2010/22_10_10.html

Additional sources:

Alberta Energy Regulator n.d., Ongoing Investigations (Kearl updates), Alberta Energy Regulator. https://www.aer.ca/protecting-what-matters/holding-industry-accountable/investigations/ongoing-investigations
Imperial Oil March 2024, Seepage RCFA Summary — Kearl, Imperial Oil. https://www.imperialoil.ca/-/media/imperial/files/operations/kearl/seepage-rcfa-summary-march-2024.pdf
Reuters August 7, 2024, Canada to fund Indigenous-led health study on oil sands impacts, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/canada-fund-health-study-how-oil-sands-impact-indigenous-communities-2024-08-07/
Alberta Energy Regulator n.d., Water Use Performance: Oil Sands Mining, Alberta Energy Regulator. https://www.aer.ca/data-and-performance-reports/industry-performance/water-use-performance/oil-sands-mining-water-use
University of Calgary Public Interest Law Clinic 2023, Kearl Oilsands Mine Substance Release (case note), University of Calgary, Public Interest Law Clinic. https://law.ucalgary.ca/clinics/public-interest-law/projects/kearl-oilsands
Alberta Energy Regulator October 30, 2024, State of Fluid Tailings Management for Mineable Oil Sands Report, Alberta Energy Regulator. https://static.aer.ca/prd/documents/reports/State-Fluid-Tailings-Management-Mineable-OilSands.pdf

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

12. Chiquita Brands – banana regions – Colombia

Chiquita Brands (Colombia)

Company/Project: Chiquita Brands — Banana supply chain and port/road corridors linked to grower regions.

Dates: 1990s–present; 1997–2004 (payments to outlaw paramilitary financing); 2024 (major verdict)

Location: Urabá (Antioquia) and Magdalena regions — Colombia

Indigenous Communities: Afro-Colombian and campesino communities in banana zones and logistics corridors

Security-Force Abuses: Paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) carried out killings, threats, and mass displacement; Chiquita admitted payments and paid a US$25 million criminal fine in March 2007. On June 10, 2024, a Florida jury held Chiquita liable, awarding US$38.3 million in damages to the families of eight Colombian men killed by the AUC – a test case chosen from the large pool of Colombian plaintiffs. The jury in the civil case said in the verdict that Chiquita knowingly provided substantial assistance in the form of cash or logistical support to the AUC, to the extent sufficient to create a foreseeable risk of harm – Agnieszka Fryszman, a partner at law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, represented the plaintiffs.

Triggering Event: DOJ – corporate admission (2007 plea), and subsequent civil suits culminating in 2024 Florida jury verdict. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 8, 2022, allowed Colombian-law tort claims to proceed; first bellwether verdict on June 10, 2024.

Issues: Corporate payments to AUC – a designated terrorist organization; persistent coercion and violence. Corporate liability for alleged knowing assistance to an armed group; payments framed as “security/extortion” intersected with logistics protection and labor control. Accountability turns on corporate knowledge, foreseeability of violence, and payment records reconstructed in discovery/archives.

Allegations: Financing AUC paramilitaries tied to killings and displacement; intimidation of unionists and community leaders; failure to implement safeguards despite known risks. Plaintiffs allege Chiquita knowingly financed AUC units (1997–2004), foreseeably enabling killings in Urabá/Magdalena; additional trials and appeals are pending following the bellwether verdict. Archival analyses detail payment schemes and corporate decision-making.

Outcomes/Status: Criminal: 2007 DOJ plea and US$25 million fine. Civil: 2024 jury verdict for plaintiffs; post-trial motions and further bellwethers proceeding; appeals anticipated. Company position: denies liability beyond the plea, says payments were coerced; intends to appeal.

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Core sources:

US Department of Justice March 19, 2007, Chiquita Brands International Pleads Guilty to Making Payments to a Designated Terrorist Organization, US Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html
Reuters June 10, 2024, Chiquita must pay Colombian families $38.3M – Florida jury, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chiquita-must-pay-colombian-families-383-mln-florida-jury-2024-06-10/
Associated Press June 11, 2024, Florida jury finds Chiquita Brands liable for Colombia deaths, must pay $38.3M to family members, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/b2519c1bc2d7eb6bea207f543d8301fd
US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit September 8, 2022, Doe v. Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (No. 21-10211), US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202110211.pdf
National Security Archive June 10, 2024, Chiquita Found Liable for Colombia Paramilitary Killings, National Security Archive. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/colombia-chiquita-papers/2024-06-10/chiquita-found-liable-colombia-paramilitary-killings

Additional sources:

Columbia Law School / University of North Carolina 2008, Chiquita Goes Bananas: Counter-Terrorism Legislation & Business, North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation. https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1868&context=ncilj
International Center for Transitional Justice June 18, 2024, Florida jury finds Chiquita Brands liable for Colombia deaths, must pay $38.3M to family members, ICTJ. https://www.ictj.org/latest-news/florida-jury-finds-chiquita-brands-liable-colombia-deaths-must-pay-383m-family-members
National Security Archive n.d., The Chiquita Papers (project hub), National Security Archive. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/chiquita-papers
Insurance Journal June 13, 2024, Florida Jury Says Chiquita Brands Must Pay $38M for Colombia Deaths, Insurance Journal (AP). https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2024/06/13/779308.htm

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

13. Perupetro — Peruvian Amazon exploration blocks – Peru (ConocoPhillips – former owner)

Company/Project: Perupetro/Peruvian State — Peruvian Amazon exploration blocks (incl. 123, 124, 129, 39 “mega-concession”) (former owner (licence holder) ConocoPhillips)

Dates: 2006–2011; key withdrawals announced 2011–2012

Location: Loreto and Ucayali regions — Peru

Indigenous Communities: Kichwa, Iquito, Arabela and other Indigenous peoples in concession areas; Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation in the Napo–Tigre/Curaray region; urban/rural residents of Iquitos relying on the Nanay watershed.

Security-Force Abuses: Focus on risks to uncontacted groups; security violence less central. Concerns centered instead on exposure of isolated territories to future conflict, disease, and militarization if operations advanced.

Triggering Event: Exploration plans overlapping uncontacted territories and sensitive ecosystems. Post-2006, ConocoPhillips emerged (via Burlington acquisition) as a major holder of overlapping exploration blocks in highly biodiverse headwaters and proposed reserves, sparking Indigenous and civil-society campaigns over threats to the Nanay drinking-water basin and territories of peoples in voluntary isolation.

Issues: The “mega-concession” placed seismic and planned drilling in pristine headwaters feeding Iquitos and within or adjacent to protected/priority conservation areas, including the Alto Nanay–Pintuyacu–Chambira Regional Conservation Area and Pucacuro Reserved Zone. NGOs and community leaders warned of spill risk, road and platform expansion, and fragmentation of intact forest landscapes. Evidence of peoples in voluntary isolation in and around Block 39 and neighboring areas raised severe risk-of-contact concerns under International Labour Organization Convention 169 and Inter-American standards. The case crystallized tensions between aggressive frontier leasing and emerging norms on no-go zones and water security.

Allegations: Indigenous federations and NGOs alleged ConocoPhillips advanced exploration without robust Free, Prior and Informed Consent, accepted blocks overlapping territories of isolated peoples, and downplayed threats to the Nanay watershed supplying roughly 500,000 people in Iquitos. Campaigns argued that proceeding in these zones would violate rights to self-determination, health, and a healthy environment, and contravene precautionary principles given fragile headwaters and uncontacted groups. ConocoPhillips maintained it acted lawfully, engaged communities, and could operate responsibly.

Outcomes/Status: In 2011–2012 ConocoPhillips withdrew from Block 39 and opted out of further exploration in Blocks 123 and 129, transferring interests (e.g., to Gran Tierra), citing portfolio optimization; advocates framed the retreat as a win for Indigenous and water-protection campaigns. Other companies later moved into parts of these areas, so structural risks persist, but ConocoPhillips’ exit is now a reference case for investor and NGO pressure reshaping operations in high-risk Amazonian frontiers.

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Core sources:

Amazon Watch & Save America’s Forests May 2009, ConocoPhillips in the Peruvian Amazon, Amazon Watch & Save America’s Forests. https://amazonwatch.org/assets/files/2009-conocophillips-in-the-peruvian-amazon.pdf
Amazon Watch 2009, ConocoPhillips in the Peruvian Amazon (overview & materials), Amazon Watch. https://future.amazonwatch.org/news/2009/0513-conocophillips-in-the-peruvian-amazon
Survival International May 21, 2009, ConocoPhillips poses “deadly” threat to uncontacted tribes, Survival International. https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/4592
Amazon Watch May 9, 2012, Conoco Drilling Threatens Water Source for Half Million in Peru, Amazon Watch. https://amazonwatch.org/news/2012/0509-conoco-drilling-threatens-water-source-for-half-million-in-peru
ConocoPhillips October 5, 2012, ConocoPhillips Opts Out of Exploration in Two Peru Blocks, ConocoPhillips. https://www.conocophillips.com/news-media/story/conocophillips-opts-out-of-exploration-in-two-peru-blocks/

Additional sources:

Oil & Gas Online October 2012, ConocoPhillips Opts Out Of Exploration In Two Peru Blocks, Oil & Gas Online. https://www.oilandgasonline.com/doc/conocophillips-opts-out-of-exploration-in-two-peru-blocks-0001
Yahoo Finance 2012, COP to Quit Twin Peru Blocks, Yahoo Finance. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cop-quit-twin-peru-blocks-210422417.html
Isuma / Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources n.d., Peru: A River Of Trouble For ConocoPhillips – Iquitos Residents Demand A Stop To Oil Project On Nanay River, Isuma.tv. https://www.isuma.tv/indigenous-peoples-issues-and-resources/peru-a-river-of-trouble-for-conocophillips-iquitos-residents
DOPA Explorer n.d., Área de Conservación Regional Alto Nanay–Pintuyacu–Chambira (WDPA entry), DOPA Explorer. https://dopa-explorer.jrc.ec.europa.eu/wdpa/555555657
Gobierno Regional de Loreto & Ministerio del Ambiente n.d., Estrategia de Vigilancia y Control del ACR Alto Nanay–Pintuyacu–Chambira, SINIA / MINAM. https://sinia.minam.gob.pe/sites/default/files/archivos/public/docs/ESTRATEGIA%20DE%20VIGILANCIA%20Y%20CONTROL%20DEL%20ACR%20ANPCH.pdf
Deep Green Resistance News Service n.d., ConocoPhillips oil drilling scheme in Peruvian Amazon threatens water supply for 500,000 people, Deep Green Resistance News Service. https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/extraction/conocophillips-oil-drilling-scheme-in-peruvian-amazon-threatens-water-supply-for-500000-people/
Mongabay May 11, 2011, ConocoPhillips withdraws from oil exploitation in uncontacted indigenous territory (Block 39), Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/2011/05/conocophillips-withdraws-from-oil-exploitation-in-uncontacted-indigenous-territory/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

14. Southern Copper — Tía María copper project – Peru

Company/Project: Southern Copper — Tía María (SX-EW copper project)

Dates: 2009–present

Location: Cocachacra/Islay (Tambo Valley), Arequipa — Peru

Indigenous Communities: Local farming communities of the Tambo Valley (Cocachacra, Dean Valdivia, Mejía)

Security-Force Abuses: Documented clashes between police and anti-mine protesters in 2011 and April–May 2015 left multiple civilians and one police officer dead; hundreds injured, amid allegations of excessive force (live rounds/rubber bullets/tear gas) during protests. Criminalization of protest leaders.

Triggering Event: Protest waves 2011–2015 with multiple deaths; permit suspensions and restarts. Long-running community opposition over water scarcity and agricultural impacts; EIA approval in early August 2014 and subsequent attempts to restart construction reignited protests and states of emergency in 2015, with renewed restart moves in 2024–2025.

Issues: Water scarcity and acid-drainage fears in a farming valley; recurring clashes; repeated states of emergency. Two open pits planned in a dry coastal valley with intensive agriculture. The project is designed as a heap-leach/solvent-extraction–electrowinning (SX-EW) operation to produce ~120,000 t/y copper cathode over ~20 years. Core risks flagged by residents and researchers include competition for limited water, dust and acid mist from leaching, potential impacts on aquifers and crops, and social-conflict escalation during permitting and construction. Opponents highlight past approvals despite unresolved social license.

Allegations: Inadequate consultation, criminalization of protest, and lethal police responses; NGOs claim the EIA understated hydrological and agricultural risks to the Tambo Valley. Reuters and rights groups document at least six protest-related deaths between 2011 and 2015 and repeated states of emergency; authorities later suspended the construction license in 2019 pending “adequate social conditions.” Pressure to advance project despite social opposition.

Outcomes/Status: Project repeatedly delayed/suspended by community opposition. Company has sought restart amid resistance. Eyes 2027 start amid continued opposition. As of October 2025, Southern Copper reports the project ~23% complete with a targeted start by 2027 (subject to social conditions). The company says Tía María complies with law, will use modern SX-EW, and will generate jobs and royalties; opponents maintain water/agrarian risks remain unresolved.

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Core sources:

US Securities and Exchange Commission March 1, 2022, Tía María Project, Peru — Technical Report Summary, US SEC. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1001838/000155837022002995/scco-20211231ex963f7e8e2.pdf
Amnesty International May 19, 2015, Three killed, hundreds injured during protests, Amnesty International.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AMR4616812015ENGLISH.pdf
Reuters July 31, 2014, Peru says to issue final permit for Southern Copper mine in days, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/peru-says-to-issue-final-permit-for-southern-copper-mine-in-days-idUSL2N0Q61VN/
Reuters June 30, 2024, Southern Copper to restart development of Peru mine on Monday — document, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/southern-copper-restart-development-peru-mine-monday-document-2024-06-30/
Mining.com October 21, 2025, Southern Copper’s $1.8B Tía María mine gets green light, Mining.com. https://www.mining.com/southern-coppers-1-8b-tia-maria-mine-gets-green-light/

Additional sources:

The Northern Miner August 2014, Peru approves EIA for Southern Copper’s Tía María, The Northern Miner. https://www.northernminer.com/news/peru-approves-eia-for-southern-coppers-tia-maria-project/1003196710/
Reuters August 9, 2019, Peru suspends key permit for Southern Copper in U-turn on Tía María project, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/peru-suspends-key-permit-for-southern-copper-in-u-turn-on-tia-maria-project-idUSKCN1UZ2GO/
Southern Copper Corporation February 28, 2023, Form 10-K 2022, Southern Copper Corporation. https://southerncoppercorp.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/10k2022.pdf

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

15. Vale — Onça-Puma nickel complex – Brazil

Company/Project: Vale — Onça-Puma nickel complex (open-pit laterite + ferronickel smelter)

Dates: 2008–present.

Location: Ourilândia do Norte/Tucumã (Carajás region), Pará — Brazil

Indigenous Communities: Xikrin do Cateté (Kayapó subgroup) and neighboring Kayapó communities along the Cateté River.

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Focus on health/environmental harms.

Triggering Event: Findings of elevated metals in Xikrin communities and environment; new suits in 2025. Prolonged licensing and court battles over alleged Cateté River contamination and non-compliance; 2018 suspension and compensation orders; 2019 Supreme Federal Court (STF) rulings enabling restart; renewed suspensions and reversals through 2021–2024; 2025 Federal Prosecutor’s Office (Ministério Público Federal, MPF) civil suit alleging heavy-metal exposure among the Xikrin.

Issues: Lateritic nickel mining and ferronickel smelting near Indigenous lands amid evidence of elevated metals in water, biota, and Xikrin residents, disputed by Vale. Regulators and courts oscillate between suspending and reinstating operations over environmental and social non-compliance. The case spotlights weak enforcement, contested impact assessments, and cumulative risks from Carajás mining.

Allegations: Illness and food insecurity from reduced fishing; smelter emissions and waste in rainforest watershed; fish contamination fears; elevated metals in hair/blood. MPF and researchers link high nickel, mercury, and other metals in Xikrin communities and Cateté River contamination to Onça-Puma operations; communities seek health safeguards, remediation, and secure compensation. Vale denies responsibility, citing monitoring data and prior expert reports finding no proven causal link.

Outcomes/Status: Licenses were suspended and later reinstated in 2024 amid conciliation before the Supreme Court; operations resumed and Vale Base Metals started up a second furnace on September 30, 2025 (adding ~15 kt/y), while the MPF lawsuit over alleged contamination remains pending. Company guidance targets higher nickel output; communities and NGOs continue to seek health programs, remediation, and enforceable safeguards.

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Core sources:

Reuters October 4, 2021, Brazil’s Vale halts Onça Puma mine as operating license suspended, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/vale-oncapuma/update-1-brazils-vale-halts-ona-puma-mine-as-operating-license-suspended-idUSL1N2R016B
Reuters February 27, 2024, Court overturns suspensions of Sossego, Onça Puma mines, Reuters (via Mining.com). https://www.mining.com/web/vale-says-court-overturned-suspensions-of-sossego-onca-puma-mines/
Reuters May 28, 2024, Vale moves closer to deal for Onça Puma mine to resume operations, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/land-use-biodiversity/vale-moves-closer-deal-onca-puma-nickel-mine-resume-operations-2024-05-28/
Associated Press February 25, 2025, In Brazil, mining giant Vale is sued over metal contamination found in Indigenous peoples, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/9f8643135fad5fbcfe6092b1dec00304
Vale Base Metals September 30, 2025, Start-Up of Furnace 2 at Onça Puma, Vale Base Metals. https://vale.com/w/vale-base-metals-announces-start-up-of-furnace-2-at-onca-puma-1

Additional sources:

TRF-1 / Phys.org November 16, 2018, Vale ordered to compensate tribes in river contamination case (Onça Puma), Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2018-11-vale-tribes-mn-river-contamination.html
Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) May 28, 2021, Ministra suspende processos no STF sobre impactos do projeto de mineração Onça Puma (conciliation on Onça-Puma impacts, Cateté River), Supremo Tribunal Federal. https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/ministra-suspende-processos-no-stf-sobre-impactos-do-projeto-de-mineracao-onca-puma/
Vale September 12, 2019, Vale informa sobre decisão do STF que permite retomada das operações em Onça Puma, Vale. https://vale.com/documents/44618/2699492/Sala_de_Imprensa_-_Mineracao_-_Vale_informa_sobre_On%C3%A7a_Puma_ID%3D2476.pdf
MiningDataOnline n.d., Major Mines & Projects: Onça Puma Mine, MiningDataOnline. https://miningdataonline.com/property/1357/Onca-Puma-Mine.aspx
Repórter Brasil December 17, 2024, European multinational stops buying from Vale over Cateté River contamination case, Repórter Brasil. https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2024/12/european-multinational-stops-buying-from-vale-over-river-contamination-case/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

16. Norilsk Nickel — Arctic industrial pollution – Siberia, Russia

Company/Project: Nornickel (Norilsk Nickel) — Arctic Industrial Pollution

Dates: 2020–present (2020 diesel spill response)

Location: Norilsk and Taimyr Peninsula, Krasnoyarsk Krai – Siberia — Russia

Indigenous Communities: Dolgan, Nenets, Nganasan, Evenk, Sami, Enets communities on the Taimyr

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Industrial/environmental focus.

Triggering Event: 2020 collapse of a fuel tank leading to massive diesel spill. On May 29, 2020, a diesel tank at a power business owned by Norilsk–Taimyr Energy Company’s (NTEK, a Nornickel subsidiary) – Combined Heat and Power Plant No. 3 (CHPP-3) failed, releasing ~20,000 tonnes of diesel into the Ambarnaya river system and subsoil near Norilsk; Russia declared a federal emergency in early June 2020, and NTEK later paid state-ordered environmental damages.

Issues: Chronic air/soil/lake water contamination – among world’s largest SO₂ sources; 2020 diesel spill added acute damage. Long-standing SO₂ air pollution from smelting, legacy soil/water contamination, and infrastructure risks tied to permafrost thaw frame the environmental context. The spill added acute aquatic impacts, fisheries disruption, and costly remediation in Arctic conditions. Nornickel has launched a large sulfur-capture program at Norilsk, but shutdowns, retrofits, and sanction-era supply constraints complicate timelines. Communities and monitors continue to scrutinize emissions, spill recovery, and transparency of monitoring data.

Allegations: Record fines and mandated clean-up; long-term recovery uncertain – broader remediation contested. Prolonged harm to reindeer herding and subsistence fishing; inadequate maintenance/oversight; slow, contested remediation.

Outcomes/Status: Regulator Rosprirodnadzor sued over environmental damage; the Krasnoyarsk Arbitration Court ordered payment of ~146–147 billion rubles (~US$2 billion). In March 2021, Nornickel confirmed the damages had been paid to the state. Cleanup and habitat monitoring continue. Independent observers track progress amid broader operational changes. Company denies long-term negligence and highlights investments; civil society groups question sufficiency.

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Core sources:

TIME staff June 4, 2020, Russia Declares Emergency Following Spill of 20,000 Tons of Oil in the Arctic Circle, TIME. https://time.com/5848129/russia-emergency-oil-spill/
Reuters February 5, 2021, Nornickel ordered to pay $2 bln in Arctic fuel spill damages – Interfax, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/energy/nornickel-ordered-to-pay-2-bln-in-arctic-fuel-spill-damages-interfax-idUSR4N2K201S/
ABC News (Australia) March 10, 2021, Nornickel pays US$2.5 billion over Russian oil spill, ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/nornickel-pays-2.5-billion-dollars-over-russian-oil-spill/13236186
Reuters October 25, 2023, Nornickel starts sulphur dioxide capture in Russia’s most polluted city, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/nornickel-starts-sulphur-dioxide-capture-russias-most-polluted-city-2023-10-25/
Nornickel n.d., Sulfur Programme, Nornickel. https://nornickel.com/sustainability/projects/sulphur/

Additional sources:

IWGIA June 23, 2020, Russian oil spill exposes history of Indigenous peoples’ rights violations, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA). https://iwgia.org/en/news/3790-russian-oil-spill-exposes-history-of-indigenous-peoples%E2%80%99-right-violations.html
The Barents Observer February 5, 2021, Nornickel must pay 146.2 billion rubles for its huge oil spill on Arctic tundra, The Barents Observer. https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/industry-and-energy/nornickel-must-pay-162-billion-for-its-huge-oil-spill-on-arctic-tundra/139014
Reuters July 12, 2024, Russia’s Nornickel to restart furnace at key smelter in early August, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/russias-nornickel-restart-furnace-key-smelter-early-august-2024-07-12/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

17. Repsol — La Pampilla oil refinery – Peru

Company/Project: Repsol — La Pampilla refinery oil spill (Ventanilla/Ancón)

Dates: 2022–present.

Location: Ventanilla–Ancón coastline (Callao/Lima) — Peru

Indigenous Communities: Coastal/Indigenous artisanal fishing communities affected, including in Ventanilla, Santa Rosa, Ancón; sites.

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Environmental spill response and governance focus.

Triggering Event: On January 15, 2022, during offloading from the Italian tanker Mare Doricum, abnormal waves linked to the Tonga eruption coincided with a failure at Repsol’s La Pampilla Terminal No. 2, releasing an estimated 11,900 barrels (595,000 gallons) of crude oil into coastal waters.

Issues: Large marine oil spill and fisheries impacts. Beaches and rocky shores fouled over dozens of km; fisheries closures; tourism losses; contested monitoring. Spill contaminated 24 beaches and two protected areas, shutting fisheries, tourism, and hitting seabirds and marine mammals. Estimates converge around 10,396–11,900 barrels. Regulators question emergency response, disclosure accuracy, and remediation; Repsol points to cleanup spend and a Social Action Plan.

Allegations: Inadequate prevention/response; delayed/insufficient cleanup and compensation; lasting ecological harm and adverse impacts to livelihood. Authorities and NGOs allege late reporting, underestimation of scope, regulatory non-compliance, false or misleading information, and inadequate compensation. Peru’s consumer agency seeks US$4.5 billion from Reposl SA – a Spanish oil firm; a separate class action claims for around US$1 billion for 30,000 plus victims. Repsol denies liability and contests key fines.

Outcomes/Status: Sanction proceedings and civil litigation remain active. In May 2025, The Hague District Court accepted jurisdiction over claims against a Repsol entity, allowing a suit in the Netherlands to proceed. Peru’s environmental prosecutor has continued inquiries and field sampling into 2025. Ongoing monitoring and community claims highlight persistent ecological and livelihood impacts. Repsol states it has funded cleanup and compensation (reporting over S/1 billion) and continues community support under its Social Action Plan.

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Core sources:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration accessed November 6, 2025, Oil Spill near Lima, Peru, Office of Response and Restoration (NOAA). https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/significant-incidents/oil-spill-near-lima-peru
Reuters August 24, 2022, Peru’s $4.5 bln lawsuit against Repsol over oil spill to go to court, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/perus-45-bln-lawsuit-against-repsol-over-oil-spill-go-court-2022-08-24/
Reuters January 15, 2024, Repsol faces second lawsuit in Peru over oil spill, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/repsol-faces-second-lawsuit-peru-over-oil-spill-2024-01-15/
Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA) January 15, 2025, Three years after the Repsol oil spill: justice is still not being served, SPDA. https://spda.org.pe/en/noticia/three-years-after-the-repsol-oil-spill-justice-is-still-not-being-served/
Repsol accessed November 6, 2025, La Pampilla Social Action Plan, Repsol. https://www.repsol.com/en/sustainability/sustainability-pillars/people/human-rights/la-pampilla-social-action-plan/index.cshtml

Additional sources:

Mogollón, R. et al. 2023, REPSOL oil spill off Central Perú in January 2022 (modeling case study), Marine Pollution Bulletin. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37454474/
Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental (OEFA) October 5, 2022, OEFA orders Repsol to submit rehabilitation plan for 69 affected sites, OEFA. https://www.gob.pe/institucion/oefa/noticias/657518-oefa-ordena-a-repsol-presentar-ante-el-ministerio-de-energia-y-minas-un-plan-de-rehabilitacion-para-69-sitios-identificados-como-afectados
Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR Peru) October 31, 2022, OEFA sanctions Repsol for more than 13.5 million soles for providing false information about the spill in La Pampilla, DAR Peru. https://dar.org.pe/oefa-sanctions-repsol-for-more-than-13-5-million-soles-for-providing-false-information-about-the-spill-in-la-pampilla/
Mongabay Latam May 13, 2024, More than US$47m in fines remain unpaid for Repsol oil spill in Peru, Mongabay Latam. https://es.mongabay.com/2024/05/millones-de-dolares-en-multas-continuan-impagos-por-repsol-derrame-petroleo-peru/
ICLG May 23, 2025, Hague court greenlights oil spill lawsuit against Repsol, ICLG. https://iclg.com/news/22630-hague-court-greenlights-oil-spill-lawsuit-against-repsol
SERNANP / Actualidad Ambiental January 13, 2025, A tres años del derrame en Ventanilla: cuál es el balance de las acciones del Estado (RNSIIPG and Ancón impacts), Actualidad Ambiental. https://www.actualidadambiental.pe/a-3-anos-del-derrame-en-ventanilla-cual-es-el-balance-de-las-acciones-del-estado/
Reuters January 31, 2022, Peru bans Repsol from unloading oil until further notice after spill, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/peru-bans-repsol-unloading-oil-until-further-notice-after-spill-2022-01-31/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

18. Petrobras — Foz do Amazonas – Brazil

Company/Project: Petrobras — Foz do Amazonas (Equatorial Margin) – Offshore exploratory drilling

Dates: 2023–present (licensing phase; drilling authorization in 2025)

Location: Off Amapá (~175 km offshore), Equatorial Margin — Brazil

Indigenous Communities: Coastal and riverine Indigenous peoples and traditional communities of Amapá/northern Pará; Indigenous impact assessments disputed in licensing phases.

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Environmental and social – licensing/consultation focus.

Triggering Event: Environmental agency contentious conditions for an exploratory well near the Amazon River mouth. On May 17, 2023, Brazil’s environmental regulator, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), denied Petrobras’ drilling license for Block FZA-M-59, citing technical inconsistencies; Petrobras appealed. On October 20, 2025, IBAMA greenlit drilling of an initial exploratory well.

Issues: Exploration (Block FZA-M-59) overlaps a highly sensitive habitats (mangroves; Amazon reef system) at the Amazon’s mouth and Amazon plume dynamics; severe metocean conditions and remoteness that complicate spill detection and response; contested multi-jurisdiction consultation requirements. Regulators required robust fauna-rescue capability, contingency planning, and studies on potential Indigenous and coastal impacts, reflecting Brazil’s broader dilemma over opening a Guyana-like frontier while upholding environmental safeguards.

Allegations: Insufficient baseline and cumulative-effects data; failure to ensure FPIC/deficient consultation; inadequate worst-case spill-response capacity for local conditions; undue political pressure on regulators. IBAMA technical staff and civil society argued the plans undervalued spill risks and fauna protection; the Federal Prosecutor’s Office pressed IBAMA to maintain denial absent stronger safeguards. In late September 2025, IBAMA faulted a component of Petrobras’ fauna-rescue test even as the overall emergency drill was approved with required adjustments.

Outcomes/Status: IBAMA authorized drilling of the first exploratory well on October 20, 2025; on October 21, 2025, Petrobras’ CEO said that, if discoveries are commercial, production could begin within ~7 years. Additional wells would require further approvals; legal and social oversight remain active. Licensing remains contested. Petrobras says its plans meet stringent requirements and will proceed under IBAMA’s conditions.

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Core sources:

IBAMA May 17, 2023, Decisão do Ibama sobre pedido de licença para perfuração no bloco FZA-M-59, na bacia da Foz do Amazonas, Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA). https://www.gov.br/ibama/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2023/ibama-nega-licenca-de-perfuracao-na-bacia-da-foz-do-amazonas Serviços e Informações do Brasil
IBAMA May 17, 2023, Despacho nº 15786950/2023 — Gabinete da Presidência, Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA). https://www.gov.br/ibama/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2023/ibama-nega-licenca-de-perfuracao-na-bacia-da-foz-do-amazonas/sei_ibama-15786950-despacho-presidente.pdf
Reuters October 20, 2025, Brazil’s Petrobras gets green light to drill near mouth of Amazon river, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/brazils-petrobras-authorized-drill-foz-do-amazonas-region-2025-10-20/ Reuters
Reuters March 11, 2025, Brazil’s Petrobras to clear corals off drilling vessel to be used in Foz do Amazonas, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/brazils-petrobras-clear-corals-off-drilling-vessel-be-used-foz-do-amazonas-2025-03-11/
Reuters April 5, 2025, Petrobras completes animal care center required for offshore license, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/petrobras-completes-animal-care-center-required-offshore-license-2025-04-05/ Reuters

Additional sources:

Reuters May 18, 2023, Brazil environment agency rejects Petrobras’ request to drill at Amazon mouth, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/brazil-environment-agency-rejects-petrobras-request-drill-amazon-2023-05-18/
Reuters February 27, 2025, Ibama staff recommend against Petrobras drilling in Amazon region, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/brazils-ibama-staff-recommend-against-petrobras-drilling-amazon-region-2025-02-27/ Reuters
Sumaúma May 20, 2025, Ibama leadership opens path to drilling against staff opinion, Sumaúma. https://sumauma.com/en/direcao-do-ibama-contraria-parecer-de-29-tecnicos-e-abre-caminho-para-perfuracao-na-foz-do-amazonas/ Sumauma
Reuters September 24, 2025, Brazil environmental agency approves Petrobras emergency drill results in Foz do Amazonas, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/brazil-environmental-agency-approves-petrobras-emergency-drill-results-foz-do-2025-09-24/ Reuters
Reuters September 25, 2025, Petrobras failed one part of a test needed to obtain license to drill in Foz do Amazonas, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/petrobras-failed-one-part-test-needed-obtain-license-drill-foz-do-amazonas-2025-09-25/ Reuters
S&P Global Commodity Insights October 20, 2025, IBAMA grants Petrobras permit to drill Equatorial Margin exploration oil well, S&P Global Commodity Insights. https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/news-research/latest-news/crude-oil/102025-brazils-ibama-grants-petrobras-permit-to-drill-equatorial-margin-exploration-oil-well spglobal.com

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

19. Nile Petroleum Corporation – oil – South Sudan (Lundin Energy – former owner)

Company: Nile Petroleum Corporation – oil – South Sudan (formerly Lundin Energy/Lundin Petroleum) – war crimes trial (Sweden).

Dates: 1999–2003 (alleged abuses); trial 2023–present.

Location: Block 5A (Unity State; then Sudan, now South Sudan) — South Sudan; war crime proceedings in Stockholm — Sweden

Indigenous Communities: Predominantly Nuer (Bul, Leek, Jagei, Jikany, Dok) with Dinka communities present in Unity State.

Ownership and Control: Orrön Energy (formerly Lundin Energy/Lundin Petroleum) exited upstream oil and gas after transferring its exploration and production (E&P) business to Aker BP in June 2022 and rebranding in July 2022; the Swedish case is a prosecution of former senior executives for alleged complicity in international crimes tied to Lundin’s 1997–2003 operations in Sudan (now South Sudan) and also seeks a corporate fine/forfeiture against the company, but Orrön/Lundin no longer holds South Sudan rights because it sold its Block 5A interest to Petronas in 2003, after which Petronas announced its withdrawal from South Sudan in August 2024 and Reuters reported Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet) took control following a blocked sale—now disputed in arbitration.

Security-Force Abuses: Alleged “clearance” operations by Sudanese government forces and allied militias—village burnings, killings, and forced displacement—conducted to secure access for oil exploration and infrastructure (as described by Swedish prosecutors and rights groups). Thousands of people died, and hundreds of thousands displaced. Reported aerial bombardment and ground assaults on villages; flight bans restricting humanitarian aid access during military campaigns around oil sites.

Triggering Event: Discovery of oil at Thar Jath in May 1999 and subsequent security demands and deployments to “secure” the concession, escalating hostilities around Block 5A.

Issues: Swedish oil company operated amid a live civil war, leaning on government security in a high-risk environment where atrocities were foreseeable and widely reported. The case tests how far corporate responsibility extends when profits depend on territory seized and “secured” by abusive forces, and whether companies must suspend operations when civilian harm becomes integral to access. It also signals the rise of European courts pursuing alleged corporate complicity in overseas war crimes.

Allegations: Corporate complicity in sparking war crimes tied to forced displacement and violence (by requesting, and benefiting, from security operations to enable access). Prosecutors say Lundin executives requested—and profited from—military “clearance” to access oil sites, despite clear warnings that civilians would be targeted. They allege the company failed to pause or withdraw as abuses escalated. Former Chairman Ian Lundin and former CEO Alexandre Schneiter deny wrongdoing, claim they promoted peace and development, and reject any causal link between company requests and state violence.

Outcomes/Status: Swedish prosecutors filed charges on November 11, 2021, against Chairman Ian Lundin and former CEO Alex Schneiter for alleged complicity in war crimes; the trial began September 5, 2023, at the Stockholm District Court and is expected to run for years. Prosecutors seek a 10-year business ban for the defendants, a fine for the company, and forfeiture of profits. The court has separated broad civil compensation from the criminal case, while selected victims have participated via testimony; NGOs continue to publish weekly trial reports. Judgment is pending as of November 1, 2025. Both executives plead not guilty and are contesting the charges.

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Core sources:

Swedish Prosecution Authority November 11, 2021, Prosecution for complicity in grave war crimes in Sudan (Block 5A, 1999–2003), Swedish Prosecution Authority. https://www.aklagare.se/en/for-the-media/press-releases/2021/november/prosecution-for-complicity-in-grave-war-crimes-in-sudan/
Associated Press September 5, 2023, Trial starts in Sweden of 2 oil executives accused of complicity in war crimes in Sudan, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/dcd1e1291c3609608db69c9918578e08
The Guardian September 5, 2023, Sudan war crime trial of former oil firm executives starts in Sweden, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/05/sudan-war-trial-of-former-oil-firm-executives-starts-in-sweden
PAX & European Coalition on Oil in Sudan June 2010, Unpaid Debt, PAX / ECOS. https://paxforpeace.nl/wp-content/uploads/import/import/unpaid-debt.pdf
PETRONAS media release August 7, 2024 PETRONAS Withdraws from the Republic of South Sudan, https://www.petronas.com/media/media-releases/petronas-withdraws-republic-south-sudan
Civil Rights Defenders September 26, 2023, Trial reports – The Lundin Oil Case, Civil Rights Defenders. https://crd.org/2023/09/26/report-4-part-two-of-the-prosecutions-opening-statement/

Additional sources:

Justice Info January 10, 2025, Ian Lundin finally speaks, Justice Info. https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/140068-ian-lundin-finally-speaks.html
Swedwatch April 27, 2017, Fuel for Conflict: Investors and the case of Lundin Petroleum in Sudan, Swedwatch. https://swedwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Fuel-for-conflict_full-report.pdf
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre November 11, 2021, Lundin Energy lawsuit (complicity in war crimes, Sudan), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/lundin-petroleum-lawsuit-re-complicity-war-crimes-sudan/
Swedish Prosecution Authority August 24, 2023, Trial commences in case regarding complicity in grave war crimes in Sudan, Swedish Prosecution Authority. https://www.aklagare.se/en/for-the-media/press-releases/2023/august/
Clingendael April 21, 2025, From Sudan to Stockholm (policy brief on the trial), Clingendael Institute. https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/PB%20From%20Sudan%20to%20Stockholm.pdf
UnpaidDebt.org July 5, 2025, Court updates / background on the Lundin case, UnpaidDebt.org. https://unpaiddebt.org/e19-questioning-history-a-lundin-defence-tactic/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

20. Kumul Minerals (Ok Tedi) Limited — Ok Tedi mine – PNG (BHP – former owner)

Company/Project: Kumul Minerals (Ok Tedi) Limited — Ok Tedi copper, gold and silver open-pit mine

Dates: 1980s–2002 (BHP 52% stake) The mine was previously majority-owned by the Australian mining giant BHP Billiton until 2002, when they exited the project and transferred their shares to the PNG Sustainable Development Program (PNGSDP) following significant environmental damage to the river systems.

In 2013, the PNG government passed laws to cancel the PNGSDP’s shares and take full control of the asset. The Ok Tedi Mine is currently 100% Papua New Guinea owned, following its nationalization in 2013.

Location: Western Province (Ok Tedi and Fly River systems) — Papua New Guinea (PNG)

Indigenous Communities: Riverine communities downstream along the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers, including Yonggom and Wopkaimin peoples.

Ownership and Control: Following BHP’s exit in February 2002—when it transferred its 52% stake in Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) to the PNGSDP—the Ok Tedi Mine is now a 100% Papua New Guinea–owned operation, with shareholding split 67% to the State (via Kumul Minerals Ok Tedi Limited) and 33% to Western Province interests (pooled local entities), making OTML a state-majority owned but locally shared and run under PNG control. OTML is an unlisted entity.

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Environmental and social harm focus.

Triggering Event: Deliberate riverine disposal (no tailings dam) over many years. A construction-stage landslide in early 1984 destroyed the tailings-dam foundations; operators then discharged tailings and waste rock directly into the river system. Class actions by landowners followed in the Supreme Court of Victoria, leading to a 1996 settlement and later court orders.

Issues: For years, large volumes of untreated mine waste were released into the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers, smothering riverbeds and floodplains, killing fish, and damaging gardens and forests over extensive areas. Scientific reviews describe long-term geomorphological change and loss of subsistence livelihoods along hundreds of kilometers downstream. The case became a global touchstone for mining externalities and river-basin governance, prompting debates over compensation, monitoring, and BHP’s eventual decision to exit by transferring its stake to the PNG Sustainable Development Program (SDP) in 2002.

Allegations: Severe ecological and food-security harms to tens of thousands of people; inadequate compensation and rehabilitation; long-term damage to floodplains and food security. Plaintiffs alleged negligence arising from chronic riverine disposal, crop loss, and fishery collapse, seeking damages, injunctive relief, and proper waste controls. Settlements created compensation schemes and environmental programs; critics argued they were inadequate relative to the scale of harm. BHP later acknowledged the mine’s impacts were inconsistent with its values and moved to withdraw.

Outcomes/Status: BHP completed its withdrawal and transferred its 52% interest to PNG Sustainable Development Program in 2002. In 2004, the Supreme Court of Victoria approved dismissal of proceedings following a settlement. Environmental impacts and community claims persist under subsequent operators and state oversight; BHP states the matter was resolved under the settlement and that it no longer operates the mine. Indemnity disputes and legacy rehabilitation debates continue. Ok Tedi Mining limited (OTML) operates the mine and is looking to extend mine life with projections reaching 2050.

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Core sources:

World Resources Institute 2002, Ok Tedi Mine, Papua New Guinea (case study), World Resources Institute. https://pdf.wri.org/wr2002_case_oktedi_papua.pdf
International Institute for Environment and Development 2002, Ok Tedi Riverine Disposal Case Study, International Institute for Environment and Development. https://www.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/G00561.pdf
BHP Billiton February 8, 2002, BHP Billiton withdraws from Ok Tedi copper mine and establishes development fund for benefit of Papua New Guinea, BHP Billiton. https://www.bhp.com/news/media-centre/releases/2002/02/bhp-billiton-withdraws-from-ok-tedi-copper-mine-and-establishes-development-fund-for-benefit-of-papua-new-guinea
BHP Billiton January 16, 2004, Court dismisses Ok Tedi proceedings, BHP Billiton. https://www.bhp.com/news/media-centre/releases/2004/01/court-dismisses-ok-tedi-proceedings
ABC News January 16, 2004, Ok Tedi law suit against BHP dropped, ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2004-01-16/ok-tedi-law-suit-against-bhp-dropped/120966

Additional sources:

Kirsch, Stuart 1997, The Ok Tedi Settlement: Issues, Outcomes and Implications, paper available via University of Michigan. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/stuartkirsch/wp-content/uploads/sites/996/2024/02/Kirsch-SETTLEMENT-Ok-Tedi-a-Precedent-1997.pdf
Plaintiff (Journal of the Australian Plaintiff Lawyers Association) 2000, Ok Tedi – A Case Study in Globalisation, Plaintiff. https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/PlaintiffJlAUPLA/2000/87.pdf
Development Policy Centre September 24, 2013, The nationalisation of PNG’s largest mine and the PNGSDP backstory, Development Policy Centre. https://devpolicy.org/ok-tedi-sdp-20130924/
Reuters September 19, 2013, PNG government takes full ownership of Ok Tedi mine, Reuters (via London South East). https://www.lse.co.uk/news/png-government-takes-full-ownership-of-ok-tedi-mine-7wd4kwjt9p4tgh5.html

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

21. Orinoco Mining Arc — mining zone – Venezuela

Company/Project: Orinoco Mining Arc — gold/coltan/diamond mining zone — national pattern, Venezuela

Dates: 2016 – present.

Location: Southern Venezuela – Bolivar and Amazonas states — Venezuela

Indigenous Communities: Pemón, Warao, Kariña, Ye’kwana, Eñepa/Sanema and others.

Security-Force Abuses: Reports of killings, forced labor, sexual violence, and coercion and extortion by armed groups; incidents involving state security actors in mining zones; coercion of workers by security forces. Rights groups document brutal “discipline” by armed groups (amputations, killings) that control mine pits, with state acquiescence and, in cases, involvement; massacres and disappearances reported around Tumeremo since 2016.

Triggering Event: Creation of the Arco Minero del Orinoco by presidential Decree No. 2,248 (Official Gazette 40.855, 2016), followed by rapid expansion of irregular mining and significant internal migration to extraction areas. The government decree spurred a mining rush and militarized control.

Issues: Rapid mining expansion under opaque “special” rules has enabled criminality, weak oversight, and mass in-migration of hundreds of thousands of people into a biodiversity-rich region. Deforestation, river contamination, and mercury exposure are reported alongside forced labor and trafficking. Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) units and local “sindicatos” compete to tax and police miners, operating illegal checkpoints and extortion rackets. UN and NGO investigations describe entrenched “criminal control” and systematic abuse of miners and nearby communities.

Allegations: Systematic violence and exploitation of Indigenous and local communities; forced displacement; pervasive extortion; and pit control by criminal and state-linked groups. Multiple sources allege collusion and impunity involving elements of the military and officials. Patterns include disappearances and grotesque punishments to enforce order, with independent investigations and media documenting repeated massacres in Bolívar since 2016.

Outcomes/Status: The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) reported in 2022 that state actors bear responsibility for serious violations and that criminal groups openly control mines and populations; sporadic raids occur, but illegal mining and associated violence persist. The government frames the Arc as development policy.

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Core sources:

Human Rights Watch February 4, 2020, Venezuela: Violent Abuses in Illegal Gold Mines, Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/04/venezuela-violent-abuses-illegal-gold-mines
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights July 15, 2020, UN releases report on criminal control of mining area and wider justice concerns in Venezuela, OHCHR. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/07/venezuela-un-releases-report-criminal-control-mining-area-and-wider-justice
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights September 20, 2022, Venezuela: New UN report details responsibilities for crimes against humanity, OHCHR. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/09/venezuela-new-un-report-details-responsibilities-crimes-against-humanity
Reuters March 15, 2016, Seventeen corpses found after Venezuela miners’ massacre, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/seventeen-corpses-found-after-venezuela-miners-massacre-idUSKCN0WH2HV/
International Crisis Group July 29, 2025, A Curse of Gold: Mining and Violence in Venezuela’s South (Report B53), International Crisis Group. https://www.crisisgroup.org/sites/default/files/2025-07/b53-mining-and-violence-venezuela_0.pdf

Additional sources:

Transparencia Venezuela (en el exilio) April 8, 2025, Gold Mining in Venezuela (citing Decree No. 2,248; Gaceta Oficial No. 40,855, February 24, 2016), Transparencia Venezuela en el exilio. https://transparenciave.org/economias-ilicitas/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Gold-Mining-in-Venezuela.-Transparencia-Venezuela-en-el-exilio.pdf
European Union Agency for Asylum November 7, 2023, Venezuela: Country Focus, European Union Agency for Asylum. https://euaa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publications/2023-11/2023_11_COI_Report_Venezuela_Country_Focus_EN.pdf
Lambertini, S. M. 2023, Consolidation of Organized Crime in the Orinoco Mining Arc, Journal of Illicit Economies and Development. https://jied.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/jied.144

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

22. Eramet, Weda Bay Nickel – Halmahera projects – North Maluku, Indonesia

Company/Project: PT Weda Bay Nickel (WBN) / Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP)

Dates: 2010s – present (major ramp-up in the 2020s)

Location: Central/East Halmahera, North Maluku — Indonesia

Indigenous Communities: Hongana Manyawa (O’Hongana/“Forest Tobelo”), including uncontacted groups.

Security-Force Abuses: Allegations focus on encroachment and risk to uncontacted groups noted by NGOs; security incidents reported around access control.

Triggering Event: Rapid build-out of the WBN mine and the IWIP smelter park in the 2010s–2020s, with captive coal power, new roads, large in-migration of workers, and Indonesian government promotion of an EV/battery hub on Halmahera, drawing heightened NGO, media, and investor scrutiny from late 2024 into 2025. WBN is operated by French company Eramet SA for JV partners. (However, at least 19 companies are reported to be active on the land of the Hongana Manyawa).

Issues: Rapid mining-to-smelting expansion has driven deforestation and habitat fragmentation from roads and camps; water quality concerns (e.g., Sagea River); high disease vulnerability for uncontacted groups due to outside contact; cumulative impacts from mining-to-smelting build-out; investment/ethics scrutiny tied to nickel supply chains. Climate Rights International (CRI) also flags gaps in public participation and Free, Prior and Informed Consent processes for Indigenous communities.

Allegations: Rights groups allege WBN/IWIP encroach on Hongana Manyawa territories (including areas used by uncontacted groups), drive forest loss and Sagea River pollution, expose uncontacted peoples to deadly disease via roads and camps, and proceed without demonstrable Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Survival International and media reports warn of potential cultural destruction or “genocide” if expansion continues. Companies dispute claims of uncontacted peoples inside concessions, deny responsibility for Sagea pollution, and assert compliance with Indonesian law, standards, and environmental monitoring.

Outcomes/Status: WBN is a joint venture majority-owned by Tsingshan (~51.3%), with Eramet (~37.8%) and Antam (10%); much of WBN’s ore is processed at nearby IWIP. Operations began producing at industrial scale in the late 2010s/early 2020s and continue to expand amid Indonesia’s downstreaming push. NGOs demand protection for Indigenous groups and withdrawal of resource companies; concessions and access continue to expand. Ongoing disputes center on FPIC, water quality, and impacts on uncontacted groups; companies maintain denials and cite engagement and monitoring.

In September 2025, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, announced the blacklisting of Eramet SA due to “an unacceptable risk that the company is contributing to, or is itself responsible for, serious environmental damage and gross violation of the human rights of uncontacted indigenous people.”^[5]^{,^[6]}

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Core sources:

Eramet n.d., The Weda Bay Nickel project, Eramet. https://www.eramet.com/en/news/the-weda-bay-nickel-project/
PT Weda Bay Nickel n.d., Governance / ownership information, PT Weda Bay Nickel. https://www.wedabaynickel.com/en/weda-bay-nickel/about-us/governance/
Gayle, Damien November 26, 2024, Uncontacted hunter-gatherers facing threat of genocide because of minerals mining, claims report, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/26/uncontacted-hunter-gatherers-facing-threat-of-genocide-because-of-minerals-mining-claims-report
Survival International November 22, 2024, Driven to the edge, Survival International. https://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/2684/original-3c8dda9a3227299a6d33458706fe76e6.pdf
Climate Rights International June 2025, Ongoing Harms, Limited Accountability, Climate Rights International. https://cri.org/reports/ongoing-harms-limited-accountability/

Additional sources:

Yale Environment 360 December 4, 2024, In Hunt for EV Metal, Miners Close in on Uncontacted People in Indonesia, Yale Environment 360. https://e360.yale.edu/digest/ev-mining-uncontacted-tribe-indonesia
Mongabay December 2, 2024, Photos: The lives and forests bound to Indonesia’s nickel dreams, Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/photos-the-lives-and-forests-bound-to-indonesias-nickel-dreams/
Mongabay February 6, 2025, Disease surges in Indonesia community on frontline of world energy transition, Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/disease-surges-in-indonesia-community-on-frontline-of-world-energy-transition/
Survival International November 25, 2024, Demand for EVs drives destruction of uncontacted people, Survival International. https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/14100
PT Weda Bay Nickel November 29, 2024, Governance, PT Weda Bay Nickel. https://www.wedabaynickel.com/en/weda-bay-nickel/about-us/governance/
Norges Bank Investment Management September 12, 2025, Decision on exclusion (Eramet SA), Norges Bank Investment Management. https://www.nbim.no/en/news-and-insights/the-press/press-releases/2025/decision-on-exclusion/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

23. Cinta Larga — Diamond Rush – Brazil

Company/Project: Cinta Larga — Diamond Rush (Brazil) — illegal mining conflict

Dates: 1999–present (episodic); flashpoint April 2004

Location: Roosevelt Indigenous Reserve, Rondônia/Mato Grosso — Brazil

Indigenous Communities: Cinta Larga (with impacts in neighboring Suruí, Zoró, and Gavião areas).

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Violence in and around illegal mining sites; trafficking and exploitation linked to criminal actors.

Triggering Event: Discovery and rush for diamonds inside Indigenous territory. Discovery of a major alluvial diamond deposit drew thousands of garimpeiros onto Indigenous land; in April 2004, authorities recovered at least 26 garimpeiro bodies (widely reported overall death toll was 29) – reportedly killed by local Indigenous people in self-defense, inside TI Roosevelt amid escalating violence.

Issues: Illegal diamond extraction on constitutionally protected Indigenous territory fueled violent confrontation, environmental damage, and criminal networks. Uncontrolled pits, airstrips, firearms, and alcohol accompanied an influx of outsiders, pulling Cinta Larga youth into a precarious mining economy. Federal Police crackdowns and sporadic government containment measures alternated with renewed invasions, reflecting high stone values, corruption risks, and weak governance. These pressures deepened internal community divisions and social fracture in nearby towns.

Allegations: Violence against leaders and intra-community conflict tied to illicit mining, trafficking, sexual exploitation, and weak enforcement. Contemporaneous reports describe bodies recovered after mass garimpeiro invasions and continuing threats against Indigenous residents. Subsequent accounts cite retaliatory attacks by miners, including the shooting death of a 14-year-old Cinta Larga youth, amid contested narratives of self-defense versus complicity driven by lucrative diamonds and criminal intermediaries.

Outcomes/Status: Periodic enforcement actions have not eradicated illegal extraction or criminal networks. Cycles of crackdowns and renewed invasions persist, reflecting lucrative diamonds and weak governance. On February 5, 2025, Brazil’s National Indigenous Foundation (Fundação Nacional dos Povos Indígenas, Funai) reported a federal court ruling of insufficient evidence against Indigenous defendants in the 2004 case concerning killings of illegal garimpeiros in TI Roosevelt, underscoring enduring evidentiary and accountability gaps.

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Core sources:

ABC News (Australia) April 18, 2004, Bodies of 26 diamond miners found in Amazon, ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2004-04-18/bodies-of-26-diamond-miners-found-in-amazon/171940
PBS Frontline/World January 24, 2006, Brazil: Jewel of the Amazon (transcript & field notes), PBS. https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/brazil501/transcript.html
Agência Brasil April 28, 2004, PF investiga se servidor da Funai participou da exploração de diamantes em reserva indígena, Agência Brasil. https://memoria.ebc.com.br/agenciabrasil//noticia/2004-04-28/pf-investiga-se-servidor-da-funai-participou-da-exploracao-de-diamantes-em-reserva-indigena
CETEM August 5, 2014, Garimpo ilegal na Terra Indígena Roosevelt (RO), CETEM. https://verbetes.cetem.gov.br/verbetes/ExibeVerbete.aspx?verid=42
The Guardian November 26, 2024, Massacre in the jungle: how an Indigenous man was made the public face of an atrocity, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/nov/26/massacre-in-the-jungle-how-an-indigenous-man-was-made-the-public-face-of-an-atrocity

Additional sources:

Washington Post July 25, 2004, In Brazil, A Deadly Warning for Miners, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/07/25/in-brazil-a-deadly-warning-for-miners/ea20c0a5-f12e-4805-92d8-6f3272309337/
Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) May 20, 2004, Jovem Cinta-Larga é assassinado, Instituto Socioambiental. https://pib.socioambiental.org/es/Not%C3%ADcias?id=35846
Funai February 5, 2025, Justiça Federal conclui que não há provas suficientes contra indígenas Cinta Larga acusados de assassinar garimpeiros em 2004, Fundação Nacional dos Povos Indígenas (Funai). https://www.gov.br/funai/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2025/justica-federal-conclui-que-nao-ha-provas-suficientes-contra-indigenas-cinta-larga-acusados-de-assassinar-garimpeiros-em-2004
PBS Frontline/World 2005, Additional Resources (Brazil: Jewel of the Amazon), PBS Frontline/World. https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/brazil501/brazil501_additional.html
PBS Frontline/World January 24, 2006, Amazon Journal, PBS Frontline/World. https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/brazil501/journal_roosevelt.html
CETEM January 5, 2015, Banco de dados recursos minerais e territórios, Centro de Tecnologia Mineral (CETEM). https://verbetes.cetem.gov.br/verbetes/Texto.aspx?p=6&s=18

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

24. Rio Tinto — Juukan Gorge – WA, Australia

Company/Project: Rio Tinto — Juukan Gorge — (rock shelters heritage destruction)

Dates: 2020 (blast); reforms 2020–present.

Location: Pilbara, Western Australia — Australia

Indigenous Communities: Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP).

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged. Heritage destruction focus.

Triggering Event: Regulatory approval and execution of blasting at Juukan Gorge despite new archaeological findings. On May 24, 2020, Rio Tinto detonated blasts that destroyed two rock shelters dating back more than 46,000 years, acting under a Section 18 consent issued under Western Australia’s Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972.

Issues: Heritage approvals permitted blasting despite evidence of ~46,000 years of continuous occupation by Indigenous people; power asymmetry in heritage consent processes. The incident exposed gaps in heritage law (legacy Section 18 approvals), information asymmetries between companies and Traditional Owners, and internal governance failures despite prior archaeological evidence of extraordinary significance.

Allegations: Destruction of sacred rock shelters against Traditional Owners’ wishes despite advanced knowledge; failure to pause and reassess when significance escalated. Findings and submissions faulted Rio Tinto’s engagement, noting it proceeded despite PKKP warnings and knowledge of the sites’ importance.

Outcomes/Status: RIO Tinto CEO and senior executive resignations and a “Never Again” inquiry followed global condemnation. Rio signed a remedy/legacy agreement with PKKP in November 2022 and a co-management agreement in June 2025 focused on rehabilitation and shared decision-making, while contested reforms to Western Australia’s heritage laws continue. Ongoing archaeology at Juukan keeps revealing significant artefacts, underscoring the irreparable loss.

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Core sources:

Australian Parliament December 1, 2020, Never Again: Inquiry into the destruction of 46,000-year-old caves at Juukan Gorge (Interim Report), Parliament of Australia. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Former_Committees/Northern_Australia_46P/CavesatJuukanGorge/Interim_Report
Australian Government November 24, 2022, Australian Government response to the destruction of Juukan Gorge, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/australian-response-to-destruction-of-juukan-gorge.pdf
ABC News November 27, 2022, Rio Tinto remedy agreement signed after Juukan Gorge destruction, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC News). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-28/rio-tinto-remedy-agreement-signed-after-juukan-gorge-destruction/101705944
Rio Tinto June 2, 2025, PKKP and Rio Tinto sign Co-Management Agreement, Rio Tinto. https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2025/pkkp-and-rio-tinto-sign-co-management-agreement
Reuters April 16, 2024, Australia’s Juukan Gorge yields up rare Tasmanian Devil tooth, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/science/australias-juukan-gorge-yields-up-rare-tasmanian-devil-tooth-2024-04-16/

Additional sources:

ANTAR May 22, 2025, The destruction of Juukan Gorge (context & timeline), ANTAR. https://antar.org.au/issues/cultural-heritage/the-destruction-of-juukan-gorge/
Ashurst July 25, 2023, 1 July 2023 – WA’s new Aboriginal heritage laws have commenced, Ashurst. https://www.ashurst.com/en/insights/1-july-2023-was-new-aboriginal-heritage-laws-have-commenced/
Institute of Art and Law August 22, 2023, WA scraps Aboriginal Cultural Heritage laws designed to stop “another Juukan Gorge”, Institute of Art and Law. https://ial.uk.com/western-australia-scraps-aboriginal-cultural-heritage-laws-designed-to-stop-another-juukan-gorge/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

25. Nevsun Resources – Bisha mine – Eritrea (acquired by Zijin)

Company/Project: Nevsun Resources— Bisha Gold–Copper–Zinc Mine; (Zijin Mining Group acquired Nevsun in 2018)

Dates: 2008–present (Bisha mine development and operation).

Location: Bisha deposit, Gash-Barka region — Eritrea

Indigenous Communities: Local Eritrean communities around Bisha reliant on farming and herding; workforce largely Eritrean nationals subject to compulsory National Service.

Security-Force Abuses: Multiple testimonies and investigations allege Eritrean National Service conscripts were compelled, via state-owned Segen Construction Company and military-linked units, to perform construction and other work at Bisha under conditions amounting to forced labor, within a system of indefinite conscription, coercion, and abuse documented by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea and Human Rights Watch.

Triggering Event: From 2011, former workers alleged forced conscript labor at Bisha, operated 2008–2018 by Nevsun/Bisha Mining Share Company (a Nevsun–Eritrean state joint venture) before Nevsun’s 2018 acquisition by Zijin Mining Group (China); in November 2014, three Eritrean plaintiffs filed Araya v. Nevsun in British Columbia, Canada, accusing Nevsun of complicity in forced labor, slavery, torture, and crimes against humanity, propelling Bisha into a landmark transnational test case.

Issues: Nevsun launched Bisha in 2008 without meaningful human rights due diligence, relying—under state pressure—on Segen Construction Company, controlled by the ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) and implicated in the use of conscript labor. Testimony and investigations report forced, abusive conditions for conscripts at Bisha, while the joint venture’s dependence on state-linked contractors in a closed, militarized regime with indefinite National Service and no independent oversight made forced labor and unremedied abuse structurally foreseeable.

Allegations: Plaintiffs and NGOs allege conscripts were forced to work at Bisha under threat of punishment and violence, in dangerous, degrading conditions and excessive hours, and that Nevsun knew or ought to have known, benefitted, and failed to prevent or remedy these abuses while relying on deficient audits and assurances. Most detailed testimonies and inquiries place the forced conscript labor during construction and early operations under Nevsun/BMSC and Segen (circa 2008–2012+), making this phase the core focus of the claims. The case frames Bisha as a test of corporate liability for aiding and abetting violations of peremptory norms—including prohibitions on slavery and forced labour—in partnership with an authoritarian state.

Outcomes/Status: In Nevsun Resources Ltd v. Araya, 2020 SCC 5, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the claim to proceed and held that corporations may face civil liability in Canada for breaches of customary international law, rejecting the act of state bar. Before trial, Nevsun (by then under Zijin) reached a confidential settlement with the plaintiffs in October 2020 without admitting liability; Bisha remains in operation and is widely cited as a landmark forced labor risk and corporate accountability case.

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Core sources:

Human Rights Watch January 15, 2013, Hear No Evil: Forced Labor and Corporate Responsibility in Eritrea’s Mining Sector, Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/01/15/hear-no-evil/forced-labor-and-corporate-responsibility-eritreas-mining-sector
Supreme Court of Canada February 28, 2020, Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya, 2020 SCC 5, Supreme Court of Canada. https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18169/index.do
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre November 20, 2014, Nevsun lawsuit (re Bisha mine, Eritrea), Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/nevsun-lawsuit-re-bisha-mine-eritrea/
Amnesty International Canada October 15, 2020, Ground-breaking Nevsun case settled out of court, Amnesty International Canada. https://amnesty.ca/features/ground-breaking-news-important-canadian-corporate-accountability-case-settled-out-of-court/
Mining Technology April 4, 2024, Bisha Project, Eritrea, Mining Technology. https://www.mining-technology.com/projects/bisha-project/

Additional sources:

UN Human Rights Council June 4, 2015, Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea (A/HRC/29/42), United Nations Human Rights Council. https://undocs.org/A/HRC/29/42
DLA Piper et al. 2015, Human Rights Impact Assessment of the Bisha Mine in Eritrea (2015 Audit), independent report commissioned by Nevsun Resources Ltd. and Eritrean National Mining Corporation (ENAMCO). https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/files/documents/Bisha-HRIA-Audit-2015.pdf
Peters & Peters January 2014, Mining company Nevsun settles landmark human rights lawsuit by former labourers, Peters & Peters. https://www.petersandpeters.com/case/mining-company-nevsun-settles-landmark-human-rights-law-suit-by-former-labourers/
Walton, Beatrice A. 2021, Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya, American Journal of International Law, Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/nevsun-resources-ltd-v-araya/0A46CA71DEF55F6C9ED0EBD743037837

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

26. Vedanta Resources — Niyamgiri bauxite mine – India

Company/Project: Vedanta Resources — Niyamgiri bauxite mine (proposed)

Dates: 2000s–2013 decisive rulings; oversight and political pressure continue.

Location: Niyamgiri Hills (Kalahandi & Rayagada, Odisha) — India

Indigenous Communities: Dongria Kondh and other Kondh Adivasi groups; Niyam Raja (sacred peak) underpins worship, identity, forest gathering, and shifting cultivation.

Security-Force Abuses: Rights groups reported policing, intimidation, and arrests of Dongria Kondh activists, including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) pressure ahead of gram sabha meetings; allegations included surveillance, false charges, and constraints on peaceful assembly.

Triggering Event: On April 18, 2013, India’s Supreme Court required gram sabhas to decide religious and cultural impacts. Twelve supervised gram sabhas in Kalahandi and Rayagada unanimously rejected the mine, halting the project.

Issues: Open-cast bauxite extraction on a sacred, biodiverse massif threatened community religious practice, forests, and headwater hydrology. Critics argued non-compliance with the Forest Rights Act and absence of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. Assessments warned of forest fragmentation, slope/soil instability, and risks to endemic species. Hydrological concerns focused on altered runoff and downstream contamination. Administrative disputes centered on proper recognition of community and religious rights in clearances.

Allegations: Communities alleged procedural violations in forest diversion and environmental clearance, including inadequate recognition of community forest rights and coercive consultation conditions. Authorities were accused of narrowing “religious and cultural rights” and undercounting sacred sites. Technical filings warned that overburden, haul roads, and waste dumps would degrade soils and streams, harming subsistence livelihoods. Monitoring and grievance mechanisms were portrayed as ineffective, while intimidation chilled participation during consultations.

Outcomes/Status: Following the twelve unanimous gram sabha rejections (July–August 2013), Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) — the central government ministry in India responsible for environmental regulation, forest conservation, and project clearances – denied Stage-II forest clearance in January 2014, stopping the project. Periodic political or industry moves to revisit Niyamgiri continue to face strong local and international resistance, with community networks maintaining watch over access, policing practices, and any renewed licensing attempts.

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Core sources:

Supreme Court of India April 18, 2013, Orissa Mining Corporation v. Ministry of Environment & Forests (2013) 6 SCC 476, Supreme Court of India / International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC). https://www.ielrc.org/content/e1337.pdf
Land Conflict Watch n.d., Dongria Kondhs in Odisha win against Vedanta, Land Conflict Watch. https://www.landconflictwatch.org/conflicts/tribals-in-niyamgiri-protest-against-bauxite-mining-by-vedanta-limited
Down To Earth April 19, 2023, Niyamgiri: 10 years since India’s first environmental referendum, Down To Earth. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/governance/niyamgiri-10-years-since-india-s-first-environmental-referendum-88850
The Wire April 23, 2018, Odisha’s Niyamgiri Hills – and Its People – Are Still Under Threat, The Wire (Science). https://science.thewire.in/politics/rights/odishas-niyamgiri-hills-and-its-people-are-still-under-threat/
Amnesty International July 2, 2012, Vedanta’s Perspective Uncovered, Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/asa200292012en.pdf

Additional sources:

Business Standard August 19, 2013, Vedanta’s Niyamgiri plan stuck as last gram sabha gives thumbs down, Business Standard. https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/vedanta-s-niyamgiri-plan-stuck-as-last-gram-sabha-gives-thumbs-down-113081901018_1.html
Mint January 11, 2014, Government rejects Vedanta’s bauxite mining plans in Niyamgiri, Mint (LiveMint). https://www.livemint.com/Politics/RfscBlhoFhQDapFA6uU7UK/Government-rejects-Vedantas-bauxite-mining-plans-in-Niyamgi.html
Deccan Herald January 11, 2014, Environment ministry rejects Vedanta’s Niyamgiri project, Deccan Herald. https://www.deccanherald.com/india/environment-ministry-rejects-vedantas-niyamgiri-2170678
OECD Watch 2016, Tribal claims against the Vedanta Bauxite Mine in Niyamgiri, India, OECD Watch. https://www.oecdwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2017/05/Tribal-claims-against-the-Vedanta-Bauxite-Mine-in-Niyamgiri-India.pdf
Cambridge University Press n.d., The Vedanta (Niyamgiri) Case, in Human Rights and Business: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge University Press. https://resolve.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/CE325EAC955B21FC970F5740975151EB/9781108470001c19_289-302.pdf/vedanta_niyamgiri_case.pdf

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

27. BHP — Fundão tailings dam (Mariana) disaster – Brazil

Company/Project: BHP (joint owner with Vale via Samarco) — Fundão tailings dam (Mariana) disaster

Dates: November 5, 2015 – present (reparations, litigation, remediation).

Location: Germano/Samarco complex, Mariana, Minas Gerais — Brazil

Indigenous Communities: Downstream riverine and Indigenous communities throughout the Rio Doce basin, affected by contamination, fisheries collapse, and loss of livelihoods.

Security-Force Abuses: Not alleged.

Triggering Event: The Mariana dam disaster—also known as the Bento Rodrigues or Samarco disaster—occurred on November 5, 2015, when the Fundão tailings dam at the Germano iron-ore mine (part of Samarco’s Mariana Mining Complex) suffered a catastrophic failure. The breach released tens of millions of cubic metres of mine waste, devastating the villages of Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo (~40 km downstream), killing 19 people, and contaminating ~668 km of waterways to the Atlantic Ocean—the largest recorded tailings-dam pollution event globally.

Issues: The Fundão facility served Samarco’s iron-ore pellet operations, processing concentrate from the Germano mines into high-grade pellets at two pellet plants and a third under expansion. The failure was linked to upstream tailings-dam design weaknesses, inadequate drainage and monitoring, and governance lapses in stability declarations. Contamination of water and sediments across the Rio Doce basin triggered large-scale resettlement, ecological loss, and complex restoration through Fundação Renova.

Allegations: Civil actions in Brazil and the United Kingdom allege negligence, pressure to raise output, and failure to heed structural warnings tied to Samarco’s high-throughput pellet operations. Plaintiffs argue that the dam’s design and monitoring defects reflected systemic cost-cutting and oversight gaps within BHP, Vale, and Samarco.

Outcomes / Status: In October 2024, BHP Brasil, Vale and Samarco entered a US$32 billion (R$170 billion) Brazil Agreement with federal and state authorities, under which more than 610,000 people have been compensated, including roughly 240,000 from the UK group action whose releases were upheld—limiting but not necessarily barring further UK claims. On November 14, 2025, the English High Court found BHP liable under Brazilian law, noting the risk was foreseeable; BHP will appeal. The claimants are seeking £36 billion (US$47 billion) in compensation, though the ruling only addressed liability. A second phase of the trial will determine damages expected to conclude in 2028–2029. BHP separately settled an Australian shareholder class action in September 2025 for A$110 million (≈US$72.5 million) without admission of liability.

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Core sources:

Reuters November 14, 2025, BHP liable for 2015 Brazil dam collapse, UK court rules, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/bhp-liable-2015-brazil-dam-collapse-uk-court-rules-mammoth-lawsuit-2025-11-14/
Associated Press November 15, 2025, London judge finds BHP liable in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, AP News. https://apnews.com/article/d6fab2f4c1a9f6d11fbabf5e68290230
BHP November 14, 2025, Update on United Kingdom group action, BHP.com. https://www.bhp.com/news/media-centre/releases/2025/11/update-united-kingdom-group-action
BHP October 25, 2024, BHP Brasil reaches final settlement (R$170 billion / ~US$32 billion), BHP.com. https://www.bhp.com/news/media-centre/releases/2024/10/bhp-brasil-reaches-final-settlement
Government of Brazil November 8, 2024, New Rio Doce Basin settlement: more resources, stronger protections for families, states, municipalities & the environment, Gov.br / Planalto. https://www.gov.br/planalto/en/latest-news/2024/11/new-rio-doce-basin-settlement-more-resources-stronger-protections-for-families-states-municipalities-the-environment
Reuters September 8, 2025, Mining giant BHP settles Australian Samarco class action for A$110 million, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/mining-giant-bhp-settles-australian-samarco-class-action-725-million-2025-09-08/
The Guardian November 14, 2025, London judge rules BHP liable for Brazil 2015 dam collapse, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/14/london-judge-rules-bhp-group-liable-for-brazil-2015-samarco-dam-collapse

Additional sources:

BHP July 10, 2023, Samarco to double production by 2025, BHP.com. https://www.bhp.com/news/articles/2023/07/samarco-to-double-production-by-2025
BHP (n.d.), Samarco operations (iron-ore pelletizing plants, BHP.com. https://www.bhp.com/what-we-do/global-locations/brazil/samarco-operations
Mining Technology December 5, 2021, Samarco dam disaster: Dealing with the fallout of a tragedy, Mining-Technology.com. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/samarco-dam-disaster-dealing-fallout-tragedy/
Samarco September 20, 2017, Biennial Report 2015–2016, Samarco (PDF). https://www.samarco.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Samarco_Relatorio-Bienal-2015_2016-final-20170920_versao-ingles.pdf

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

28. ASIS/Australian Government — Greater Sunrise Espionage – Timor-Leste/Australia

Commercial context: Woodside Energy (Greater Sunrise JV operator)

Company/Project: Woodside Energy Greater Sunrise gas fields — LNG development

Dates: Discovered 1974; Maritime Boundary Treaty signed March 6, 2018; entered into force August 30, 2019; JV ownership changes in 2019; negotiations continuing to 2025.

Location: Timor Sea, ~140–150 km south of Timor-Leste — between Timor-Leste and Australia

Indigenous Communities: Coastal and fishing communities in Timor-Leste.

Security-Force Abuses / Intelligence Scandal (Australia): In 2004, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) covertly bugged Timor-Leste’s cabinet during treaty talks, using an aid program as cover to gain commercial advantage. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) later raided whistle-blower Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery (December 3, 2013). Witness K received a three-month suspended sentence (June 2021); the Collaery prosecution was discontinued (July 2022). In Jan 2024, the ACT Court of Appeal criticized secrecy surrounding the case.

Triggering Event: Illegal bugging by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in 2004; Witness K disclosure by 2012; Timor-Leste filed action at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on April 23 2013; Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) raids on December 3 2013; International Court of Justice (ICJ) order on March 3 2014 protecting seized materials; compulsory conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) from April 2016 to March 2018, culminating in the Maritime Boundary Treaty signed March 6 2018.

Background — CMATS agreement: The Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), signed January 12, 2006, and in force February 23, 2007, froze the maritime boundary dispute for 50 years and established a temporary 50:50 revenue split between Timor-Leste and Australia over the Greater Sunrise field. CMATS—negotiated using information illegally obtained by ASIS’s 2004 bugging of Timor-Leste’s cabinet—was challenged in 2013 at the PCA. A United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) conciliation in The Hague (2016–2018), administered by the PCA, terminated CMATS and produced the 2018 Maritime Boundary Treaty with a revised revenue split: 70:30 if processed in Timor-Leste, 80:20 if processed in Australia.

Who was in charge in 2004 (when the Australian ASIS bugging occurred)? Prime Minister John Howard; Foreign Minister Alexander Downer; ASIS Director-General David Irvine (2003–2009); ASIO Director-General Dennis Richardson (1996–2005); DFAT Secretary Ashton Calvert (to January 4, 2005).

Issues: Australia sought a larger revenue share and, according to Witness K unauthorized disclosures, and subsequent reports, relied on espionage to strengthen its position in favor of Woodside Energy (Australian operator). With the boundary dispute settled by the UN in 2018, the remaining debate concerns gas processing: Timor-Leste advocates an on-shore LNG plant at Beaçu for national employment and revenue, while Woodside and partners prefer a pipeline to Darwin. Current JV equity: TIMOR GAP 56.56 %, Woodside 33.44 %, Osaka Gas 10 %; feasibility and route studies continue through 2025.

Corporate angle — Woodside Energy: Woodside Energy, operator of the Greater Sunrise joint venture, was a key commercial beneficiary of the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) and consistently pushed offshore/Darwin processing. The company later engaged former foreign minister Alexander Downer—who oversaw ASIS during the 2004 bugging—as a lobbyist. There is no public evidence that Woodside directed, or participated in the bugging; allegations and legal actions target the Australian Government/ASIS. The concern is not direct complicity but benefit and conflict of interest, with Woodside’s proximity to negotiations highlighting the state–corporate nexus in the Timor Sea.

Outcomes / Status: Greater Sunrise remains undeveloped. The 2018 treaty’s Greater Sunrise Special Regime formalized Timor-Leste’s majority share under the new 70:30 / 80:20 formula. Nearby Bayu-Undan—the region’s revenue workhorse—began liquids in 2004, shipped Darwin LNG’s first cargo in February 2006, and ceased production June 4, 2025. Timor-Leste continues funding new pipeline and LNG studies; concept selection remains unresolved. No public probe – Australia has never published an independent investigation into the 2004 ASIS bugging; a promised inquiry was later dropped.

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Core sources:

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) August 30, 2019, Australia’s maritime arrangements with Timor-Leste. DFAT. https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/timor-leste/australias-maritime-arrangements-with-timor-leste
Permanent Court of Arbitration May 9, 2018, Timor Sea Conciliation: Report and Recommendations (incl. Annexes). PCA. https://pca-cpa.org/cases/132/
International Court of Justice — Mar 3 2014. Questions relating to the Seizure and Detention of Certain Documents and Data (Timor-Leste v. Australia), Order on Provisional Measures. ICJ. https://www.icj-cij.org/case/156
ABC News June 18, 2021, Former Australian spy Witness K spared jail time over leaking classified information. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-18/act-witness-k-sentencing-hearing/100226438
Reuters February 5, 2025, East Timor favours Australia over Chinese firms on major gas project, president says. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/east-timor-favours-australia-over-chinese-firms-major-gas-project-president-says-2025-02-05/
Autoridade Nacional do Petróleo I.P. (ANP Timor-Leste) June 4, 2025, Bayu-Undan: Cessation of Production. https://www.anp.tl/bayu-undan-cessation-of-production

Additional sources:

The Guardian January 9, 2024, Secrecy of Bernard Collaery trial risked damaging public’s faith in administration of justice, court rules. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/09/secrecy-of-bernard-collaery-trial-risked-damaging-publics-faith-in-administration-of-justice-court-rules
Devpolicy Blog (ANU) December 6, 2013, Really disgraceful: Australian aid program allegedly used as cover for Timor-Leste spying. https://devpolicy.org/really-disgraceful-australian-aid-program-allegedly-used-as-cover-for-timor-spying20131206-2/
Upstream November 13, 2025, New dawn at last for Woodside’s Greater Sunrise LNG project (Timor-Leste authorises budget for pipeline studies). https://www.upstreamonline.com/lng/new-dawn-at-last-for-woodsides-greater-sunrise-lng-project/2-1-1898775

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

29. Vedanta Resources plc — Sterlite Copper smelter – India

Company/Project: Vedanta Resources plc — Sterlite Copper smelter (Thoothukudi/Tuticorin)

Dates: 2018 protests against Sterlite Copper and the subsequent 2019–2024 litigation over permanent plant closure.

Location: Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) copper smelter complex in Tamil Nadu — India

Indigenous/Local Communities: Local residents in Thoothukudi and surrounding villages, including fishing and low-income urban communities living near the plant.

Security-Force Abuses: In May 2018, during the 100th day of mass protests demanding closure of Sterlite Copper over pollution concerns, Tamil Nadu police and paramilitary units opened fire on demonstrators marching towards the district collectorate; at least 13 protesters were killed and more than 100 injured. Autopsy records and witness accounts reported by Reuters and others describe many victims shot in the head or chest, some from behind, and allege that police fired live rounds without adequate warning; subsequent investigations and court cases have targeted both state officials and protesters, with families and activists arguing that accountability remains limited.

Triggering Event: In May 2018, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tuticorin in protest against severe environmental damage, regulatory non-compliance, and human rights impacts of the copper smelter on local communities. Tamil Nadu police and paramilitary units opened fire on demonstrators killing at least 13 people in affected communities.

Issues: Authorities and rights groups have documented a history of alleged air-pollution incidents, groundwater contamination and regulatory breaches at Sterlite Copper, alongside contested monitoring, plant shutdown orders and litigation over compliance with environmental norms. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and state government ordered closure of the smelter following the 2018 violence, citing violations of environmental conditions.

Allegations: Local communities have long alleged harmful air emissions, groundwater contamination and health impacts linked to the smelter, alongside inadequate consultation and weak remediation. These communities bear the brunt of pollution, regulatory violations and deficient safeguards.

Outcomes/Status: The Thoothukudi smelter has been shut since 2018. On February 29, 2024, India’s Supreme Court dismissed Vedanta’s plea to reopen the plant and upheld earlier decisions, stressing that contributions to the economy could not override residents’ health, environmental safeguards and the public-trust doctrine. Debates continue over long-term remediation, compensation and criminal accountability for the 2018 shootings.

Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) Council on Ethics, excluded Vedanta Resources in 2007 and, after restructuring, Sesa Sterlite (now Vedanta Ltd) in 2013 due to an “unacceptable risk” of severe environmental damage and systematic human rights violations at multiple Indian operations. These concerns pre-date, but frame, the lethal May 2018 protests against Sterlite Copper and the subsequent 2019–2024 litigation over permanent plant closure.

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Core sources:

Council on Ethics, 15 May 2007, Recommendation on exclusion of Vedanta Resources Plc, Council on Ethics for the Government Pension Fund – Global (GPFG), Norwegian Ministry of Finance. https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/fin/statens-pensjonsfond/recommendation_vedanta.pdf Regjeringen.no
Council on Ethics, 13 September 2013, Recommendation to exclude Sesa Sterlite from the Government Pension Fund Global, Council on Ethics for the GPFG, Norwegian Ministry of Finance. https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/22dc03f8d5b7489aa2318512d1d67825/recommendation_sesa_sterlite_2013.pdf Regjeringen.no
Council on Ethics, 16 August 2017, Vedanta Resources Plc and Sesa Sterlite, Council on Ethics for the GPFG (case summary and explainer). https://etikkradet.no/vedanta-resources-plc-and-sesa-sterlite/ Etikkrådet
Reuters (Tom Lasseter), 29 May 2018, “No warning: Witnesses describe how Indian police shot and killed smelter protesters,” Reuters (via NDTV/other portals). https://www.reuters.com/world/no-warning-witnesses-describe-how-indian-police-shot-and-killed-smelter-proteste-idUSKCN1IU1XD/ Reuters
Reuters, 29 February 2024, “India top court rejects Vedanta’s plea to reopen Sterlite Copper’s smelting unit – lawyer,” Reuters (syndicated via multiple outlets). https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-top-court-rejects-vedantas-plea-reopen-sterlite-coppers-smelting-unit-2024-02-29/ Reuters

Additional sources:

Reuters, 22 December 2018, “Exclusive: India anti-Vedanta protesters killed by shots to head, chest; half from behind,” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-india-anti-vedanta-protesters-killed-by-shots-to-head-chest-half-fr-idUSKCN1OL06I/ Reuters
Reuters, 21 May 2019, “A year on, Indian anti-Vedanta protesters say still await justice,” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/environment/a-year-on-indian-anti-vedanta-protesters-say-still-await-justice-idUSKCN1SR1SR/ Reuters
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 29 February 2024, “India: Vedanta’s Sterlite copper smelter cannot reopen, Supreme Court rules,” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, case summary and links. https://www.business-humanrights.org/it/latest-news/india-vedantas-sterlite-copper-smelter-not-allowed-to-reopen-supreme-court-rules/ Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Hindustan Times, 29 February 2024, “Sterlite plant in Tamil Nadu to remain shut, SC dismisses Vedanta plea,” Hindustan Times. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/bengaluru-news/sterlite-plant-in-tamil-nadu-to-remain-shut-sc-dismisses-vedanta-plea-101709235221122.html Hindustan Times
Responsible Mining Foundation, n.d., Vedanta Resources – Sterlite Copper Smelting Plant, Tuticorin – groundwater contamination and legal violations (impact case note). (PDF) https://www.responsibleminingfoundation.org/app/uploads/impacts-sources/VedantaResources_SterliteCopperSmeltingPlant_groundwatercontamination.pdf

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

30. ABG/BML — Panguna (Bougainville) copper mine (Rio Tinto former owner) – PNG

Company/Project: ABG/BML — Panguna (Bougainville) copper mine (Rio Tinto/BCL former owner), Papua New Guinea

The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and Bougainville Minerals Limited (BML) now control the Panguna Mine in Papua New Guinea—historically operated by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) and formerly majority-owned by Rio Tinto.

Dates: Mine developed/operated at scale from early 1970s; closed in May 1989 after sabotage and escalating conflict (often cited as 15 May 1989 as the operational halt date).

Wider Bougainville conflict (late 1980s–1990s) ends with the Bougainville Peace Agreement (2001); independence referendum (2019) delivers ~97.7% “yes,” still requiring PNG parliamentary ratification.

Location: Central Bougainville (Autonomous Region), in Papua New Guinea

Indigenous/Local Communities: The mine footprint and downstream systems intersect with multiple customary landowner groups and village communities in the Panguna/Bana districts and surrounding areas, whose claims are typically framed around land rights, environmental health, riverine livelihoods, and the distribution of mine benefits and harms.

Security-Force Abuses: The mine’s shutdown in 1989 followed sabotage and escalating violence around grievances over impacts and benefit-sharing; the dispute widened into a decade-long civil conflict. The Panguna dispute is inseparable from the Bougainville conflict: the mine closure and the subsequent intervention by state security forces, rebel mobilization, and the long civil war are widely reported to have caused extensive civilian harm and mass displacement, with death toll estimates commonly cited up to around 20,000. An Australian parliamentary committee account reports that riot police methods—including burning homes and villages and abuse of civilians—worsened the situation; police were reinforced by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) in March 1989, and the mine was then forced to close in May 1989.

Triggering Event: Late-1988/early-1989 sabotage of mine infrastructure and rising clashes following unresolved landowner grievances overcompensation, environmental damage, and benefit-sharing—followed by state security deployments; mine closure (May 1989) becomes the flashpoint that turns a mining dispute into a secessionist civil conflict.

Issues: Distributional grievance – the mine was nationally lucrative while many Bougainvilleans perceived local returns as minimal relative to social/environmental costs.

Allegations: Corporate control at the time ran through BCL, which was the operating company, with majority ownership historically held by Rio Tinto (legacy that remains central to today’s remediation/liability dispute politics). Legacy responsibility – the unresolved question of who pays for environmental/health remediation (and how) sits beside active litigation risk and reputational exposure.

Outcomes/Status: Rio Tinto’s majority stake was transferred out in 2016 (to PNG and Bougainville governments), but the mine’s legacy impacts remain a major live issue, including class-action litigation reporting and remediation pressure.

Post 2001

Peace framework and self-determination: The 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement established the pathway to autonomy and the later referendum process, and the 2019 referendum result delivered an overwhelming mandate for independence—yet the outcome still requires ratification by Papua New Guinea’s national parliament, making fiscal viability and governance capacity the core bargaining terrain. This is why Panguna is treated as a “state-making” asset: without a major revenue engine, independence is easier to promise than to implement.

In the 2024–2026 restart phase, the key decision-makers include the Autonomous Bougainville Government (as both mining regulator and majority shareholder in BCL) and Bougainville’s executive leadership, alongside counterpart positions in the national government of Papua New Guinea.

Issues: The core issue is whether Bougainville can reopen Panguna without repeating the original “development aggression” pattern: a high-value export project advanced faster than consent, remediation, or equitable benefit-sharing, and then “secured” through coercive force when contested. In practice, the governance test is whether landowner consent mechanisms, transparent benefit-sharing, environmental baseline work, and credible security arrangements can be built before the project moves from exploration to feasibility and—eventually—production.

Reopening pathway milestones: landowner/ABG “reopen” resolution (2022); ABG grants/extends Panguna exploration license EL01 to BCL (2024); land access/compensation agreement activity (2024); PNG transfers its 36.45% BCL stake to ABG (June 2025) making Bougainville interests ~72.9% owners.

Corporate angle: Bougainville now controls BCL through a confirmed majority shareholding (72.9%) following the transfer of the national government’s stake, giving the ABG decisive influence over corporate strategy and partner selection. In early 2026, Bougainville rejected a proposed partnering pathway involving China Molybdenum (CMOC) and endorsed engagement with Lloyds Metals & Energy instead—explicitly framed in public reporting as both a financing/technical choice and a geopolitical risk calculation about influence in the Pacific.

Outcomes/status: Panguna remains closed and is still at the exploration-license stage (EL01), with redevelopment framed as progressing through pre-feasibility and feasibility work rather than imminent production. Simultaneously, the legacy of the old mine remains an active liability: an independent legacy impact assessment process has highlighted serious physical and environmental risks requiring mitigation and further work, and there is ongoing litigation seeking compensation for historic impacts. The central tension remains unresolved: Panguna is portrayed as the fiscal key to independence, yet reopening is politically viable only if the project is rebuilt around remediation, consent, and a credible “never again” security posture.

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Core sources:

United States Institute of Peace (USIP) August 30, 2001, Bougainville Peace Agreement (PDF), USIP. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/resources/collections/peace_agreements/bougain_20010830.pdf
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) December 13, 2019, Bougainville Referendum Results Announced IFES. https://www.ifes.org/news/bougainville-referendum-results-announced
Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) February 16, 2026, Media Statement: ABG clarifies Panguna EL01 and partnering arrangements, ABG. https://abg.gov.pg/index.php?%2Fnews%2Fread%2Ftransfer-of-bcl-shares-to-abg-secures-control-over-panguna=
Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) February 2, 2024, BCL Granted Five-Year Extension of Panguna Exploration Licence (EL01), BCL. https://www.bcl.com.pg/bcl-granted-five-year-extension-of-panguna-exploration-licence-el01/
Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) November 8, 2024 (Notice to ASX dated November 7, 2024), Exploration Licence Land Access and Compensation Agreement (LACA), BCL. https://www.bcl.com.pg/exploration-licence-land-access-and-compensation-agreement/
Reuters January 30, 2026, Pacific island Bougainville rejects Chinese partner for mine that will fund independence, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pacific-island-bougainville-rejects-chinese-partner-mine-that-will-fund-2026-01-30/
Reuters December 6, 2024, Investigation finds Rio Tinto legacy Bougainville mine poses life-threatening risks, Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/investigation-finds-rio-tinto-legacy-bougainville-mine-poses-life-threatening-2024-12-06/

Additional sources:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) February 12, 2026, Transparency concerns as Bougainville‘s Panguna mine deal revealed. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-12/bougainville-signs-secretive-deal-to-reopen-panguna-mine/106331778
Rio Tinto October 2024, Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment report released. Rio Tinto. https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2024/panguna-mine-legacy-impact-assessment-report-released
Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) n.d. (project page; includes timeline and documents), Bougainville communities’ human rights complaint against Rio Tinto (OECD National Contact Point process). HRLC. https://www.hrlc.org.au/projects/bougainville-communities-human-rights-complaint-against-rio-tinto/
Reuters July 23, 2024, Rio Tinto class action over Bougainville mine damage set for October hearing. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/rio-tinto-class-action-over-bougainville-mine-damage-set-october-hearing-2024-07-23/
IM-Mining February 16, 2022, Bougainville’s Panguna copper mine looks closer to reopening following 1989 closure after deal between landowners & autonomous government, IM-Mining. https://im-mining.com/2022/02/16/bougainvilles-panguna-copper-mine-looks-closer-to-reopening-after-1989-closure-after-deal-between-landowners-autonomous-government/

Sources ordered by estimated authority and relevance.

SECTION II – EXCLUSION DECISIONS OF SELECT SOVEREIGN WEALTH AND PENSION FUNDS

The patterns documented across the projects considered in Section I above have not gone unnoticed by investors. In recent years, several sovereign wealth and public pension funds have adopted formal exclusion lists to distance themselves from companies associated with serious human rights, environmental, or governance breaches.

This section examines how leading sovereign wealth and public pension funds have responded to the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks highlighted in the preceding case studies. Using formal exclusion or “blacklist” mechanisms, these funds have divested from companies judged to pose unacceptable risks of human rights violations, severe environmental damage, or corruption. The review includes decisions by Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the Swedish AP Funds, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and KLP (Norway).

Alongside GPFG, the AP funds, NZSF, and KLP other large investors with structured exclusion frameworks for corporate conduct in high-risk extractive and energy sectors include Storebrand (Norway), Nordea Asset Management (Nordics), the Church of England (UK), ABP/APG and PGGM/PFZW (Netherlands), and Danish funds PKA and ATP, all of which publish policies—and in many cases lists—detailing companies excluded for human rights, environmental, or governance risks.

Together, these exclusions signal how market-based accountability is evolving—linking documented community risks and harms to financial decision-making and reputational risk in global capital markets.

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1. Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund—the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG)—is run by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the asset-management arm of Norway’s central bank. As of September 30, 2025, the fund’s market value was NOK 20,440 billion (~US$2.0 trillion). NBIM is responsible for day-to-day investing, stewardship, and for making final decisions on exclusions and observation placements under the fund’s ethical framework. Since January 1, 2015, these decisions have been taken by Norges Bank’s Executive Board (before 2015 they were made by the Ministry of Finance).

Independent of NBIM, the Council on Ethics (Etikkrådet) assesses companies against the Guidelines for Observation and Exclusion, and recommends exclusion, observation, or revocation. The guidelines set product-based criteria (e.g., certain weapons, tobacco/cannabis, coal power/thermal coal) and conduct-based criteria (e.g., severe environmental damage, serious human rights violations, gross corruption, other particularly serious breaches). The Council’s members are appointed by the Ministry of Finance (based on recommendations from Norges Bank) and include senior experts with academic, regulatory, and industry backgrounds; their recommendations and annual reports are published, and they maintain routines to reassess whether the basis for exclusion still exists. NBIM and the Council exchange information regularly, and companies can be placed under observation as an alternative to outright exclusion.

Importantly, in practice NBIM balances engagement versus exclusion—for example, choosing to engage with a company if there is credible prospect of corrective change, but moving to exclusion when the risk of serious harm remains unacceptably high and engagement is deemed insufficient.

1.1 Metals and mining companies blacklisted by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund

Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global excluded Freeport-McMoRan on June 6, 2006, after the Council on Ethics found an unacceptable risk that the company contributes to severe environmental damage at the Grasberg mine in Papua/West Papua, Indonesia—specifically riverine tailings disposal into a natural river system (Aikwa), with long-term ecological harm. The Ministry of Finance accepted the recommendation and announced the exclusion the same day; the NBIM exclusion list continues to show Freeport as excluded.

As of September 12, 2025, excluded Norway’s GPFG excluded the following metals & mining companies^[7]:

Freeport-McMoRan: Norway’s exclusion targets Freeport’s Grasberg complex (Papua/West Papua, Indonesia). The Council on Ethics found an unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage due to riverine tailings disposal (hundreds of thousands of tonnes/day) and acid rock drainage, with long-term harm to the Aikwa river system and weak mitigation/monitoring transparency. Freeport disputed the Council’s account but did not provide evidence that would alter the assessment. The Ministry accepted the recommendation and excluded Freeport on June 6, 2006.

Barrick Gold: Exclusion is tied to the Porgera mine (Papua New Guinea), where the Council on Ethics concluded there was an unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage from riverine tailings and associated downstream contamination and habitat impacts. After reviewing third-party technical analyses and Barrick’s submissions, the Council recommended exclusion; the Ministry announced the decision on January 30, 2009.

Norilsk Nickel (GMK Norilskiy Nickel): The Council documented extensive, long-term and ongoing pollution (notably SO₂ emissions and heavy-metal contamination) from smelting operations on the Taymyr Peninsula (Norilsk) and the Kola Peninsula, with material impacts on human health and the environment. It found an unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage and recommended exclusion; the Ministry acted in November 2009.

Vedanta/Sesa Sterlite: Norway’s exclusion covers a pattern across multiple Indian operations, including Sterlite Copper (Thoothukudi/Tuticorin), MALCO red-mud disposal, and Lanjigarh/Niyamgiri (risks to Dongria Kondh Adivasi rights). The Council first recommended excluding Vedanta Resources (and Sterlite/MALCO) in 2007 for severe environmental damage and serious human rights concerns; after Vedanta’s 2013 restructuring, it recommended excluding Sesa Sterlite (now Vedanta Ltd) on the same grounds, which the Ministry confirmed on January 30, 2014.

Note: For Vedanta / Sesa Sterlite, Norway’s exclusion is not tied to a single site but to a pattern of severe environmental damage and human rights violations across multiple Indian operations documented by the Council on Ethics:

2007 – Vedanta Resources plc (and subsidiaries Sterlite Industries and MALCO) excluded: The Council identified extensive problems at Sterlite Copper (Tuticorin/Thoothukudi) (hazardous-waste handling and groundwater contamination), high-risk red-mud management at MALCO, and serious risks around the Lanjigarh alumina refinery and the proposed Niyamgiri Hills bauxite mine (impacts on the Dongria Kondh Adivasi; forced evictions/abuse of tribal peoples). It concluded there was an “unacceptable risk” of both severe environmental damage and systematic human rights violations and recommended exclusion.

2013 recommendation and 2014 decision – Sesa Sterlite (now Vedanta Ltd): When Vedanta reorganised (merging Sterlite, MALCO and others into Sesa Sterlite), the Council said the same operations and risks persisted and recommended excluding the new listed entity; the Ministry followed this on Jan 30, 2014.

Volcan Compañía Minera: Focused on Cerro de Pasco (Peru), the Council found unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage, citing pervasive contamination and elevated blood-lead levels in children, and inadequate company measures despite years of exceedances. It recommended exclusion in 2012; the Ministry published the decision on October 14, 2013.

Zijin Mining Group: Based on a series of serious tailings dam failures in China (with fatalities and widespread contamination) and non-responsiveness to the Council’s inquiries, the Council concluded there was an unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage and recommended exclusion on June 18, 2012; the Ministry posted the decision on October 14, 2013.

Vale S.A.: The Council recommended exclusion after the Mariana (Samarco, 2015) and Brumadinho (2019) tailings-dam catastrophes, finding an unacceptable risk that Vale is responsible for severe environmental damage, noting systemic failings in tailings governance and risk management. NBIM’s Executive Board excluded Vale on May 13, 2020 (decision published May 13).

Young Poong: Norway’s exclusion targets Young Poong Corp’s Seokpo zinc smelter (South Korea). The Council on Ethics found an unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage based on long-term, ongoing heavy-metal pollution (cadmium, lead, arsenic, zinc, etc.) to air, soil, and the Nakdong River (a local drinking-water source), repeated regulatory violations and shutdown orders (incl. 2021), and even criminal convictions for manipulating emissions-monitoring data to mask exceedances. Young Poong did not engage with the Council’s inquiries. NBIM’s Executive Board adopted the exclusion on September 7, 2022, under the conduct criterion.

Eramet: Exclusion centers on the company’s JV stake in PT Weda Bay Nickel (Halmahera, Indonesia), where the Council cited severe environmental damage risks and serious human rights violations risk involving uncontacted Indigenous communities (Hongana Manyawa). NBIM excluded Eramet on September 12, 2025, following the Council’s recommendation a day earlier.

In addition, Norway’s GPFG also include coal-criterion as grounds for exclusions that affect diversified miners—e.g., Glencore, Anglo American, and others.

1.2 Current oil and gas exclusions (and fund rationale)

Canadian Natural Resources; Cenovus Energy; Imperial Oil; Suncor Energy — excluded May 13, 2020, for unacceptable greenhouse-gas emissions from oil-sands production (climate conduct criterion).

ONGC (Oil & Natural Gas Corporation) — excluded September 2, 2021, for serious violations of individuals’ rights in situations of war or conflict tied to Myanmar exposure.

PTT PCL; PTT Oil and Retail Business (PTTOR) — excluded December 15, 2022, for war/conflict criterion over Myanmar business ties.

GAIL (India) Ltd; Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) — excluded April 27, 2023, for war/conflict criterion over Myanmar JV/collaboration.

Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) — excluded May 11, 2025, for gross corruption (conduct criterion).

1.3 Why ExxonMobil and Chevron aren’t blacklisted

At first glance it’s surprising that ExxonMobil and Chevron—given their high-profile allegations and controversies in Aceh, Indonesia and Lago Agrio, Ecuador —are not excluded by Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG). Both remain active holdings that Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) engages with rather than excludes. One reason for this lies in how the fund applies its ethical “Guidelines for Observation and Exclusion”: they are forward-looking, triggered when there is an unacceptable risk of ongoing or future misconduct, not as a sanction for past, disputed, or no-longer-ongoing harms. How the rules apply to each case

ExxonMobil — Aceh (Indonesia): The lawsuit over alleged abuses (1999–2004) was settled in May 2023 without admission of liability. Given the guidelines’ forward-looking threshold and the historical nature of the allegations, the Council on Ethics/NBIM have not recommended exclusion; ExxonMobil remains in the portfolio under engagement.

Chevron — Lago Agrio (Ecuador): In 2018, an international investment-treaty tribunal found the Ecuadorian judgment should not be recognised or enforced. With the legal basis contested and the Guidelines’ emphasis on future risk, NBIM has not excluded Chevron and instead retains it as a holding.

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2. Swedish AP Funds (AP1–AP4)

Here’s the mining-related exclusion picture for Sweden’s National Pension Funds (AP1–AP4). The four funds act jointly via the Council on Ethics; each fund then adopts the Council’s recommendations.

Sweden’s First–Fourth National Pension Funds (AP1, AP2, AP3 and AP4) are state “buffer funds” for the public income-pension system, investing long-term to stabilize payouts when contributions fall short. As of December 31, 2024, the four funds together managed approximately US$185 billion.

The funds collaborate through a shared Council on Ethics (established 2007) that engages companies and can recommend exclusions for products or conduct judged to breach international conventions Sweden has signed or supports; each fund’s board then adopts the recommendation. The Council prioritizes engagement but will recommend exclusion if dialogue is unlikely to lead to improvement—typically after a maximum of around four years—or where a company knowingly contributes to violations. The live “Recommended exclusions” list is maintained by the Council.

2.1 Metals and mining companies blacklisted by Swedish AP Funds (AP1-AP4)

Freeport-McMoRan — Persistently defends and continues use of riverine tailings disposal in West Papua. After a multi-year dialogue on transparency, board expertise, and waste policy, the Council concluded Freeport would not rule out riverine tailings and that the risk of severe environmental harm remained. Exclusion was recommended and adopted on April 30, 2013.

Vale S.A. — Two catastrophic tailings-dam failures (Samarco 2015; Brumadinho 2019) led to loss of confidence in management. Following these disasters, the Council determined Vale failed to act proactively despite prior assurances about dam safety. Exclusion was recommended on February 11, 2019, for human rights and environmental reasons.

Zijin Mining — Porgera mine, Papua New Guinea: riverine tailings linked to severe environmental damage, with no credible policy change. As 47.5 percent owner of Porgera, Zijin was found responsible for disposal practices violating the Convention on Biological Diversity. Repeated engagement attempts failed, and exclusion was recommended in May 2016.

Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) — Ramu Nickel project, Papua New Guinea: deep-sea tailings placement and 2019 sludge leak caused serious ongoing harms; the company refused to engage. The Council cited poor waste handling, deep-sea tailings discharge, and inadequate monitoring. After years without cooperation, exclusion was recommended on August 22, 2023.

China Northern Rare Earth (Group) High-Tech — Added in 2023 for environmental-conduct reasons linked to rare-earth extraction and processing impacts. The company was included on the Council’s official exclusion list for environmental violations adopted by AP1–AP4 in 2023.

2.2 Current oil and gas exclusions (and fund rationale):

No oil and gas producers are excluded by AP1–AP4 based on the current “Recommended exclusions” list published by the AP Funds’ Council on Ethics.

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3. New Zealand Superannuation Fund

New Zealand’s Crown Financial Institutions (CFIs) are the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF), Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), the Government Superannuation Fund Authority (GSFA) and the National Provident Fund (NPF). Together they manage approximately US$81 billion: NZSF around US$48 billion (June 30, 2025), ACC’s investment fund around US$29 billion (June 30, 2025), GSFA US$3 billion (June 30, 2025), and NPF’s Global Asset Trust US$1 billion) (March 31, 2025).

The four funds follow the Crown Responsible Investment Framework (CRIF), collaborate, and each maintains its own Responsible Investment (RI) policy and publicly posted exclusion list reviewed on a set schedule with board oversight. While independent, the funds’ mining-conduct exclusions currently align on the same companies: Barrick, Freeport-McMoRan, and Zijin (note: ACC also applies a separate thermal-coal screen).

3.1 Metals and mining companies blacklisted by NZ Superannuation Fund

NZ Superannuation Fund (NZSF) Ethical Exclusions List has four mining names excluded on conduct grounds for poor ESG practice (as at August 2025):

Freeport-McMoRan (26 Sep 2012) for human rights breaches by security forces around the Grasberg mine and concerns over company payments to government security forces;

Zijin Mining Group (26 Sep 2012) for severe environmental breaches including toxic spills, emissions, and a fatal tailings-dam collapse; and

Barrick Gold plus its then-subsidiary African Barrick Gold/Acacia (13 May 2013) for persistent security, community and environmental problems at Porgera (PNG) and North Mara (Tanzania), including riverine tailings disposal—cases where NZSF judged engagement unlikely to be effective.

For mechanics and the current “as at” list (updated and republished on a regular cycle), see NZSF’s Exclusions page and related reporting^[8].

Excluded Countries for Sovereign Securities (June 2025)

Central African Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Russian Federation*, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen.

3.2 Current oil and gas exclusions (and fund rationale)

NZ Superannuation Fund (NZSF), NPF, GSFA — No specific oil and gas companies are on NZSF’s (nor NPF, GSFA’s) conduct-based exclusions list right now. However, NZSF does run a separate climate strategy that removed holdings in listed companies with fossil-fuel reserves (portfolio tilt/divestment), but those companies aren’t maintained as a named “conduct” exclusions list.

The ACC fund has two oil and gas names on their conduct-based exclusion list for Corporate Behavior (as at July 2025)^[9]. These both relate to involvement in, or links to, Myanmar:

GAIL (India) Ltd: Excluded due to involvement in Myanmar’s gas sector alongside Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), creating an unacceptable risk of contributing to serious human rights abuses by the military; similar concerns led Norway’s GPFG to exclude GAIL in 2023.

Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS): Excluded for links to Myanmar gas projects that benefit the military regime, giving rise to an unacceptable risk of complicity in human rights violations; Norway’s GPFG also excluded KOGAS in 2023 on the same basis.

Note: For climate-policy exclusions (e.g., tar sands/thermal-coal), ACC’s coal screen is explicit; NZSF implements a broader fossil-reserves portfolio removal via its climate strategy rather than naming individual oil and gas firms as conduct exclusions.

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4. KLP (Norway)

KLP (Kommunal Landspensjonskasse) is Norway’s largest pension/life insurer, a mutual company owned by Norwegian municipalities, county authorities and health enterprises. It runs public-sector occupational pensions and related asset management, banking and insurance services. As of its latest materials, KLP reports total assets of roughly NOK 765 billion (around US$90 – 100 billion) and publishes Responsible Investment and exclusion updates twice a year (June/December).

KLP (Norway) excluded Freeport-McMoRan in July 2006 for environmental reasons (riverine tailings at Grasberg) and continues to list the company as excluded.[10]

SECTION III – EXXONMOBIL IN ACEH, INDONESIA – US LITIGATION

Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll litigation – 2023^{^[11]}

Case win against ExxonMobil, Indonesia

Confidential settlement reached – May 2023

Following the Section II review above of sovereign wealth fund exclusions, the ExxonMobil in Aceh, Indonesia case reviewed here shows how alleged abuses connected to project-security arrangements can create litigation risk in a company’s home jurisdiction. Multinational resource firms increasingly face claims not only where alleged harms occurred but also in their home states, under statutes and doctrines that permit limited extraterritorial reach.

In ExxonMobil’s case, Indonesian villagers were allowed to proceed in a US court against a US parent company for alleged human rights violations by military units guarding its operations—overcoming years of jurisdictional challenges and culminating in a 2023 settlement on the eve of trial. The matter demonstrates how domestic courts can serve as fora for transnational tort claims when US corporate decisions are plausibly linked to harm abroad, and it provides a framework for evaluating comparable exposure for Freeport-McMoRan, BP, and others whose Indonesian projects have historically relied on state security forces.

In one of the longest-running human rights cases ever brought against a US corporation, eleven villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, sued ExxonMobil Corporation in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. They alleged that Indonesian soldiers assigned to guard ExxonMobil’s natural-gas facilities in the late 1990s and early 2000s committed severe abuses, including murder, torture, sexual assault, and arbitrary detention. The plaintiffs were represented by the US law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. The case relied on two main legal bases: the Alien Tort Statute (ATS)—a US law dating from 1789 that allows non-US citizens to sue in American courts for serious violations of international law—and ordinary common-law tort claims, such as wrongful death and battery.

Over two decades of appeals and procedural battles followed, with Exxon arguing that US courts lacked authority because the events occurred overseas. In August 2022, the presiding judge rejected many of Exxon’s arguments, describing them as “entirely meritless,” and allowed the key claims to proceed toward trial. Facing a jury trial scheduled for May 2023, ExxonMobil reached a confidential settlement with the Acehnese plaintiffs just days before proceedings were to begin.

Though the terms were undisclosed, the case demonstrated that a US company could be held to account in its home courts for alleged complicity in overseas human rights abuses when key decisions, contracts, or payments were made inside the United States. Even without a jury verdict, the settlement itself was a practical win for the plaintiffs. It showed that a major US corporation was willing to negotiate rather than face trial, and it signaled to other multinationals that reliance on military or police protection abroad can entail serious litigation risk at home. For legal practitioners and rights advocates, the case illustrated how to combine human rights statutes with traditional tort law, and how persistence over many years can eventually yield results. It also confirmed that US courts remain a potential venue for overseas human rights claims, though constrained by modern limits on the ATS and the principle of extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Implications for Freeport-McMoRan and BP in Indonesia

The ExxonMobil court outcome appears to have direct relevance for other extractive companies whose Indonesian operations have relied on military or police protection. For Freeport-McMoRan, which operates the vast Grasberg copper-gold mine in West Papua, and for BP, which runs the Tangguh gas project in Papua Barat, the case signals that US courts may still hear lawsuits where claimants can show a clear link between corporate actions taken inside the United States—such as authorizing security contracts, approving payments, or setting risk policies—and human rights violations abroad. Even though the Alien Tort Statute has been narrowed by later Supreme Court rulings, US corporations can still face liability under state-law tort theories if they “knew or should have known” that their decisions would foreseeably lead to harm. The Exxon case therefore stands as a warning that American parent companies cannot fully shield themselves from accountability for overseas abuses by pointing to local subsidiaries or foreign jurisdictions. It suggests that if similar evidence of corporate knowledge and US-based decision-making were uncovered, Freeport or BP could face comparable legal exposure.

Factual Hooks for US-Based Legal Exposure

A legally focused investigative assessment of the comparable legal exposure potentially faced by Freeport, BP, or similar multinational operators would center on whether alleged overseas misconduct can be connected to decisions made within the United States. Such an assessment would first establish the company’s US footprint—specifically, whether a US parent entity, headquarters, or senior decision-makers exercised relevant authority domestically. It would then examine whether the company retained or relied on military, police, or private security forces in Indonesia or West Papua to protect mining or oil-and-gas operations, and whether credible evidence documents serious abuses—killings, torture, sexual violence, or forced displacement—occurring in proximity to those sites. The inquiry would next consider corporate knowledge: whether the company knew, or reasonably should have known, of these risks yet continued the relationship or failed to take preventative action. Finally, it would evaluate proof of US-based approvals or actions—contracts, payments, training arrangements, oversight, or policy directives—linking domestic decision-making to the harms abroad. Establishing this evidentiary connection, or “US nexus,” is essential to overcoming the principle of extraterritoriality, which limits US courts from adjudicating conduct that occurs entirely outside their territorial jurisdiction.

* * * * *

[1] This section summarizes allegations drawn from the cited sources (academic, legal, media, NGO, and company materials). In some cases, companies deny responsibility, which varies by case and may involve state actors; inclusion does not constitute a finding of liability. Company statements and official outcomes are noted where available. This chapter was prepared with research assistance from ChatGPT (AI), reviewed and edited by the author, November 2025.

[2] ABColombia, ‘Digging Deeper: UN Special Rapporteur David Boyd’s video statement – El Cerrejón and the need for TNC Treaty’ <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffWTT9Q69g8> at 1:30.

[3] This section summarizes allegations drawn from the cited sources (academic, legal, media, NGO, and company materials). Responsibility varies by case and may involve state actors; inclusion does not constitute a finding of liability. Company statements and official outcomes are noted where available.

[4] ABColombia, ‘Digging Deeper: UN Special Rapporteur David Boyd’s video statement – El Cerrejón and the need for TNC Treaty’ <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffWTT9Q69g8> at 1:30.

[5] Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, March 18, 2025, “Recommendation to exclude Eramet SA from investment by the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG)” (letter to Norges Bank), Council on Ethics / Regjeringen.no.
https://files.nettsteder.regjeringen.no/wpuploads01/sites/275/2025/09/Eramet-ENG.pdf

[6] Norges Bank Investment Management, September 12, 2025, “Decision on exclusion” (Eramet SA).
https://www.nbim.no/en/news-and-insights/the-press/press-releases/2025/decision-on-exclusion/

[7] Norges Bank Investment Management — (accessed Nov 13, 2025). “Observation and exclusion of companies – Exclusion of Companies.” NBIM, https://www.nbim.no/en/responsible-investment/ethical-exclusions/exclusion-of-companies/

[8] https://nzsuperfund.nz/news-and-media/stakeholder-update-3/

[9] https://www.acc.co.nz/assets/corporate-documents/Investments/Direct-Exclusions-List-effective-9-July-2025.pdf

[10] https://www.klp.no/en/corporate-responsibility-and-responsible-investments/exclusion-and-dialogue/_/attachment/inline/c5f14e3c-8423-4797-857c-38ee22d649b9%3A424d8dca1ae596cf592fce9b32de2446cc1c913e/KLP-lista%20Q2%202024%20English.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[11] https://www.cohenmilstein.com/case-study/exxonmobil-aceh-indonesia/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Posted in Extractive industries, indigenous rights | Tagged ASIO, BHP, cinta larga, corruption, Eramet, FBI, FPIC, Freeport, Freeport McMoRan, Glencore, Goldcorp, Grasberg, human rights, indigenous rights, Petrobras, Rio, Steven Donziger, West Papua | Leave a comment

Attachment N – FBI Retaliation and Career Targeting

Posted on May 11, 2026 by mininganalystnow

Overview, Interrogation, and Workplace Interference

Introduction

This page presents a structured overview of Attachment N to the Wilson Dossier (submitted to the FBI/DOJ November 2025), which documents surveillance, workplace interference, and career disruption following John Wilson’s 1996 analyst report on Freeport-McMoRan and its human rights context in West Papua, Indonesia; and question about the same to CEO Jim Bob Moffett at a company boardroom Wall Street analyst briefing shortly after.

The material brings together summary analysis, key excerpts, and links to the full underlying documents. A complete PDF version of Attachment N is available below.

Overview: Workplace Intrusions and Career Targeting

Following publication of a March 1996 analyst report on Freeport-McMoRan, and a public question to the company’s chief executive, this section describes a sequence of events presented as the starting point of a sustained pattern of surveillance and interference affecting John Wilson’s career across multiple roles and jurisdictions.

Contents

Overview: Workplace Intrusions and Career Targeting
Café Fiorello Interrogation (2003)
Court Documents Testifying to Workplace Interference and Business Disruption

Key themes

Workplace destabilization following the Freeport report
Surveillance and entrapment attempts in New York
Monitoring and interference in job interviews and recruitment
Infiltration of workplace, social, and professional networks
Intrusions into personal communications and residence
Extension of activities into Australia with involvement of partner agencies
Disruption of Wilson’s later consulting business (RCR)
Use of psychological tactics described as “gaslighting”

Key individuals and entities

John Wilson
Susan Holmes (self-disclosed FBI operative)
Steve Garber (self-disclosed FBI operative)
S.G. Warburg (and SBC Warburg) – precursors to UBS Warburg
Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (DKB)
Multiplex – Richard Maish (formerly Warrama Consulting – Sydney), and others
Resource Capital Research (RCR) – Sydney – mining analyst Trent Allen, Fabian Babich, and others
ASIO / ASIS (Australia)
Kroll Associates, NYC – Matthew Levey

Download full Attachment N: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gfacazzah9qvhqhusr1uu/Attachment-N-FBI-Retaliation-and-Career-Targeting-of-John-Wilson.pdf?rlkey=qrp9xh7ul75dp7lamsehpockz&dl=0

Download full Wilson Dossier: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3bv8u5yh0z73blu5gd96d/Wilson-Dossier-Nov-2025-Attachments-A-R.pdf?rlkey=5dizgfj5987g28v6dyz98g0bv&dl=0

Overview: Workplace Intrusions and Career Targeting

In March 1996, John Wilson, then a Wall Street mining analyst, published a report on Freeport-McMoRan that raised questions about alleged human rights abuses in West Papua, Indonesia. Weeks later, after publicly questioning the company’s chief executive, he was threatened and his career trajectory shifted abruptly.

Attachment N documents what followed was not an isolated workplace dispute but the beginning of a sustained pattern of FBI surveillance, interference, and professional disruption extending across years, employers, and countries.

The material describes a progression from early workplace destabilization at S.G. Warburg to more complex forms of alleged interference: monitored job interviews, entrapment attempts, infiltration of professional networks, and intrusions into personal communications and living spaces. These patterns are said to continue through subsequent roles in New York and into Australia, where Wilson’s later consulting business was similarly affected.

A central claim is that these activities were coordinated and retaliatory, linked to Wilson’s Freeport-related work and intended to disrupt his career and deter further scrutiny of sensitive issues. The dossier further describes the use of psychological tactics — including staged incidents, cancel culture, and gaslighting — designed to destabilize and discredit.

Taken together, the material presents a chilling and detailed account of alleged workplace intrusion and long-term interference, supported by declarations, documentary excerpts, and reported admissions by individuals identified as FBI and other government operatives.

Attachment N-1 – Café Fiorello – Undercover FBI Interrogation (2003)

What the interrogation reveals

The undercover FBI interrogation at Café Fiorello, NYC in 2003, over what was billed as a friendly catch-up dinner, conducted by agent Susan Holmes is a key record in Attachment N.

It reveals the extent of surveillance, the linkage of my Freeport work to FBI retribution, and the mechanisms through which workplace and personal interference were carried out. FBI preparation for the interrogation was extensive, well resourced, and thorough – it included mapping a large number of my friends, former friends, adversaries and contacts over every decade of my life, across workplaces, educational institutions and elsewhere. The FBI sent Holmes from NYC to Australia in around 2002 to meet with select individuals, mainly adversaries, as part of the background research in preparation for the evening. It offers a window on what a weaponized FBI does.

Key Excerpts

1. Scope of surveillance: Undercover FBI operative Holmes demonstrated detailed knowledge of my personal and professional life, including private conversations, job interviews, and minor incidents spanning years — information that could only have been obtained through sustained surveillance.

2. Monitoring of phone calls: Undercover FBI operative Holmes revealed knowledge of multiple personal phone calls on my home phone around 1998–99, including their content and context.

3. Job interview interference: Undercover FBI operative Holmes knew details of specific job interviews, including stages of recruitment and interactions with interviewers, indicating monitoring and interference in employment opportunities.

4. Designed encounters: Undercover FBI operative Holmes described conversations and encounters that appeared to have been staged to influence my decisions and disrupt job prospects.

5. Workplace knowledge: Undercover FBI operative Holmes referenced internal workplace events at several firms where I worked fulltime or had summer jobs, including conversations, HR matters, and interactions concerning me in Australia, USA, UK and Chile.

6. Freeport as trigger: Undercover FBI operative Holmes explicitly linked FBI interest in me to my 1996 analyst report on Freeport-McMoRan and subsequent questioning of the company.

7. Long-term monitoring: The covert FBI interrogation revealed that surveillance extended across years, locations, and multiple employers, forming a continuous record of my life.

8. Infiltration of relationships: Undercover FBI operative Holmes referenced numerous individuals from my personal and professional network, suggesting infiltration or monitoring of those relationships.

9. Use of personal information: Questions posed during the interrogation appeared designed to extract further intelligence, test my reactions, and identify additional targets within my network, fuel cancel culture, and seed an extensive gaslighting campaign.

10. Signaling of power: The breadth of knowledge demonstrated during the interview conveyed that my activities had been extensively monitored, reinforcing a message of both domestic and international institutional reach and control.

11. Coordination across contexts: Undercover FBI operative Holmes moved seamlessly between topics spanning Wall Street, personal life, and events in Australia, indicating coordinated intelligence gathering across jurisdictions.

12. Confirmation of targeting: The interrogation confirmed that earlier incidents—surveillance, job interference, and staged encounters—were not isolated, but part of a broader, sustained and coordinated effort.

Attachment N-2 – Workplace Interference and Business Disruption

Key Incidents and Patterns of interference

The incidents described in Attachment N-2 form a consistent pattern of surveillance, workplace disruption, and psychological pressure extending across multiple employers, roles, and jurisdictions. Many of these were raised by undercover FBI operative Susan Holmes at the Café Fiorello shakedown in 2003 (described above). They are also available in sworn statements used as evidence in court.

1. Warburg job destabilization: Following publication of the Freeport report, my position at S.G. Warburg (and subsequently SBC Warburg) deteriorated rapidly, with job support removed, reapplication required, and position replacement.

2. Workplace entrapment attempt: An incident involving access to my work files raised concerns of a potential setup designed to frame possession of my research as misconduct.

3. Surveillance in New York: I was subject to overt and covert surveillance, including targeted photography and monitoring of daily routines.

4. Entrapment operations: Attempts included approaches by an undercover drug dealer and other scenarios that, if acted on, could have resulted in criminal charges and career damage.

5. Workplace infiltration: Colleagues, clients, and social contacts were used to influence my behavior, relationships, and professional standing.

6. Apartment intrusions: Unexplained entries into my residence in NYC involved the removal of specific items, movement of objects, and deliberate signs of presence.

7. Communications interference: Phone messages were deleted or altered, suggesting tampering with personal communications systems.

8. Monitoring of employment process: Headhunters, interviews, and outplacement services were reportedly monitored or influenced, affecting job outcomes.

9. Multiplex workplace surveillance: In Sydney, my work environment was subject to detailed monitoring, infiltration, and manipulation with knowledge of internal conversations, colleagues, and office events.

10. Service provider disruption (RCR): Key business functions of my subsequent equity research consulting business (RCR) in Sydney—legal, IT, marketing, printing, and research—were disrupted through compromised providers.

11. Analyst infiltration: Job applicants and contractors for RCR, in cases were ASIO/ASIS Australian intelligence operatives or compromised individuals who disrupted operations or leaked information.

12. International coordination: Activities in Australia were attributed to coordination between US and Australian intelligence agencies, extending the campaign beyond the United States.

13. Psychological operations (gaslighting): Repeated use of staged or symbolic incidents aimed to unsettle me and undermine credibility.

14. Sustained career impact: The cumulative effect of these actions was long-term disruption to employment, business development, and professional reputation.

Summary Timeline of Key Events

1996 – Freeport report and boardroom threat
1996–97 – Warburg job destabilization
1997–98 – DKB surveillance and entrapment attempts
1999–2000 – Multiplex interference (Sydney)
2003 – Café Fiorello interrogation
2004 – Garber confirmation
2005+ – RCR business disruption

Download full Attachment N: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gfacazzah9qvhqhusr1uu/Attachment-N-FBI-Retaliation-and-Career-Targeting-of-John-Wilson.pdf?rlkey=qrp9xh7ul75dp7lamsehpockz&dl=0

Download full Wilson Dossier: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3bv8u5yh0z73blu5gd96d/Wilson-Dossier-Nov-2025-Attachments-A-R.pdf?rlkey=5dizgfj5987g28v6dyz98g0bv&dl=0

Posted in ASIO, ASIS, Freeport McMoRan, Grasberg, human rights, indigenous rights, Indonesia, intelligence agency, Kroll, Matthew Levey, mining, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes, UNDRIP, West Papua | Tagged Fabian Babich, Matthew Levey, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes, Trent Allen | Leave a comment

Wilson FBI Complaint Dossier – November 2025

Posted on April 20, 2026 by mininganalystnow

Wilson Dossier: supplemental details to FBI complaint

Introduction

The Wilson Dossier is an evidentiary archive assembling background narratives, sworn declarations, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation materials, oversight correspondence, and selected public-interest records relating to allegations of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) surveillance, retaliation, and record suppression raised by John Wilson. It serves as a public-facing guide to the underlying record and to the full attached dossier.

The dossier is organized as a documentary archive rather than a conventional article. It includes materials concerning Wilson’s 1996 analyst report on Freeport-McMoRan, later declarations and legal summaries, public disclosures, official admissions, classifications of FBI-linked operatives, records concerning dissident targeting methods, and correspondence with oversight bodies. Supporting appendices and exhibits are integrated throughout.

A slightly edited version of this dossier was submitted to the FBI in November 2025 in connection with Wilson’s complaint and related oversight referral. A separate section below records that submission and the acknowledgement received. Readers may either download the full PDF dossier or browse the material by section using the menu below.

1a) Download the full dossier here: Wilson Dossier – Nov 2025

Use the menu below to browse the dossier by section, or open the full PDF version.

1) Wilson Dossier – Introduction; Download Full Dossier PDF
2) Submission and FBI Receipt Confirmation; Download FBI Correspondence

Wilson Dossier Attachments:

3) A–D: Origins, Book, and Public Record
4) E–J: Declarations, Claims, and Confirmations
5) K–O / OO: Targeting Methods and Gaslighting
6) P–R: Oversight, Cancel Culture, and Profiling Resilience

2) Dossier Submission and FBI Receipt Confirmation

Overview

In November 2025, a slightly edited version of the Wilson Dossier was submitted to the FBI in connection with Wilson’s complaint and related oversight referral. This section records that submission and places the acknowledgement of receipt alongside the dossier materials for transparency and reference.

The submission sits within the broader framework described in the dossier itself: a documentary compilation of narratives, declarations, FOIA materials, oversight communications, and supporting exhibits assembled to support public interest in disclosure and accountability.

The acknowledgement below confirms receipt of the November 20, 2025 submission and its forwarding to the FBI’s Inspection Division:

“Dear Mr. Wilson,
This confirms receipt of your email dated November 20, 2025. We have forwarded it to the FBI’s Inspection Division along with the supplemental documents you provided. Thank you.”

[Received 22 November 2025 from the FBI]

2a) Download submission and confirmation correspondence: FBI receipt confirmation

3) Attachments A–D: Origins, Book, and Public Record

Overview

This section contains the dossier’s foundational material. It begins with the March 12, 1996 analyst report on Freeport-McMoRan and the subsequent question put to the company’s chief executive officer, which is the triggering context for later FBI surveillance and retaliation. It then moves to the published book The Untold Story of the FBI, the February 2025 cover letter sent with that book to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the broader public and institutional record surrounding Freeport and the treatment of its critics.

Together, these materials establish the dossier’s opening framework: the original speech activity, the published account of the events, formal notice to government officials, and the wider public-interest context.

Subheading list

Attachment A: 1996 Analyst Report and Question to CEO
Attachment B: Wilson book, Archives of a Wall Street Analyst, Volume 1: The Untold Story of the FBI
Attachment C: Cover Letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi
Attachment D: Public Disclosure and Institutional Responses to Freeport

4) Attachments E–J: Declarations, Claims, and Confirmations

Overview

This section brings together the core declaration and claims material, along with the discussion of official admissions, classifications, fabricated links, and direct or indirect confirmations of FBI retaliation against Wilson. It includes excerpts from my declarations, a summary of claims drawn from the July 11, 2023 attorney Sorenson letter to Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) John Moustakas, the attachment on DOJ official admissions of FBI operatives, the classification of FBI-linked individuals used by the DOJ to obscure operatives status under the direction of the FBI, the fabricated link to Dave Foreman, and the attachment on direct and indirect confirmations of retaliation linked to Freeport-McMoRan.

This cluster functions as the documentary middle spine of the dossier. It moves from sworn and summarized claims to the question of corroboration: who was identified, how they were classified, what official acknowledgements exist, and how the record connects FBI retaliatory conduct back to the original Freeport-related speech and reporting.

Subheading list

Attachment E: Wilson sworn declaration excerpts
Attachment F: Summary of claims
Attachment G: DOJ official admissions targeting Wilson
Attachment H: Classification of FBI-linked operatives
Attachment I: Fabricated link to Dave Foreman
Attachment J: Direct and indirect confirmations of FBI retaliation

5) Attachments K–O / OO: Targeting Methods and Gaslighting

Overview

This section turns from background and confirmation to FBI methods. It covers targeting outside ordinary law-enforcement and security mandates, the targeting of Wilson’s personal long-term relationship with (environmentalist and undercover FBI operative) Susan Holmes – that predated the onset of FBI retaliation, retaliation against US critics of Freeport, alleged career targeting, the technical note on gaslighting and cancel culture, and the attachment on gaslighting tactics directed at Wilson.

These materials are some of the most detailed and descriptive in the dossier. They examine the forms that retaliation has taken: interrogation, relationship targeting, workplace and career interference, patterns affecting other critics, and the conceptual framework through which gaslighting and cancel-culture tactics are described and more broadly experienced. The separate Attachment OO works well online as a lead-in or explanatory note before Attachment O.

Subheading list

Attachment K: Targeting outside law-enforcement/security mandates
Attachment L: Targeting of personal relationship with Susan Holmes
Attachment M: Retaliation against US critics of Freeport
Attachment N: Career targeting
Attachment OO: Technical note on gaslighting and cancel culture
Attachment O: Gaslighting tactics directed at Wilson

6) Attachments P–R: Oversight, Cancel Culture, and Profiling Resilience

Overview

This final section gathers the materials dealing with oversight communications, identity targeting, and FBI resilience profiling. It includes the correspondence and oversight communications log, the attachment on identity targeting and cancel culture, and the final attachment on resilience profiling.

This is the closing section of the dossier. It shifts from the question of what happened to the question of how it was pursued, recorded, resisted, and interpreted over time: complaints to agencies and congressional offices, records of official contact, the identity-based dimension of FBI targeting, and the concluding treatment of profiling and retaliation, and endurance.

Subheading list

Attachment P: Correspondence and oversight communications log – DOJ, etc
Attachment Q: Identity targeting and cancel culture
Attachment R: Resilience profiling

7) Download Full PDF

Overview

This page provides access to the full PDF version of the Wilson Dossier as a single consolidated document. The PDF preserves the full attachment-and-appendix structure, including the title page, attachment list, contents table, and the complete documentary sequence from Attachment A through Attachment R, with Attachment OO included as a separate technical note.

Readers who want the complete document in its original compiled form should use the PDF. Readers who prefer a more navigable web format can browse the section pages through the site menu.

Download the full dossier here: Wilson Dossier – Nov 2025

Posted in ASIS, corruption, dissident, FBI, Freeport McMoRan, Garber, Holmes, human rights, indigenous rights, Kissinger, Kroll, Matthew Levey, mining, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes, Wilson | Tagged Cancel culture, corruption, Dave Foreman, entrapment, FBI, FBI retribution, gaslighting, public interest disclosure, undercover FBI agent | Leave a comment

The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst: DOJ Volume 1

Posted on July 20, 2025 by mininganalystnow

[Book excerpt below: Front material pages 1- 60]

Archives of a Wall Street Analyst

The Untold Story of the FBI

DOJ
Volume 1

John Wilson
August 2024

Resource Capital Research
Sydney
Copyright © 2024 John Wilson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner,
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The author has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

To request permissions, contact the publisher at info@rcresearch.com.au

Title: The Untold Story of the FBI, Archives of a Wall Street Analyst, DOJ Volume 1
Hardcover: ISBN 978-1-7635214-1-4
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-7635214-0-7
e-book: ISBN 978-1-7635214-2-1
Subjects: Freeport Indonesia, Inc
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc
West Papua, Indonesia
Grasberg mine
Department of Justice – United States
National security – United States
National security – Australia
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Australian Security intelligence Organisation
Australian Secret Intelligence Service
Political
Memoir

First hardcover edition August 2024.

Resource Capital Research
Level 21, 68 Pitt Street,
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

GPO Box 5030
Greenwich NSW 2065
Australia

rcresearch.com.au

“They went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the – and judicial. But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of – heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House – their own people. They went after antiwar groups. They went after U.S. international – U.S. companies that that do international business, you know, business around the world. They went after U.S. banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after NGOs that – like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few antiwar civil rights groups. So, you know, don’t tell me that there’s no abuse, because I’ve had this stuff in my hand and looked at it. And in some cases, I literally was involved in the technology that was going after this stuff.”
(NSA whistleblower Russell Tice)

Contents

FOIA Attorney Pete Sorenson Comment 7
Preface 8
Introduction 9
Backstory 9
Who runs America? 25
West Papua, Indonesia 35
Conclusion 40
Archive Overview 45
Appendix 62
Section I Department of Justice and the FBI 64
I-1a FBI conduct not in “good faith” 66
I-1b Background PI report: FBI operative Dr. Steve Garber 78
Section II Letter to AUSA Mr. John Moustakas – 2023 84
II-1a Letter from Pete Sorenson to AUSA Mr. John Moustakas: 87
I. Background on the Matter 88
II. FBI/DOJ Acting in “Bad Faith” 89
III. FBI/DOJ Misapplication of FOIA Exemptions 91
IV. Assistance with Locating Responsive Records 91
A. Documents Not Searched 92
1) Susan Holmes, or Susan Acker[son] Holmes 92
2) Dr Steven Garber, or Steve Garber 92
3) Wilson and people operating on behalf of the FBI or other DOJ elements 92
4) Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold Inc 92
5) S.G. Warburg and SBC Warburg – Wilson’s work related to Freeport McMoran 92
6) All records of encounters and discussions between John Wilson and Susan Holmes 93
7) Susan Holmes: NYC, June 1999 disclosure of existence of Wilson FBI file 94
8) Susan Holmes – FBI work visit to Australia for background on Wilson – C.2002 94
9) Susan Holmes – NYC, Café Fiorello covert interview (2003) 95
10) Susan Holmes: introduction 98
11) Susan Holmes: NYC, Café Fiorello (cont.): Gaslighting – psychological attack. 100
12) FBI knowledge of photographs of Wilson NYC, C1996-97 102
13) Solicitation of Wilson by an undercover drug dealer, NYC, C.1996-97 104
14) Steve Garber – New York records: C.1996-1998 105
15) Steve Garber – Prescott, AZ records: 1999 106
16) Steve Garber – vicinity of Central Park and Upper West Side, NYC: C.June 2004 108
17) Steve Garber – vicinity of Union Square, NYC: C.Sept 2004 109
18) Colorado rafting trip 1997 109
19) Dave Foreman – New York records 109
20) Dave Foreman – Colorado, Utah, Arizona records 110
B. Documents Withheld Entirely 111
C. Documents Redacted Inappropriately 111
II-2a Email exchange: AUSA Mr. John Moustakas: 114
Section III Declarations of John Wilson 120
III-1a John Wilson’s second Declaration: 30 August 2022 123
III-2a John Wilson’s first Declaration: 16 November 2021 200
Section IV General Correspondence 296
IV-1 Correspondence 2004 to 2010/11 298
FBI/DOJ 299
Senator Charles Schumer 314
Congressman Jerrold Nadler 340
House Judiciary Committee (HJC) 358
United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) 365
Other 371
IV-2 Correspondence 2010 to 2014 373
House Judiciary Committee (HJC) 374
Other 375
IV-3 Correspondence 2015 to 2019 377
FBI/DOJ 378
Senator Charles Schumer 397
IV-4 Correspondence 2020 to 2023 422
FBI/DOJ 423
Senator Charles Schumer 429
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand 434
Congressman Jerrold Nadler 437
Section V FBI – Freedom of Information (FOIA) 440
V-1 FOIA requests, appeals and OGIS mediation: 2004 to 2005 442
V-2 FOIA requests, appeals and OGIS mediation: 2013 to 2014 451
V-3 FOIA requests, appeals and OGIS mediation: 2019 to 2020 564
V-4 FOIA requests, appeals and OGIS mediation: 2021 to 2023 577
Section VI FBI – FOIA Judicial Review 632
VI-1 First FBI – FOIA Judicial Review – BLHNY: 8 December 2020 634
Complaint 635
Judge’s Report and Recommendation 641
VI-2 Second FBI – FOIA Judicial Review – Sorenson: 8 October 2022 657
Complaint 658
Summary Declaration of John Wilson 666
Expert Witness Report: 25-year veteran of the FBI—Jennifer Coffindaffer 681
INDEX 695

Table of Exhibits

Section I – Department of Justice and the FBI
Exhibit 1: April 2021. BLHNY—private investigator’s report on FBI operative Steve Garber. 78
Exhibit 2: 8 April 2024. Email from DOJ to attorney Pete Sorenson – re FBI redaction policy. 80

Section II – Correspondence with AUSA Mr. John Moustakas – 2023
Exhibit 3: 11 July 2023. Letter from Attorney Pete Sorenson to AUSA Moustakas outlining FBI abuse. 87
Exhibit 4: August 2023. DOJ, AUSA Moustakas: “Is this the mining expert? Or it that L______?” 114

Section III – Declarations of John Wilson
Exhibit 5: 30 August 2022. Second notarized Declaration of John Wilson. 123
Exhibit 6: 16 November 2021. First notarized Declaration of John Wilson. 200

Section IV – General Correspondence
Exhibit 7: 17 January 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to DOJ, OIG 299
Exhibit 8: 16 April 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to DOJ/OIG 300
Exhibit 9: 16 August 2005. Email from John Wilson to DOJ, Marvin Hernandez 301
Exhibit 10: 27 August 2005. Email from Barry Fisher to John Wilson re DOJ, Hernadez. 302
Exhibit 11: 10 February 2006. Letter from DOJ to Attorney Barry Fisher. 302
Exhibit 12: 22 February 2006. Email from John Wilson to Barry Fisher re DOJ, Hernandez. 303
Exhibit 13: 22 February 2006. Email from Barry Fisher to John Wilson to re DOJ, Hernandez. 304
Exhibit 14: 22 February 2006. Email from John Wilson to Barry Fisher re DOJ, Hernandez – confirms “they are agents”. 305
Exhibit 15: 22 February 2006. Email from John Wilson to DOJ, Marvin Hernandez – FBI denies agents are “employees”, but does not deny they are “contractors”. 305
Exhibit 16: 8 March 2006. Email from DOJ, Marvin Hernandez to John Wilson. 306
Exhibit 17: 8 March 2006. Email from John Wilson to DOJ, Marvin Hernandez. 306
Exhibit 18: 11 May 2006. Email from DOJ, Marvin Hernandez to John Wilson – FBI confirms one agent is an “employee”. 307
Exhibit 19: 11 May 2006. Email from John Wilson to Barry Fisher re DOJ, Hernandez – DOJ backtracking on agent admission. 308
Exhibit 20: 19 May 2006. Email from John Wilson to DOJ, Marvin Hernandez. 308
Exhibit 21: 14 June 2006. Email from John Wilson to DOJ, Marvin Hernandez. 309
Exhibit 22: 23 August 2006. Letter from John Wilson via Barry Fisher to DOJ, OIG. 309
Exhibit 23: 19 September 2007. Email from John Wilson to Attorney Barry Fisher re ABC reporter. 311
Exhibit 24: 7 December 2006. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to DOJ, OIG. 312
Exhibit 25: 22 April 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 314
Exhibit 26: 25 May 2006. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 316
Exhibit 27: 9 June 2006. Email from Barry Fisher to John Wilson. 318
Exhibit 28: 13 June 2006. Letter from Senator Schumer to DOJ. 319
Exhibit 29: 20 June 2006. Email from Barry Fisher to John Wilson. 320
Exhibit 30: 9 August 2006. Letter from the DOJ, OIG to Senator Schumer. 320
Exhibit 31: 15 August 2006. Email from Barry Fisher to John Wilson 321
Exhibit 32: 23 August 2006. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 321
Exhibit 33: 1 January 2007. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 326
Exhibit 34: 20 February 2007. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 327
Exhibit 35: 3 April 2007. Letter from Senator Schumer to DOJ. 328
Exhibit 36: 7 May 2007. Letter from the DOJ to Senator Schumer. 329
Exhibit 37: 7 June 2007. Letter from Senator Schumer to DOJ. 330
Exhibit 38: 7 June 2007. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 331
Exhibit 39: 9 August 2007. Letter from the DOJ to Senator Schumer. 333
Exhibit 40: 6 September 2007. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 334
Exhibit 41: 27 February 2008. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 336
Exhibit 42: 12 June 2008. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Schumer. 339
Exhibit 43: 12 June 2007. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Congressman Nadler. 340
Exhibit 44: 19 September 2007. Email from John Wilson to Congressman Jerrold Nadler. 341
Exhibit 45: 2 September 2009. Letter from John Wilson via Barry Fisher to Rep. Jerrold Nadler. 343
Exhibit 46: 2009-2011. Email trail between John Wilson and Rep. Nadler’s staffers. 344
Exhibit 47: 17 January 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Rep. Conyers, HJC. 358
Exhibit 48: 16 April 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Barry Fisher to Rep. Conyers, HJC. 360
Exhibit 49: 26 July 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to HJC. 361
Exhibit 50: 14 September 2005. Email from office of Rep. Scott, ranking member of the HJC to Wilson. 363
Exhibit 51: 28 September 2005. Email from John Wilson to Mindy Barry, staffer, HJC. 364
Exhibit 52: 14 April 2007. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to UNHRC. 365
Exhibit 53: 24 April 2007. Letter from UNHRC to John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher. 367
Exhibit 54: 24 August 2007. Letter from UNHRC to John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher. 369
Exhibit 55: 2 May 2005. Letter from John Wilson via Attorney Barry Fisher to Senator Clinton. 371
Exhibit 56: 15 September 2010. Letter from John Wilson via Barry Fisher to HJC. 374
Exhibit 57: 25 February 2013. Email from John Wilson to United Steelworkers. 375
Exhibit 58: 27 February 2013. Email from United Steelworkers to John Wilson. 376
Exhibit 59: 9 March 2015. Letter from John Wilson to DOJ, Office of the Inspector General. 378
Exhibit 60: 9 March 2015. Fax from John Wilson to DOJ, Office of the Inspector General. 380
Exhibit 61: 2 October 2015. Email from John Wilson to Attorney Barry Fisher re DOJ/FBI. 381
Exhibit 62: 8 February 2016. Fax from Attorney Barry Fisher to DOJ/FBI. 382
Exhibit 63: 9 February 2016. Letter from DOJ, FBI to John Wilson. 392
Exhibit 64: 23 February 2016. Letter from John Wilson to DOJ, FBI. 393
Exhibit 65: 25 May 2016. Letter from DOJ, OIG to John Wilson’s Attorney Barry Fisher. 395
Exhibit 66: 24 June 2016. Letter from Attorney Barry Fisher to the US Attorney General, DOJ and FBI. 396
Exhibit 67: 14 March 2016. Online Casework Request from John Wilson to Senator Schumer. 397
Exhibit 68: 9 February 2017. Online and faxed Casework Request from John Wilson to Sen. Schumer. 400
Exhibit 69: 15 March 2017. Letter from John Wilson to Senator Schumer re Casework Request. 410
Exhibit 70: 2017-2021. Email trail: John Wilson, Attorney Barry Fisher and Senator Schumer. 412
Exhibit 71: 1 March 2019. Emails: John Wilson and Senator Schumer’s office re OGIS. 419
Exhibit 72: 5 June 2020. Letter from Attorney Barry Fisher to FBI, Director Wray. 423
Exhibit 73: 26 June 2020. Letter from FBI to Attorney Barry Fisher. 426
Exhibit 74: 18 March 2022. Letter from John Wilson to US Attorney General Garland. 427
Exhibit 75: 2021-2022. Various emails between John Wilson, attorneys and Senator Schumer. 429
Exhibit 76: 25 May 2022. Online Caseworker Request from John Wilson to Senator Gillibrand. 434
Exhibit 77: 2022. Various emails from John Wilson to Senator Gillibrand. 436
Exhibit 78: 26 May 2022. Copy of online Casework Request from John Wilson to Jerrold Nadler. 437
Exhibit 79: 26 May 2022. Automated email response from Congressman Nadler to John Wilson. 438

Section V – FBI – Freedom of Information Requests (FOIA)
Exhibit 80: 12 October 2004. FOIA letter from Attorney Rachel Minter to FBI. 444
Exhibit 81: 25 October 2004. FOIA letter from FBI to Attorney Rachel Minter. 445
Exhibit 82: 19 December 2004. FOIA appeal letter from John Wilson to FBI, cc Barry Fisher. 446
Exhibit 83: 30 December 2004. FOIA appeal letter from FBI to John Wilson. 448
Exhibit 84: 16 April 2005. FOIA appeal letter from FBI to John Wilson. 449
Exhibit 85: 6 September 2005. FOIA appeal letter from FBI to John Wilson. 450
Exhibit 86: 14 June 2013. FOIA letter from John Wilson to FBI. 453
Exhibit 87: Jul-Nov 2013. Emails between Wilson, FBI – Sobonya; and FOIA Attorney David Sobel. 454
Exhibit 88: 20 November 2013. Letter from FBI to John Wilson (received circa December 2013). 460
Exhibit 89: 23 December 2013. Appeal letter from John Wilson FOIA Attorney David Sobel to FBI. 462
Exhibit 90: 25 February 2014. Appeal letter from FBI to Attorney David Sobel. 466
Exhibit 91: 14 June 2013. FOIA letter from John Wilson to FBI. 469
Exhibit 92: 29 January 2014. FOIA letter from FBI to John Wilson. 470
Exhibit 93: 20-25 March 2014. Emails between John Wilson and Attorney David Sobel. 474
Exhibit 94: 26 March 2014. FOIA Request email from John Wilson to FBI. 475
Exhibit 95: 6 May 2014. Letter assigning FOIA No. from FBI to John Wilson. 483
Exhibit 96: 25 September 2014. Letter and disc of released documents from FBI to John Wilson. 494
Exhibit 97: 25 September 2014. Disc contents – released documents from FBI to John Wilson. 499
Exhibit 98: 6 November 2014. FOIA Request Appeal letter from John Wilson to FBI. 510
Exhibit 99: 6 November 2014. FOIA Appeal letter from FBI to John Wilson. 513
Exhibit 100: 23 February 2015. FOIA Appeal decision letter from FBI to John Wilson. 514
Exhibit 101: May 2017 – Nov 2018. Emails between Wilson, Barry Fisher and OGIS – 2017-2019. 516
Exhibit 102: 8 June 2017. Email from OGIS to John Wilson: Assigned case no. 201703007. 523
Exhibit 103: 16 August 2017. Email from OGIS to John Wilson: Assigned case no. 201703993. 528
Exhibit 104: 2 November 2017. Email from OGIS to John Wilson: Apology from OGIS for delays and confusion – Case no. “sent in error”. 532
Exhibit 105: 18 December 2018. OGIS mediation FOIA Appeal decision letter to John Wilson re case no. 201703007. 543
Exhibit 106: 12 April 2019. Email letter from OGIS to John Wilson: Closing case no. 201703007. 548
Exhibit 107: 23 October 2019. Website FOIA Request from John Wilson to FBI. 566
Exhibit 108: 29 October 2019. FOIA Response from FBI to John Wilson. 568
Exhibit 109: 18 February 2020. FOIA Request Appeal from John Wilson to FBI. 572
Exhibit 110: 21 February 2020. FOIA Appeal confirmation letter to John Wilson from FBI, OIP. 573
Exhibit 111: 21 March 2020. FOIA Appeal decision review letter to John Wilson from FBI, OIP. 575
Exhibit 112: 20 May 2022. FOIA Request from Attorney Pete Sorenson for John Wilson to the FBI. 579
Exhibit 113: 13 June 2022. FOIA response from the FBI to Pete Sorenson re John Wilson. 587
Exhibit 114: 1 September 2022. FOIA Administrative Appeal to the OIP, DOJ from Pete Sorenson. 591
Exhibit 115: 1 September 2022. FOIA Admin. Appeal receipt from the OIP, DOJ to Pete Sorenson. 599
Exhibit 116: 28 April 2023. FOIA “litigation release” letter and disc sent to Attorney Pete Sorenson. 600
Exhibit 117: 28 April 2023. Disc contents – released documents from FBI to John Wilson. 604

Section VI – FBI – FOIA Judicial Review
Exhibit 118: 8 December 2020. Complaint: First FOIA litigation filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York by Attorney David Rankin. 636
Exhibit 119: 16 February 2022. Report and Recommendation. 641
Exhibit 120: 8 October 2022. Complaint: Second FOIA litigation filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by Attorney Pete Sorenson. 659
Exhibit 121: 17 March 2014. Summary Declaration of John Wilson 666
Exhibit 122: 17 March 2024. Independent Expert’s Report: Jennifer Coffindaffer – a 25 year veteran of the FBI. 681

Glossary
USA
AUSA Assistant United States Attorney – US Department of Justice, attorneys who represent the federal government of the United States in civil and appellate litigation and in federal criminal prosecutions.
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
DOJ Department of Justice
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
FOIA Freedom of Information Act
NSA National Security Agency
OGIS The Office of Government Information Services – an FOIA mediation resource
OIG Office of the Inspector General – responsible for conducting internal investigations of DOJ employees and programs, including allegations of criminal wrongdoing or administrative misconduct by DOJ employees.
OPIC Overseas Private Investment Corporation

Australia
ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
ASIS Australian Secret Intelligence Service
IGIS Inspector General of Intelligence and Security

FOIA Attorney Pete Sorenson Comment

It’s been my extreme pleasure and honor to represent John Wilson on two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) cases. Both cases are still pending in the District Court in Washington, DC. One case involves the FBI’s hoarding and refusing to release records. The other involves the US State Department dragging its feet on a simple request for records of its investigation of US mining company Freeport-McMoRan. In the latter case, John is aware of and requested the interim and final reports by the State Department undertaken around 1996 following its investigation into the company which was launched after eyewitness allegations the company was involved with the killing of Indigenous protestors and other human rights abuses in the vicinity of its large Grasberg copper and gold mine in West Papua, Indonesia in the mid-1990s. John has pursued these cases, under FOIA, in an effort to exercise his rights to access justice in the USA in a struggle against these large and corrupt state bureaucracies that protect vested interests. He’s also pursuing these cases to uncover the truth about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the State Department’s complicity in unwarranted persecution of US citizens at home and foreign nationals in far flung places like West Papua, Indonesia.

C. Peter Sorenson, Senior Attorney, Sorenson Law LLC

Preface

The documents in this archive tell the story of the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) corruption and evasion of accountability when targeting civil society “dissidents”. It also tells of my efforts to hold the FBI and DOJ to account.

The official documents and correspondence appended in the archive paint the picture of the corrupt means by which these agencies crush and silence civil society in support of America’s corporate behemoths. Their tactics are Orwellian and Kafkaesque. For the most part, my efforts from 2004 to the publication of this work in 2024, and those of my attorneys over the past twenty years, have been thwarted, compromised by hollowed out oversight agencies and regulators.

Intended as a historical record of official documents, appended are my notarized Declarations and court documents that include evidence of FBI malfeasance, oppressive surveillance, wiretaps, gaslighting and cancel culture. These Declarations contain detailed accounts of events, and disclosure of FBI methods targeting “dissidents”. Agents are named, dates and locations provided, and details of events discussed. The archive comprises correspondence either directly by me, or my attorneys, with various FBI/DOJ departments, elected representatives including Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and Freedom of Information requests (FOIA).

This preface provides backstory of the events that have occurred since my Wall Street analyst report came out in 1996 critical of US mining company Freeport-McMoRan’s activities in West Papua, Indonesia. It sheds light on the travesty occurring in resource rich West Papua, Indonesia, backed by the US, where New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed Freeport-McMoRan has interests in the massive Grasberg copper and gold mine. The preface also contains background on the US surveillance state. It provides context for the complaint letters, included in the appended archive, I have sent over the years to the FBI and DOJ, among others, and outlines FBI retribution against me. Key points and timelines are provided in this volume, however, it is not intended as a narrative that offers a complete account of events. A narrative will be included in volume two.

At least seven other people in the USA were targeted for their criticism of Freeport-McMoRan around this time, including journalists and academics. Our intelligence agencies frequently covertly target professionals, those who speak out, or protest, against establishment interests, typically on business and human rights issues. As one agent, Steve Garber said to me, most people in America don’t even realize they’ve been targeted.

This is part one of a four-part archive series. Volume one covers the DOJ, which is responsible for the FBI. As mentioned above, it comprises notes and reflections on disparate aspects of this story including the FBI’s targeting of civil society, and the lack of effective oversight. Notes and reflections in the preface cover topics such as the FBI’s personal attacks on me, the public’s fear of authority, notes on Henry Kissinger’s past close association with Freeport, corruption of Western intelligence agencies, the methods used to oppress civil society and target leaders, professionals, and anyone else with influence, and the Western backed atrocities against Indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia and elsewhere, to access their natural resources.

Other archives planned for release are volume two, which is focused on the Department of State; volume three, on Australian partnering agencies to the FBI – Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS); and volume four, a detailed transcript of a covert interview conducted by the FBI in 2003 at Café Fiorello in New York City.

Introduction

Part A

Backstory

A Personal Reckoning

Of the passions of youth, finding a life partner and establishing a career path are prominent. Optimism and dreams—the energy that drives innovation and change, and the will to hold authority to account—brush up against establishment interests and a previous generation’s way of doing things. Arriving in New York City in 1993 at the age of thirty, unknown to me at the time, I was about to embark on a journey that contained a copious mix of all these.

There is no hard and firm definition of what makes someone a dissident in the US, no red line one crosses on the journey as a regular citizen to becoming a political target of the State. However, once that line is crossed, one is sanctioned, “kneecapped”, the silent, democratic way—in secret—isolated and cast aside socially and economically as effectively as if renditioned to a remote halfway house enroute to a gulag archipelago somewhere in Siberia. The “virtual gulags” of modern-day America and its allies are built on oppressive surveillance, interference with relationships, cancel culture, blacklisting and gaslighting.

In my case, I found where the line is drawn after publication of a standard work report to global fund managers and analysts that touched on the US mining company Freeport-McMoRan Grasberg mine deaths in West Papua, Indonesia, in the mid-1990s—killings of Indigenous protestors at the hands of the Indonesian military, written about by the New York Times. I thought my report could possibly meet with professional rebuke from within the corporate hierarchy and a chance I would lose my job if the world were truly corrupt, but that proved to be a gross understatement. It was yet another rite-of-passage, the choice to stand up for justice, or hunker down, remain silent and be complicit in the killings. A pang of guilt arose. It was an awful realisation, that in the worst case I might be forced to make the choice—my job or justice.

At the time, I was a young mining analyst, with a recent Wharton MBA working in the New York equity research division of SG Warburg (now part of UBS). My research report (published March 12, 1996: refer to the Appendix) had raised the issue of US mining company Freeport-McMoRan. According to media reports, it was under investigation by the US Department of State following widely reported eyewitness allegations it was involved in the killing of Indigenous protestors at its massive Grasberg gold and copper mine in remote West Papua, Indonesia. The company denied any role in human rights abuses, and allegations were not subsequently proven in court.

Freeport’s problems weren’t limited to eyewitness’ allegations of company personnel being directly involved in human rights abuses, a notion “reinforced by overwhelming evidence” provided in two independent human rights reports in 1995 (ACFOA, and the Catholic Church).

The US government, concerned at the negative publicity, rescinded the company’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) political risk insurance, intended as a slap on the wrist. OPIC is a US federal agency that supports US investment offshore. It canceled its US$100 million political risk insurance to Freeport citing environmental degradation in a letter dated October 10, 1995—the first time it had ever canceled a policy in its 25-year history. In setting out its reasons for doing so, OPIC implied the company had misled both it and the market on its environmental record. It was a major embarrassment for the company and potentially a significant liability.

In 1996, Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, a board member of Freeport-McMoRan and company advisor was doing the rounds in Washington DC, along with former CIA Director and Freeport advisor James Woolsey, desperately attempting to have the rescinded OPIC insurance policy re-instated.

It appeared Freeport was highly sensitive and increasingly apprehensive about the prospects of a backlash and potential for shareholders (some with very deep pockets) to launch a lawsuit against the company for misrepresentation of its activities in West Papua, Indonesia. The last thing, it seemed, the FBI and Freeport wanted was Wall Street analysts to factor these issues into their valuations and publish details that are sent directly to fund managers around the world, despite commentary by the wider media within the US.

At the end of the day, the actual response my research report drew was vicious. I had not envisaged the full-on onslaught the US and its allied foreign intelligence agencies were inclined to launch against a regular citizen, led by the FBI. This story is about American power and the disturbing way it is deployed both at home and abroad. What happened to me could happen to any young professional doing their job if they come up against people in power who have something to hide.

In 1996 and 1997, the FBI launched an undercover wide-ranging attack against me in retribution that included targeting my career, relationships—both personal and professional, and oppressive surveillance. It targeted the long-term relationship between Susan Holmes (my girlfriend, undercover FBI agent and environmentalist) and me, on the cusp of a marriage engagement, used tactics to sow doubt and mistrust between us which contributed to our relationship break-up. We split up in late 1997 after dating for three years. FBI tactics included the deletion of critical phone messages between us, intervention to arrange “work” trips away for each of us at key times to derail efforts to get back together after we broke up (her FBI role was known by her employer at the Sierra Club who obliged the FBI’s requests whenever possible, in my case the FBI interacted covertly with management), FBI honey traps, arranged for Susan, apparently as a honey trap, to visit a California US Congressional candidate, among other things (recounted in more detail in my Declaration in the appendix, and in a narrative to be published in volume two of this series).

After our split up in 1997 and my return to Australia in mid-1999, we both eventually found new partners. By 2003, Holmes was married, living in Washington D.C., and now complicit with the FBI in targeting me. However, evidently, she had lingering reservations about the FBI and divided loyalties concerning me. I assume this was on account of our long, personal history, and what she now knew about the true nature of the agency’s activities.

Based on revelations by undercover FBI agents Susan Holmes to me in 2003 during a covert interview at Café Fiorello in New York City, and Dr. Steven Garber to me in 2004, the FBI has undertaken extensive surveillance of me and my contacts, turning and recruiting whoever they could, bugging my apartment, telephone, intercepting emails, and recording conversations (for more details refer to my sworn court Declarations in the Appendix). The agency has taken extraordinary pains to delve deeply into all aspects of my past. Over the course of my life, I have had many hundreds of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Several dozens of these I am now aware have been approached, and in cases interfered with and recruited. In addition to people I already knew, others have made themselves known to me, in cases befriending me, only later to reveal their involvement with an intelligence agency.

The intelligence agencies have no compunction about targeting their own agents or citizens when it suits their purposes, like Susan and the Christmas of 1997 when they targeted and undermined our anticipated engagement, or the West Papuans that so loyally served their interests giving vital support and land position to General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific during WWII. The West Papuan’s were blithely sacrificed to the Indonesians when it served American interests to do so in the 1960s. Virtually, anyone can be sacrificed, and replaced, when it suits the changing interests of those in power.

I have faced political and authoritarian demons I never contemplated I would encounter in my life. This story sheds as much light on the conduct of the Western intelligence agencies, under the leadership of the US, at home as it does the plight of Indigenous people caught in military conflict zones abroad. Innocent bystanders everywhere caught in wars: The hidden, secret places of the world, like West Papua, Indonesia; Nigeria; the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); Ecuador, and elsewhere, with domestic and foreign backers funding armed violence to secure resources, deserves much greater public attention. It is moral bankruptcy for the world’s most powerful to target Indigenous people. They are easy military targets, no match for the US and allies with their modern weaponry. Targeting Indigenous people in this way is a war crime, as with targeting innocent civilians in any war—it’s against everything just and noble the United States and West profess to stand for.

Undercover FBI agent Dr Steve Garber’s disclosure to me in 2004 in New York City was in the days before mass social media networking and the FBI assumed this story would never be heard.

Dissidents on Wall Street—the “new cold war”

The research report I wrote on Wall Street on Freeport-McMoRan (dated March 12, 1996) followed international media reports of further killings and strike activity at the Grasberg mine. The 1994 Christmas Day massacre in which seven people were killed, and which was widely reported in the world media, represented just a small portion of the thirty-seven Indigenous protesters reported killed in the vicinity of the mine in 1994 and 1995.

Below is a paragraph from the March 12, 1996, report:

Our view is that increased military presence poses potential for escalation of the violence in the mid term, heightening the political risk of Freeport’s investment in Irian Jaya [West Papua, Indonesia]. Ultimately, Freeport needs to deal with the civil aspects of this situation to allay investors concerns, and possibly also those of the US Department of State. The timing is unfortunate for Freeport as it coincides with the arbitration over whether $100 million in OPIC political risk insurance should be rescinded. The company has increasingly come under scrutiny following reported human rights abuses in the area of the mine and also concerns over its environmental record. The latter was cited by OPIC last November as the basis for withdrawing the $100 million in insurance.

The report touched on the Grasberg killings and environmental concerns and indicated a civil, rather than a military, solution was preferable in resolving labor disputes at Grasberg. In the scheme of things, my comments offered a relatively mild rebuke, but the extremity of the response of the authorities shows how sensitive they were, and remain in the present, to the issues. With people like Henry Kissinger, a former US Secretary of State on the board, former American ambassadors to Indonesia, military advisers and company security department staffed with former US military personnel, CIA, and FBI agents, the company seemed to appreciate its tenuous position on the political and security fronts.

The mention of Freeport in the context of human rights and environmental abuses raised the company’s profile with investors in a way that had potential to create a negative financial backlash against it. Indeed, over the years, substantial investment funds have dumped their holdings in Freeport amid global publicity on ethical concerns about the company’s activities, including the large Government Pension Fund of Norway. It dumped and blacklisted Freeport’s shares in 2006 citing environmental concerns. Other government funds to blacklist Freeport shares include New Zealand (2012) and Sweden (2013).

New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund in September 2012 blacklisted Freeport-McMoRan from its investment funds citing human rights concerns. It was the first major fund to blacklist Freeport on grounds that specifically included human rights concerns, saying:

Freeport McMoRan has been excluded [from the fund] based on breaches of human rights standards by security forces around the Grasberg mine, and concerns over requirements for direct payments to government security forces by the company in at least two countries in which it operates…[2]

The area around Freeport’s concession areas in West Papua, Indonesia has had a long history of killings, ostensibly by the Indonesian military, which continues up to the present (2024). Many hundreds, indeed thousands, of deaths have been documented by human rights agencies. In 1994, the brutality seemed to be spiraling out of control with seven Indigenous protestors shot and killed in a short period around Christmas Day. Some of the protestors were reportedly killed at point-blank range, inside steel shipping containers on Freeport property. For a sensitive topic, it received unusually wide publicity and the US State Department had reportedly taken the unusual step of launching a formal investigation.

Little is known of the Indonesian province of West Papua (formerly called Irian Jaya), which is located on the western half of the island of New Guinea, just north of Australia. Indeed, many people confuse it with the adjacent independent country of Papua New Guinea (PNG), which is located on the eastern half of the same island. West Papua has been the subject of an official media blackout by the Indonesian government since its military invaded in 1962. It was not till the advent of the internet in the early 1990s that word of the plight of the Indigenous people and the atrocities inflicted on them reached the rest of the world, including the shocking reports of the 1994—95 massacre.

The FBI and Freeport were evidently nervous about the impact of this shift in media influence and the obvious potential for serious political and financial market backlash against the company—including in New York, where the financial community played a key role in the financing of Freeport’s activities.

The human rights abuses committed against the Indigenous people of West Papua, Indonesia, ostensibly by the Indonesian military, are extensive and include arbitrary detention, torture, rape, and extra-judicial killings. Transmigration is also an insidious part of West Papuan history under Indonesian rule—an Indonesian government policy whereby large numbers of people, mostly ethnic Asians, from other parts of Indonesia are relocated to West Papua on a scale that makes the original Melanesian inhabitants minorities in the province, and which has prompted claims of genocide (including a report by Yale Law School)[3]. Further, the new arrivals historically have received benefits and opportunities not available to the Indigenous people.

In 2003, Freeport publicly acknowledged it had been directly paying Indonesian military and police units and officials who were involved in maintaining security around the mine. As disturbing as the payments themselves was the startling scale of the amounts of money involved. In 2005, the New York Times reported that the company had paid US$20 million between 1998 and 2004 for these services including paying one individual US$150,000. The size of the payments to the military and police appears to have increased significantly over time (looking at years 2005 to 2011). For example, Freeport’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings indicate the spending on internal civilian security in 2011 was US$37 million, plus an additional US$14 million paid directly to the Indonesian government and military—a total of US$51 million spent in relation to Grasberg—just in 2011 alone.

It seems surprising that these payments pass muster with the US DOJ and are not in breach of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which the US government aggressively enforces against foreign corporations. Indeed, the US United Steelworkers union in 2011 asked the DOJ to investigate Freeport’s payments but the powerful union was fobbed off and heard nothing substantive back on the matter (refer to correspondence in the Appendix).

In an article published in 2011 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Indonesian occupation of West Papua, anthropologist and academic Hugh Brody referred to the large sums of money and Freeport’s close links to the Indonesian military as the “militarization of mining”[4]. Indeed, Freeport CEO Jim-Bob Moffett reported security matters relating to the mine as the “new cold war” and said there was “no alternative to our reliance on the Indonesian military and police….”

With the killings of 1994—96 attracting worldwide attention, Freeport’s public relations machine went into overdrive. It paid for a full-page ad in the New York Times, made an infomercial, threatened to sue journalists and academics covering the matter and withdraw a financial donation made by the company to endow a chair in environmental communications at the local Loyola University in New Orleans.

But what is little known, and never reported is the role that the FBI played during this time to lower the profile of Freeport’s controversial Grasberg operation and silence discussion in the US that included targeting Wall Street analysts.

The use of FBI power in this way is more disturbing given the agency’s dual role in helping to identify and interview eyewitnesses to the alleged human rights abuses on location in West Papua, Indonesia. The killings in West Papua, Indonesia of Indigenous people have continued to the present day attributed to the Indonesian military. With the region virtually closed to foreigners and a media blackout enforced, little of what is happening there is reported by the mainstream media.

Meeting with the FBI and Freeport—May 1996

A couple of months later after the publication of my March 12, 1996, report, I was in Freeport McMoRan’s boardroom at its head office, then in New Orleans, at a briefing for Wall Street analysts. During the briefing Q&A, I asked the Chairman and CEO, James (Jim Bob) Moffett, a question about the US State Department’s human rights investigation into the company’s activities in West Papua, Indonesia. He affirmed that the investigation was ongoing. Unusual for a CEO of a major NYSE corporation, he became increasingly agitated and angry during a rambling, long-winded reply.

In response to the analyst report and question I asked during the analysts’ briefing, the FBI’s threat came promptly. The FBI was, in hindsight, ready and waiting. It was delivered by their man who had been sitting among the analysts in Freeport’s boardroom, where Moffett had just conducted the annual analyst briefing and Q&A.

The FBI’s man came up to me and threatened me in an icy tone that left no uncertainty as to its ill intent. He was around my age (early thirties) and dressed in a business suit. He had stood near me as I spoke briefly with Moffet in the boardroom alcove after the meeting. As I started to move away from Jim Bob, the FBI’s man moved with me. Emerging from my shadow, he stepped squarely in front of me and without introducing himself addressed me using my first name.

“John, I respect you for asking that question,” he said, referring to my question during the briefing. “But you might wish you hadn’t.”

Ignoring my own surprise that he knew my name, I replied, “So what? What do I care? What can they do to me?”

“You might not want to find out,” he said firmly.

I held his gaze for a moment and then moved away.

It was a threat in no uncertain terms. More accurately, it was an absolute decree, a disclosure from which there was no turning back. It was as if a nest of tarantulas had awoken; the FBI and its agents, the supposed protector of democratic freedoms in the US, had emerged from its dark cover and was on the prowl.

At the time the FBI campaign commenced, supported by ASIO and ASIS, I was young—thirty-three years old—on the cusp of establishing a career and on the verge of committing to a life partner, an undercover FBI agent and professional environmentalist, with the intention of having a family. I was still new to Wall Street, a relatively unknown analyst with limited influence, which made me an easy target. Certainly, I had no connections into the political world at a level that could be called upon to pull strings and potentially haul the FBI into line on this issue. With former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (of Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Chile, and Nixon-era fame) on the board, former US ambassadors to Indonesia advising the company, and the US heavily involved in supplying and supporting Indonesia’s military, the company’s interests seemed well protected in Washington DC.

Almost as disturbing as what has, and continues to, unfold in West Papua, Indonesia, to the present day, are the US government’s tactics in silencing dissent both at home and abroad, laying the foundation for atrocities with the FBI and CIA brooking no criticism, even to the mildest forms of protest.

What has unfolded since my March 1996 report has been a dystopian, Orwellian-Kafkaesque retribution unleashed by the FBI and their allied Western intelligence agencies against me (and Susan) using invasive tools and predatory instincts so well exposed in recent years by the likes of WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden. The agencies targeted my career, my family and friends, endeavored to undermine my credibility and call into question my sanity. In the years that followed, I have encountered and been targeted by a small battalion of FBI agents in the US, some flying to Australia, and ASIO /ASIS agents in Australia, some flying to New York City to target me. Moving beyond the surveillance powers of the state, the collection of data and invasion of privacy, I know firsthand what they can do with all that information, how that information has been used mercilessly to interfere in my life in surprising places and in astonishing ways, in places I assumed could never be compromised (refer to my sworn Declarations in the Appendix. I expect to publish more details in narrative form in volume two of this series).

I have come to see the wisdom of the Founding Fathers with a new, deeper appreciation wrought from the realization of the shortcomings of human nature from which flow the persistent character flaws and abuses of those in power. The separation of powers, heralded as fundamental to democracy and essential to reining in corrupt or selfish leaders and political agendas, has been eroded to a devastating extent in the US and the West more broadly.

Undercover FBI Operatives Holmes, Garber, etc: Silencing Domestic “Dissent”

Complicating things, at the time of my work on Freeport-McMoRan in 1996, my long-term girlfriend, Susan Holmes (from 1994 to 1997), was an environmentalist and undercover FBI agent. During the time we went out, she disclosed to me and discussed her role with the FBI many times, showed me her undercover FBI ID card, and other FBI work items. Included in her disclosures was the work the FBI does in targeting dissidents (see my Declaration of 2022 published in Section III in this volume). One of her dissident targets she was close to, was the high-profile environmental activist and co-founder of Earth First! Dave Foreman. Her close association with Foreman is particularly significant to this story. Susan always said Dave Foreman was no longer a primary concern of the FBI, but it was the people attracted to him and that hung out with him, who the FBI was concerned about.

After the FBI’s campaign commenced against me in 1996 due to my Freeport-McMoRan work, it used Susan’s close connection to Foreman to misrepresent me as a close contact and confidant of Foreman, an association that is a red flag marker for law enforcement. As detailed in my Declaration in the Appendix, Holmes naively, at the behest of the FBI, arranged for me to attend occasions with her where Foreman was present—a lecture in New York City in 1997, and a rafting trip down the Colorado River, in the summer of 1997. The rafting trip down the Colorado River was with Susan and twenty or so other activists and journalists, and I was placed in Foreman’s dory with two others. These encounters were fully documented by the FBI according to what Susan later told me, including photos—all planned by the FBI. The intention was to make me appear a legitimate target of the FBI to both compromise and satisfy oversight agency screening processes. The screening processes were well understood by senior intelligence officials, people like Henry Kissinger and James Woolsey, who were then able to abuse and subvert them if they were inclined to. The trip organisers allocated me to Dave Foreman’s dory for the duration of the trip of several days. Associating me with David Foreman, a person targeted by the FBI, seemed to be a well-planned and deliberate tactic by the FBI to falsify evidence and subvert oversight screening mechanisms intended to stop agency corruption.

In retrospect Susan seemed to have limited awareness, or misunderstood, who the FBI targeted under the term “dissident”. One afternoon in 1997 in my apartment on Amsterdam Avenue, she tried to recruit me to work undercover for the FBI, explaining that the FBI wanted more undercover agents working on Wall Street. She gave me the full pitch but I had no interest in applying.

At the time of her disclosures in the mid-1990s about her work for the FBI when we dated, she fervently held, based on her training by the FBI, that dissidents were “really bad people” intent on destroying America and they deserved what they got from the FBI.

Had she been deceived? Susan said she had been taught and believed the FBI’s political targets were wayward dissidents. She had been inculcated to believe they were obnoxious, loud, unrelenting, ungrateful malcontents intent on undermining America. Susan is an intelligent person, Dartmouth-educated, but she genuinely believed that. And she genuinely believed they deserved harsh treatment and got what they deserved.

Little did she realize at the time that she would soon experience the other side of this dissident suppression treatment. The authority and power of the FBI, combined with her privileged upbringing, may have resulted in blindsiding her critical reasoning about the agency’s activities. Steve Garber once said that the FBI’s recruitment screening process continued through training sessions over years—with agents often self-selecting out of the agency as more about the FBI’s mission and methods were disclosed.

Other FBI agents seemed similarly indoctrinated to misunderstand what the agency was having them do to dissidents. In 2007, my elected representative in Sydney, Tanya Plibersek, MP, raised my complaint about ASIO and the FBI in federal Parliament. Shortly after, while I was visiting Arizona, I explained to a pesky young undercover FBI agent, Ben Worden, ensconced at the Diamond Mountain Buddhist retreat centre, that my complaint about the FBI/ASIO and the connection to Freeport-McMoRan had been raised in the Australian Parliament. I attempted to hand him the two-page transcript, but he refused to take it. I found other agents did likewise. FBI agents consistently refused to accept the transcript, whereas others I spoke with and offered it to, were invariably interested and accepted. Presumably, this behaviour is part of the FBI training to insulate inexperienced agents from the activities of the corrupt agency and hold them under the sway of FBI propaganda. I don’t think many FBI agents, let alone regular Americans, have any understanding of the FBI’s real intent and agenda. Susan seemed to have everything else going for her. Perplexed, I wondered why she would take on a job with the FBI. It was an unspoken sticking-point in our relationship.

By 1999, Susan’s opinion seemed to have softened. We had broken-up by then but were contemplating getting back together. She told me, “You would not believe how surprised I was when I saw your name on the work files.” Alluding to “work” was a euphemism for the FBI. We were having dinner at the South Sea Port in New York City, and she added cryptically, “I’m not going to let them do this to you!” It didn’t click with me at the time what she was talking about, and she didn’t elaborate when I asked her to explain.

It is not clear why anyone would want to help an agency do the things the FBI does. Susan learned this directly, when, as one of their own agents, she was ruthlessly targeted to get to me! But why would she still want to work for them after seeing this and learning what she had?

The FBI had interfered in our relationship in 1997, deliberately sabotaging it at a time we had been discussing marriage. She had invited me to her family home in Detroit that year for Christmas, which was intended as an opportunity to propose and announce our engagement. But it wasn’t to happen. In 2003, when she subsequently covertly interviewed me for the FBI in New York City, she said she had vomited as she came to understand what had happened to me, and between us.

Defying the orders of authority is no easy task for most. Reference Stanley Milgram, the Yale University psychologist who famously demonstrated this in the 1960s with his electric shock experiment. So why would you put yourself in the position where you are required to follow the orders of what amounts to a veiled, secret-police-like agency to do who knows what to whomever they want it done? Why would you knowingly put yourself in the employ of someone, like the FBI or ASIO/ASIS, etc., that may demand you turn on friends and family?

What sort of people want to work for the FBI I wondered—hasn’t everyone read Orwell, or Kafka? Why would someone choose to work there? Why do people select the careers they do? What does it say about their personal talents and aspirations given the alternative possibilities? Why would they choose the FBI as an employer, especially considering the political abuse they know they would be involved with? Is it a James Bond syndrome? Of course, crime fighting is noble, but what control does a recruit have over the decision to fight crime or “fix” political opponents. No control, I assumed. They were obedient, and they did what they were told like in any other job, or they left. Not so much the dashing, mythical James Bond figure as the hollowed-out Adolf Eichmann, the hapless Nazi bureaucrat convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg, whose insipid obedience to directives from the authorities inspired the term “the banality of evil”.

The FBI identifies and sabotages as many of its targets’ relationships and opportunities as it can. They spread smears cast by small army of undercover agents paid to do what they are told without asking questions. They spread or fabricate rumors and inuendo of socially derogatory traits, creating an echo chamber—whatever they can get traction with, illicit sex of all sorts including paedophilia, illicit drugs and alcohol abuse, anything that can be portrayed as abusive or sneaky, criminal or anti-social, modified and tailored to maximise damage to each target. The target at one time or another may be painted as gay, alcoholic, deficient in some core attribute and unemployable, or guilty of physical and sexual assault. The target is never directly confronted with the rumours, let alone the evidence, and they are given no chance to offer a counter narrative or challenge accusations.

In my case, I was surprised people in the rumor mill in most cases didn’t seek independent verification from me, clarification or to provide context. As one fire burns out, another is lit by the agencies. The first I know of it is an odd reaction by someone, strange looks or a cryptic remark—in the work place, a friend over dinner, or from an acquaintance in the street. I don’t know what their allegations are, I don’t know which other agencies are involved, nor does there appear to be any way to bring it to a head, hold them to account, in any forum, let alone the courts.

The worst of human nature is easily preyed upon by the intelligence agencies. Susan told me in the mid-1990s that if Americans knew the true number of undercover operatives at work domestically, they would think they were living in a totalitarian state. In East Germany, the notorious Stasi secret police recruited around one in ten civilians to work as “spies”—recruiting from a broad cross section of society to penetrate all and every aspect of community and civil life. All kinds of people were hired, and the only commonality was a preparedness to work against their fellow citizen, inform on and betray their neighbors, work colleagues, friends and family in the name of the state’s ideals and their own personal financial aspirations.

Who hasn’t been readied for the head-to-head with the totalitarian hydra? As high school kids, we read George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Kafka, we read later. Each described dystopias, where personal relationships took second seat to priorities enforced by abstract State ideals. History and literature are replete with States where the worth of our human values was displaced and supplanted by the pressing abstract ideals of the government in vogue at the time. Many seem blind to these same forces, here and now, at home in our “liberal” West.

Freeport Critics Targeted

I don’t regret having asked the questions about Freeport, but I do regret the aggression and violence of the FBI’s response.

I am not the only one targeted for speaking out about Freeport around this time. Andrew Duff of the Austin Chronicle published a list of names of seven people, at least those he was aware of, who he said were targeted with threats of legal action by Freeport unless they desisted from making “false and damaging accusations”. His list comprised journalists Robert Bryce and Daryle Slusher; university professors Steven Feld, a music ethnologist who had spent much time studying the people and tribes of West Papua, Indonesia; Alan Cline and Robert Boyer; and environmentalists Lori Udall and Bill Bunch.[5]

In an article for Mother Jones in 1996, Robert Bryce mentioned another Freeport threat. This one was against New Orleans based WWL-TV news anchor-man Bill Elder. Elder had accused Freeport CEO Jim Bob Moffett of lying to him on air during an interview about OPIC, and also subsequently accused Freeport of blocking his travel to West Papua, Indonesia, by not granting the Indonesian consulate permission for him to enter. Bryce reported that Freeport officials had visited WWL and made veiled threats to sue the station Elder worked for. [6]

But there were not just legal threats. According to reports, Freeport also demanded the return of funding, after a series of student protests, from Loyola University in New Orleans where it had funded a chair in environmental communication.

Other critics in the West were directly targeted by the intelligence agencies operating to protect Freeport’s reputation in the fallout of the spate of negative human rights and environmental reports starting to emerge from West Papua, Indonesia.

Professor and author Tim Flannery is a renowned zoologist I heard speak on climate change at the Australian Museum in Sydney in 2016 and I spoke with him after. He has spent a lot of time working with the Indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia, and has many friends there as recorded in his engaging book Throwim Way Leg. He ruefully commented when I asked him about Freeport and West Papua, Indonesia, that “A lot of dark things are happening up there in West Papua.” He swallowed, anxiety and fear swept across his eyes, and he repeated, “It is very dark.” He was humble and had deep empathy for the people there, clearly perturbed and opposed to what was happening on a human rights front there. His response was in stark contrast to the many FBI and ASIO/ASIS agents I have met who attempt to cover up the abuses there, using tactics I have described elsewhere—apologists for Freeport and US policy. I wondered to what extent Flannery had experienced pushback and undermining from the agencies; he certainly wasn’t someone playing their game. There had been some adverse, unusual media and setbacks he had faced that are consistent with ASIO coercion, but, as usual, nothing was publicly confirmed by the agency.

I had been targeted by Freeport, too, it seemed. Not with legal action, but with an initial attempt to exclude me as a Wall Street mining analyst from their annual analyst briefing in 1996. The briefing, which I ended up attending after I requested an invitation several times and which I had attended in the past, was standard for all mining analysts from mainstream banks to be invited to.

But what was not known previously was the role the FBI, a US federal government agency that is part of the DOJ, played. Unlike OPIC, the US federal government agency that provides political risk insurance for US corporations, whose activities are in the public domain, the FBI works without operational disclosure and is protected from public visibility. According to agents Holmes (in 2003) and Garber (in 2004), and consistent with the agency interference and threats I received, the FBI was secretly batting for Freeport, no matter what, mustering its huge resources and vast reach to defend the company from critics. The FBI’s deployment and extra-judicial punishment is unconstitutional and undermines civil society, making it harder for civil society to hold public entities to account.

The FBI has threatened and attacked me from every angle: social, family, work, privacy, electronic, tracking and recruitment of friends, and gross interference in all my social and professional networks—as described elsewhere in this book—chilling professional commentary and civil society.

It had never occurred to me to become a dissident and spend my time defending against and attacking a central pillar of American power. I did not see opposition to the killing of Indigenous protestors as a dissenting opinion as such; I assumed that everyone saw the killing as wrong and took such a position for granted. The contentiousness of the issue seems related to working on Wall Street, toeing the line, and remaining silent even where investors would benefit to know how their money is being invested!

Fabricating enemies of the state, creating “evil doers” and “dissidents” gives the US cover to do what it wants, in the name of national security, or in political police activity at home—mass surveillance. As former US president Bill Clinton said shortly after leaving office, “Y’ got to understand…there are some people in my country…who think America must always have enemies.”[7] They create opponents, find unnecessary fights and set forth to always have an enemy to show those who might oppose a government policy on more important matters to US interests to be wary. Manufacturing issues and lying about evidence are repeated behaviors mastered by the intelligence agencies—behavior and tactics with “a distinct resemblance to the Bush administration’s determination to invent a case that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.”

Why should the FBI try to link me to the “environmental terrorists” targeted by Susan in her work for the FBI? If I were a real enemy of the state, there would be no need to engineer a “problem” for which they offer the “solution”. The answer is the FBI wanted cover for something else. Presumably, they show the manufactured adverse evidence to the oversight agencies to justify their interest in me. On the other hand, they show the treatment, banishment and abuse of an outspoken analyst to other public spokespeople with a view to intimidating and controlling their behavior.

It is not clear what word best describes someone targeted in the US for political “crimes”, for speaking out, but “dissident” seems as good as any. Wikipedia describes dissidents as those who inform society “about violation of laws and human rights”. The term “dissident” is frequently used by the US government to describe foreign citizens subjected to unconscionable acts by their governments for speaking out in opposition, and it was widely used from the 1940s to describe people opposed to totalitarian systems or policies of totalitarian governments, especially under the Soviets.

The US has always maintained in relation to other governments that it is necessary not only to protect dissidents but to encourage and facilitate opinion, debate and access to information to enable a strong democracy. It says tolerance of dissent and free speech is the foundation of a free and open society, and thereby a healthy and resilient government and people. I wish it would follow its own advice!

My newfound status as a state target seems to reflect the nervousness of government officials in the US involved with the Freeport issue than any objective risk posed by my note or question. Their response seems to reflect a new way of doing things in the US. It is a disturbing trend, a move away from democracy and the rule of law.

In 2012, US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated that “[w]e are seeing our country move toward an oligarchic government.” And another senator referred to the US as practicing a new form of fascism.

Domestic Surveillance—The FBI is Not Acting in “Good Faith”

The FBI is not acting in “good faith” as attested to in 2024 in a Declaration (see Appendix) by former FBI agent, a twenty-five-year veteran of the agency, and Expert Witness, Jennifer Coffindaffer. In her Declaration she points out multiple shortcomings of the FBI— skirting its obligations under FOIA—based on my request for information from the agency and suggests a number of key databases the agency neglected to search. Her conclusion is consistent with my experience of the agency’s conduct in general since it commenced targeting me in 1996—that it’s not acting in “good faith”.

The FBI (and ASIO/ASIS) has thrown nets over all my communications, identifying and targeting family, friends, associates and colleagues. The presence of the FBI surveillance in the home, workplace, car, and other places regularly frequented by the target, and now via iPhone GPS tracking and remote activation of microphone and video, gives the agency potential for 24/7 near blanket surveillance capability.

The FBI targets all areas it identifies as important to the target—means of making a living, interests, friends, family, and spiritual life, to name a few. The FBI attacks in silence, inflicting life-changing interference to careers and relationships, among other things. It identifies and recruits agents or informants in all these areas to inflict material and psychological damage. Its target “dissidents” are frequently not even aware the FBI is responsible for sabotaging some key aspects of their life. The FBI, and other intelligence/security agencies lie and deceive seamlessly to shore-up their own reputations while diminishing their target’s—to make any good features of their target seem bad, and bad features monstrous.

Emails, telephone, internet browsing, you name it—anything with an electronic footprint is picked up and stored. Many members of the public declare that they have nothing to fear from this, that they have done nothing wrong. But it is misplaced confidence, a judgement that mistakes the risk of this kind of intrusion. Make no mistake, if you give someone unfettered access to all aspects of your life, and they are of a mind to do so, they will use this information in a way that will harm you. Its potential uses are diverse—to interfere and manipulate, to embarrass the target, or help their adversaries. It is naïve to simply say you have nothing to hide.

The public now knows from Ed Snowden’s National Security Agency (NSA) leaks in 2013 that the government has undertaken illegal mass surveillance, without specific warrants or meaningful oversight, of domestic and foreign telephone calls, email, online chats and browser histories. Another NSA whistleblower, Russell Tice said, among all the officials the NSA secretly targeted, there was a big push to target lawyers: “They [the NSA] went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of–heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges.” [8] (The full quote from Tice is in the next section, and upfront in this book). I have found many of my lawyers, but not all, compromised at some level. Some have gone as far as trying to undermine my case. It certainly makes a mockery of “conflict of interest”, “attorney client privilege”, and any notion of “justice” or the “separation of powers”. (I filed a detailed complaint with an Australian regulator against a lawyer in Sydney, where the same level of agency interference occurs as in the USA. The regulator found against the lawyer, Rocco Ardino, and sanctioned him, though stopped short of saying he was compromised by a law enforcement or intelligence agency. The regulator drolly said I had not provided sufficient evidence to prove that link.)

According to the NSA leaks, the government spies on contacts with up to three degrees of separation: That would mean targeting my contacts, their contacts, and, in cases, their contacts.[9] As FBI agent Susan Holmes said, they maliciously connect to virtually everyone the target knows. It is a process that takes time, power, and money, and requires extensive intrusive and illegal surveillance. An excellent opinion piece in the New York Times (June 15, 2013) “I Know What You Think of Me” discusses the damage that can be done when someone else takes control to record and selectively disclose your information.

Where the Constitution or national legislation precludes invasive wiretaps and data harvesting, by whichever country, whether it be Australia, America, or any other allied country, it is simply outsourced out of the jurisdiction of the oversight agencies and courts. As journalist and whistleblower Annie Machon, a former intelligence officer for MI5, the UK security service, wrote in articles that appeared in newspapers around the world:

If the capability continues to exist to watch the rest of the world, how can Americans be sure that the NSA et al won’t stealthily go back to watching them once the scandal has died down—or just ask their best buddies in GCHQ to do their dirty work for them?

I’m sure that the UK’s GCHQ will be happy to step into the breach. It is already partially funded by the NSA, to the tune of $100 million over the last few years; it has a long history of circumventing US constitutional rights to spy on US citizens (as foreigners), and then simply passing on this information to the grateful NSA….In fact, this is positively seen to be a selling point to the Americans from what we have seen in the Snowden disclosures.[10]

If democracy fails in the US or its institutions fail in major part, as some already have, like the media, it won’t be the fault of the president of the USA or some adversary like the Russians or the Chinese. The culprits will be sitting under our very noses, right at home in Washington or Canberra or London—our home-grown autocrats, secretive domestic intelligence agencies.

The Stanley Milgram Experiment

So, each of us is expected to co-operate with our government—with every level of government, every policy and regulation it produces—and never challenge anything? What is co-operation? Co-operation is defined as individuals working together to achieve a common goal or benefit. How deep is this singularity in outlook expected to run?

Why are “common” people, Joe citizens, so ready to do what is wrong and so easily recruited by their government for misguided missions? The Stanley Milgram experiments conducted in the 1960s while he was a professor of social psychology at Yale University showed even regular people, let alone “divinely chosen leaders”, were capable of torture and execution of innocent people if they believed they were acting on the orders of those in authority. In what was widely hailed as a landmark study of social psychology, Milgram showed committing abuses and atrocities against others was not something unique to the Nazi’s personal constitution or some other idiosyncratic feature of totalitarian states but a common trait of human nature. This lack of personal moral responsibility was a resource that could be tapped by any state with devious intentions.

In the Milgram Experiment, the “victims” were actors pretending to be innocent subjects. The perpetrators, whose actions were being studied, were directed to administer electrical shocks to them. The perpetrators were directed by authority figures and believed they were delivering real electric shocks (they weren’t, in fact), directed to hurt and in cases kill the subjects (who acted the appropriate pain or death scene response). The experiment proved people were prepared to do harm and, in cases, kill if directed to do so by those they deemed to hold legitimate authority.

Milgram demonstrated that regular people abdicate moral responsibility if they believe they are acting on state orders. Knowing the difference between right or wrong was irrelevant to their action. As Milgram himself concluded: “The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”^[11]

Some people will do anything to endear themselves to authority and enhance their own standing selfishly and ruthlessly against the interests of the group. All authority need do is ask. Status of “authority” itself is sufficient grounds to command obedience and sideline questions of personal responsibility, moral right or wrong. People, like machines, are reduced to obedient minions of authority capable of even the worst atrocities without moral compunction. No personal responsibility. Armies of such people, manipulated by this basic instinct to blindly obey authority, can participate in atrocities most individuals would never dream of committing alone.

The interests of those in power are not always clear. The rich seek protection from the poor, and the poor seek protection from their circumstances. Their goals are inconsistent and changeable.

Irrespective of whether you are rich or poor, deep down, most of humankind lives with anxiety that comes from knowing we are only temporary residents of this earth. There is no eternal tether to here, and we are no more permanently tethered to our bodies than we are to this time or the land we live in. At some point not of our choosing, we will lose it all, every bit of “me and mine” stripped away by inexorable forces. States are fighting an enemy they can’t defeat. People attempt to assuage this existential anxiety with a variety of tonics and measures, many of which lead to gross injustices for others as they attempt to postpone their own day of reckoning. This anxiety and fear will never be extinguished by deceit, bullets and war, but by the insights of the great social and religious reformers of history whose profound teachings later founded Christianity, Buddhism, and other great world religions.

“How Much Evil Must We Do in Order to Do Good?”[12]

Vietnam War US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, oversaw the greatest debacle of American ideology put into practice: around 58,000 American soldiers killed, nearly 3.5 million North and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed. It was a huge death toll for a war that America ultimately deemed to be a mistake. He asks in an apologetic, confessional tone in the documentary The Fog of War, “How much evil must we do in order to do good?”

My “friends” in the modern-day intelligence agencies, like their ilk through history, are siloed, told only what will motivate them to act in accord with the agencies’ desired outcome. They doubt their superiors’ justification is always for “good”. They know they may have been being lied to. They know they may be causing harm to others. They know that they may be the perpetrators of human rights abuse against their fellow citizens. But they do it anyway. They know that their own motivation may be financial gain and their means of acquiring it deception at the expense of those around them. With averted looks and avoidance of contact, agents reveal their shame, guilt and, ultimately fear, a foreboding of the unknown: What will become of them without the money or the status that position and inclusion bring them? They attempt to take control of my life, my former girlfriend Susan’s, West Papuan’s, and others’, not out of greater ability to divine right from wrong, but on account of holding power. Simply because they can.

Some people believe they are not, as individuals, responsible for the decisions they make, nor do they feel they have any responsibility for the decisions their government makes. They tell themselves lies so often they have forgotten the truth. They tell themselves that their power to oppose this colossus is meaningless, therefore there is no moral need to stand against injustice enacted in our name no matter how obscene: no personal guilt. But the reality is not that they are powerless to speak out, but that they are cowards or indifferent to the suffering of others. We have used our military for the good of the world on occasion. There have also been times our country has gone to war on false pretences, corrupt intelligence agencies or politicians fabricating threats and deceiving the public. Not prepared to make a certain sacrifice, some people express no opposition as they watch their bombs fall on the innocent families of Iraq, in West Papua, Indonesia, Chile, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Ecuador, among others. There are rivers that burn, sometimes conduits for the bodies of the dead, invisible emissions that clog the skies, and untold other acts of barbarity committed around the world and at home. As we enjoy the comforts of our homes, neighborhoods and standing in the world, we proclaim we are without guilt.

Henry Kissinger, Freeport-McMoRan, and US Foreign Policy – West Papua, Indonesia

Former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, warned at the time of the defeat in 1991 of the communist bloc that the greatest threat to world peace was now American unilateralism. It was a prophecy from a man whose ruthless ambition, power, and history of deployment of military violence well understood the threat posed to the world by the unbridled passions of men like himself. Indeed, the new America he played a high-profile role in helping to shape seems in his time to have abandoned the noble principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Kissinger’s integrity and judgement have long been in question. He stands accused of undermining the Vietnam peace accord, delaying it by years at the cost of thousands of US lives, and many more Vietnamese lives, motivated by self-interest to further Nixon’s and his own political career, among other things. As unlikely as it seemed in 1996, our paths were unfortunately to cross. He was also involved politically in the US decision that cleared the way for the military annexation of West Papua by Indonesia.

Kissinger was National Security Advisor from January 20, 1969, to November 3, 1975, under President Richard Nixon and then President Gerald Ford when Nixon was impeached in 1974. Renowned and internationally acclaimed journalist Christopher Hitchens, in his scorching book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, provided evidence and advocated that Kissinger be put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Here, I focus on Kissinger’s role as expounded by Hitchens in US atrocities in Indochina because it demonstrates a similar pattern of destruction, obfuscation and deceit seen in West Papua, Indonesia, where Kissinger’s involvement has helped shape the destruction of the Indigenous Melanesian people who inhabit the region:

There is no evidence of Henry Kissinger, as national security advisor or secretary of state, ever seeking even such modest assurances [to take prudent measures to protect the civilian population during the bombing of Cambodia]. Indeed, there is much evidence of his deceiving Congress about the true extent to which such assurances as were offered were deliberately false. Others involved, like Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy and William Colby, have since offered varieties of apology or contrition or at least explanation: Henry Kissinger never.

General Taylor described the practice of air strikes against hamlets suspected of “harboring” Vietnamese guerrillas as “flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention on Civilian Protection, which prohibits ‘collective penalties’ and ‘reprisals against protected persons’ and equally in violation of the Rules of Land Warfare.”

Within Kissinger’s sphere of influence arose US mining company Freeport-McMoRan of which he in time became an influential adviser and director. Freeport-McMoRan manages the Grasberg copper and gold mine in Indonesia through its subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia (PT-FI). PT-FI is held 48.76% by Freeport-McMoRan after it partially divested its stake in recent years to PT Mineral Industri Indonesia, a state-owned enterprise (which holds 51.24%), that is wholly owned by the Indonesian government. The Grasberg mine is one of the world’s largest and most valuable deposits of copper and gold, located in the once pristine, glacier clad mountains of equatorial West Papua, Indonesia.

Historically, the company controlled the mining and exploration leases from the 1960s when US-backed Indonesian dictator General Suharto came to power and the US-backed Indonesia’s military annexation of the territory. The annexation followed a corrupt Indonesian military-controlled plebiscite in 1969. West Papua had declared independence from Dutch Colonial rule December 1, 1961, but was occupied shortly after by Indonesia. Under Indonesian occupation, the death toll of the traditional owners has been breathtaking, entire hamlets and villages targeted and families slaughtered. At others, the chiefs were tortured and thrown from helicopters. Strings of villages and subsistence smallholdings have been destroyed in tactics reminiscent of the Vietnam War with napalm, aerial strafing, infantry and cluster munitions. United Nations reports estimate 100,000 Indigenous people have been killed as a direct result of military assault, and many more displaced, livelihoods destroyed and destitute.

—————————————-

Because of what I experienced at the hands of the FBI, I read more widely about dystopian secret police forces and their state backers, and I looked more deeply into what was happening in West Papua, Indonesia. In the next two sections, I provide comments on the USA, and the FBI in particular, and some background on events in West Papua, Indonesia, where the massive Grasberg gold and copper mine is located.

Part B

Who runs America?

Separation of Powers – Undermined by US Intelligence Agencies

Research from Princeton University professor Martin Gilens[13] and Pew Research indicate America is a plutocracy—a government run by the rich and influential. Parochially, this is the “1 percent”—”the establishment”. The practical aspects of how this is achieved and maintained is considered here. I contend that it is the intelligence agencies’ systematic undermining of the separation of powers, and their deep, coercive intrusions into individuals’ private space that makes this possible.

The US agencies have incredible leeway to snoop at home and interfere with any individual they choose. As NSA analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden told The Guardian newspaper in 2013, “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President.”^[14]

The intelligence agencies in the West, like their kin in parts of the world with more notorious reputations, use their powers “strategically” for institutional advancement or to embellish individual career paths, but not necessarily to protect and advance American (and Western) values—values that we still like to think of as truth, justice and human rights. These values have been surrendered to the political expediency of realpolitik by wealthy and political oligarchs. As MIT professor Noam Chomsky said, “The governments seek to extend power and domination and to benefit their primary domestic constituencies—in the US, primarily the corporate sector … We see that all the time.” [15]

Banyan Tree Model of Secret Power

Through the deep penetration of undercover intelligence agents and their comprehensive networks of informants and collaborators, anthropologist and sociologist Eben Kirksey accounts for how the “architecture of power” is constructed using the metaphor of the banyan tree. This is a strangler fig from Indonesia that grows on its host as a parasite, then as it matures, chokes, and kills it.[16] This alternative “architecture of power”, as Kirksey describes it, sheds light on the construction and institutional growth of alternative power structures right over the top of existing structures. It is a model of political “subversion, replication, and domination” which describes the Indonesian subjugation of West Papua, Indonesia as an example. It also aptly describes the way our Western intelligence agencies have subsumed, infiltrated, and hollowed out our own democratic institutions.

Applying the Banyan Tree Model of Secret Power to the US, the domestic intelligence agencies secretly unite disparate, notionally independent institutions and link them together by recruiting individuals at all levels, especially “individuals occupying high ranking positions in different institutions”.

Individuals in positions of power who are secretly joined together can include “journalists, professors, pastors, corporate executives, and development workers”. The list is extended to include any individual, organization or institution in a position to influence public opinion, from bureaucrats, lawyers, members of the judiciary, the executive, legislators and their staffers, civil society leaders, academics, bankers and scientists, to folk singers, actors, poets and writers. Their secret “latticed network of connections” constructed “inside key structures of power” is a powerful tool of subversion. Their links enable coordinated control by the chain of command they secretly report to—the intelligence agencies—and “quietly working together” use “subtle tactics to influence the agenda of the national dialogue” and beyond.

The network, connected via “unofficial channels”, is invisible to outsiders. Together, “these people form[ed] a latticed network of connections … that are difficult to disrupt”. In the US, this network is vast, billions of dollars are invested annually to maintain it, and over three million people reportedly have security clearance representing a complete cross section of society.

The increased power of intelligence agencies has diminished the political relevance of elected officials, public opinion and political debate. In this new system, much more is achieved through hidden channels than the public forums of earlier times, and the human rights of the governed are increasingly ignored and difficult to defend.

Journalist Kurt Opsahl of Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

“The administration keeps on attempting to justify the NSA spying by claiming there is oversight from the other branches of government. But, as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg noted in the Why Care About NSA Spying[17] video, spying makes a mockery of that separation. How can that oversight be meaningful if the NSA’s huge storehouse of information contains the private…habits of every senator, representative, and judge? When the only protection against abuse is internal policies, there is no serious oversight.”[18]

This vast latticed network of secretly interconnected individuals and the ever-expanding power of technology gives our intelligence agencies easier and deeper reach to collect information, influence, and control us—as private individuals and as public officials. It is a system in which duty is redefined, personal morality and human relationships are surrendered to a different loyalty: The people running the intelligence agencies—are the self-decreed masters of the state.

NSA whistleblower Russell Tice revealed to the New York Times in 2005 that the NSA was targeting a broad spectrum of society from key US officials to NGOs and civil society groups. Below is an interview excerpt with Tice, in which he discusses the extent to which the NSA targeted officials from judges to oversight committees, with the intent of blackmailing them, coercing, and controlling them:

They went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial. But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of–heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people. They went after antiwar groups. They went after US international–US companies that that do international business, you know, business around the world. They went after US banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after NGOs that–like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few antiwar civil rights groups. So, you know, don’t tell me that there’s no abuse, because I’ve had this stuff in my hand and looked at it. And in some cases, I literally was involved in the technology that was going after this stuff.[19]

Who is ultimately calling the shots in our political system now? Domestic spying makes a mockery of the separation of powers that is the keystone of democracy. The security forces have gone way beyond using their power to protect legitimate democratic national security interests and undermined democracy by targeting the judiciary, media and legislators. The intelligence agencies have discarded protections and freedoms, we are told, in the name of “national security”, but really, they have abandoned them, and in their place set their sights on the high economic growth achieved in recent decades in countries like China and Singapore. Now elements of the Chinese model, notably elements of authoritarian control, are deemed advantageous to business, reducing business risk, increasing certainty and predictability of earnings and reduced investment timeframes, but at the loss of civil liberties. A unilateral decision has been made on our behalf to dispense with the purely “democratic experiment” in favor of more authoritarian government. It is a change that underwrites greater freedom for business, but with the necessary trade-off being less freedom for individuals with ever greater state controls and coercive powers over civil society.

In championing this transition of power to the secret realm of the intelligence agencies, they claim it serves the “national interest”. Indeed, they say, no matter what they do, it serves the “national interest”. “National interest” amounts to anything they want it to mean, and which perversely is the reason they claim they don’t need strong oversight. Of course, they are also acting in their self-interest, elevating their stature and power as the natural alternative authority to Parliament, Congress, or other legislative body, the media, and the courts.

If the public remains apathetic and passive as the intelligence agencies move our political system away from democratic values to a non-representative model of government, the general population will likely find it has a heavy burden to carry. History has shown how authoritarian, non-representative governments respond in times of great social stress with ruthless treatment of individuals, undesirable outcomes which democracies are designed to prevent. Populations that desire the benefits of centralized control in the good times, give up the benefits of being part of a democracy in difficult times. No system is perfect, or near perfect, but democracy offers powerful checks and balances. As Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

It is the ability to constructively tap the power of the masses that gives democracy its strength; and in undermining this, government abuses abound and freedom withers. Our leaders’ choices as to what level and type of force, violence not excluded, to inflict against individuals, including against asylum seekers and dissidents, are ultimately constrained by exposure and potential public sanction.

Budgets of the intelligence agencies have ballooned in recent years. For example, in Australia, ASIO, reflects this shift in self-appointed rulership, and has built itself a massive headquarters in a prominent position in the nation’s capital, Canberra, competing with Parliament House and the other key democratic institutions of the nation for public prominence.

The transition involving the erosion of our rights has been a gradual spiral downward, like the rise of apartheid in South Africa. Armed with coercive powers and capabilities enhanced continuously with new and incremental legislation—legislative creep—they breach trust, break the law, circle and constrict the heart of democratic government. In doing so they act without fear of being caught, without fear of accountability, unconstrained by public scrutiny.

As the infamous and hubristic Henry Kissinger declared: “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” He craved power, indeed was addicted to it, going so far as to say, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” His decisions and influence, often conducted in secret, directly impacted the lives of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people. Was his high worth the global pain?

Privacy and Power

In a gross perversion of the Constitution, in twenty-first century America, these tactics have become a staple of mainstream power. The government and executive impose ever greater sanctions against those citizens and others who expose their secrets and violate their “privacy”, while simultaneously enabling ever greater ease of access to and weakening the right to privacy of the governed.

One of the most troubling aspects of the NSA, as revealed by Snowden and reported by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian was the effort the agency went to in hiding its true intent and ambitions regarding its mass collection and use of personal information from congress and the American people:

The general revelation that the objective of the NSA is literally the elimination of global privacy: ensuring that every form of human electronic communication—not just those of The Terrorists™—is collected, stored, analyzed and monitored.

The NSA has so radically misled everyone for so long about its true purpose that revealing its actual institutional function was shocking to many, many people, and is the key context for understanding these other specific revelations.[20]

Greenwald went further in a 2013 article, pointing out that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence (2010—2017), “repeatedly deceived the American people”, lied to congress and his agency appeared to be complicit in the CIA’s spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Despite this, he was not prosecuted. On the contrary, he was shielded, protected, and defended by Washington:

Indeed, if I had to pick the single most revealing aspect of this entire NSA scandal—and there are many revealing ones about many different realms—it would be that James Clapper lied to the faces of the Senate Intelligence Committee about core NSA matters, and not only was he not prosecuted for that felony, but he did not even lose his job, and continues to be treated with great reverence by the very Committee which he deliberately deceived. That one fact tells you all you need to know about how official Washington functions.[21]

The agencies have the surveillance tools to access and threaten people where they are most vulnerable: their private lives. It is the most fundamental door to power—to understand people’s desires and fears in relation to wealth, power, influence, intimate relationships, status, the protection of family—and be able to collect information to threaten or enhance these outcomes. As J Edgar Hoover demonstrated, targeting and revealing individuals’ privacy is the realm where real power resides; the files that allow its keepers to coerce presidents and senators, indeed anyone who gets in the way. The protection of privacy is key.

The separation of private and public life ensures power is distributed and kept in check. Attacking people’s privacy is a key weapon of abuse, as Kurt Opsahl of Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

As Cato Fellow Julian Sanchez points out, there is a lengthy and disturbing history of abuse. FBI Director ‘J. Edgar Hoover maintained a notorious “Sex Deviate” file filled with salacious bits of information on the sexual proclivities of prominent Americans: actors, columnists, activists, members of Congress, and even presidents.’ Hoover used that information to ensure appropriations for the FBI and expand his political power.[22]

Author and journalist Richard Kessler describes how Hoover opened fissures and breached privacy at the FBI, establishing a way of doing business that today is still very much a part of the FBI’s modus operandi:

“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator,” said William Sullivan, who became the number three official in the bureau under Hoover, “he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re d[o]ing an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter. But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”

Lawrence J. Heim, who was in the Crime Records Division, confirmed to me that the bureau sent agents to tell members of Congress that Hoover had picked up derogatory information on them.

“He [Hoover] would send someone over on a very confidential basis,” Heim said. As an example, if the Metropolitan Police in Washington had picked up evidence of homosexuality, he [Hoover] would have him say, ‘This activity is known by the Metropolitan Police Department and some of our informants, and it is in your best interests to know this.’ But nobody has ever claimed to have been blackmailed. You can deduce what you want from that.” [23]

Kessler goes on to say that President Truman, a month after taking office in 1945, sounded the alarm bells about Hoover’s FBI: “We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail.” He followed this up two years later adding, “All Congressmen and Senators are afraid of him.” [24]

The NSA leaks might be news, but none of what is described is new. This kind of political targeting has been going on for decades, ever since Hoover perfected the techniques to support his and the agency’s agenda. He gradually turned the intelligence agencies from crime fighters and technocrats defending the national security into king makers and political henchmen. It’s a legacy that continues to this day. Kurt Opsahl continues:

[While the intelligence agencies] support using surveillance to tarnish the reputation of people the NSA considers “radicalizers,” US officials have in the past used similar tactics against civil rights leaders, labor movement activists and others. Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI harassed activists and compiled secret files on political leaders ….[25]

Further, NSA documents released by Snowden exemplify how individuals’ “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation and authority.” [26] Private information gathered through surveillance, including collection of communications content, metadata (the time, duration, location of communications, but not its content) is exploited to neutralise targets, by leaking that information publicly, or to a select network of friends, work and industry colleagues, peers and associates of the target specially recruited at great effort by the agencies for that purpose; or the target might be blackmailed depending on what the information is. Once they have the information, the agencies have multiple options in how it can be used. The excerpt below is from an article by Glenn Greenwald, quoting Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union:

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said these revelations give rise to serious concerns about abuse. “It’s important to remember that the NSA’s surveillance activities are anything but narrowly focused—the agency is collecting massive amounts of sensitive information about virtually everyone,” he said.

“Wherever you are, the NSA’s databases store information about your political views, your medical history, your intimate relationships and your activities online,” he added. “The NSA says this personal information won’t be abused, but these documents show that the NSA probably defines ‘abuse’ very narrowly.”[27]

The methods of the intelligence agencies are highly susceptible to abuse. How can the government justify, among other things, the targeted collection of video surveillance of innocent Americans in their bedrooms—the targeting of “embarrassing sexually explicit information”? This is not a tactic reserved only for high profile leaders—like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it extends to everyone.

With the wall of privacy dismantled the most valuable things to an individual, things that have no price tag and no market value, are accessible to government interference: our relationships are no longer protected from interference; our memories can be scandalized and exploited; and the government manipulates our careers, reputations and status. Once the agencies have the information on a target, they control the timing and extent of the leaks. With it, they maliciously poison their personal environment—stirring up domestic, professional, and social problems, causing conflict on multiple fronts, economic and potentially legal problems, to produce instability and insecurity.

Maligning reputations and making people out to be predators, deviants, abusers, addicts or possessing some other cocktail of socially undesirable traits does not protect the state’s military interests. The claims to secrecy around these domestically targeted “techniques and methods” is fraudulent, made to protect the agencies’ techniques and methods in the war of propaganda and control at home—creating heroes and villains and encouraging behavioral norms that serve their goals. With these techniques—video, secret recordings, dodgy dossiers, and the like—they influence workplace culture, public policy, and broader society to reflect the interests of the wealthy and politically connected.

Psychological Torment

While in Tasmania in 2010, I chanced to visit the notorious Australian convict prison Port Arthur. The prison represented a shift in the penal system away from physical punishment toward psychological punishment, from hard labor to extended periods of solitary confinement. A quote from Charles Dickens appears on a wall plaque at Port Author today:

“I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; … and it exerts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it…” (American Notes, 1842)

Dickens comments pertained to the effects of solitary confinement at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which he visited in 1842. Since the mid-nineteenth century, considerable advances in the psychological tools of punishment have taken this to a new level of sophistication and incapacitation.

Today’s psychological war chest deployed by our intelligence agencies against civil society is sophisticated and secretive, intentionally inflicting various forms of psychiatric injury, including heightened stress, anxiety, paranoia, and psychosis—with practices generically known as cancel culture, gas lighting, and industrial smear campaigns. While the injuries inflicted are readily visible to observers, the causes are not. Chillingly, it is not by accident that our agencies have developed means of attack that don’t leave physical evidence that might implicate them. They leave no calling card by which they may be held to account, and in Australia they (ASIO/ASIS) conceal even the locations of their outposts for fear of reprisal attacks, as has occurred from time to time in the USA against the FBI by citizen vigilantes.

Our agencies have taken their oppressive craft from that practiced and refined in recent European history, shaping it to fit their own time and culture. The eastern European oppression under the Stasi and other notorious secret police regimes has found its way to the modern-day West where it thrives in arbitrary bubbles of totalitarian dystopia thrown around the lives of specific targets.

Silencing Dissent

The sophisticated methods of the West’s intelligence and security agencies’ domestic operations, in particular those of the Five-Eyes anglosphere intelligence alliance—the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and NZ—came into sharper focus as I read about security and police state organizations like the FBI, CIA, ASIO and ASIS and their brethren. Again, as on the topic of Freeport-McMoRan and West Papua, Indonesia, I read widely about oppressive domestic intelligence agencies.

I read some interesting books, including Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files by Australian academic Meredith Burgmann which is about ASIO’s targeting of civil society in Australia (contrary to ASIO’s strident denials that it targets civil society). Leading Australians who are, or were, targeted by ASIO recount their experiences. Many were writers, journalists, academics, and other members of civil society who were in the public eye. A blurb about the book describes it as:

Stories of leading Australians—including Mark Aarons, Phillip Adams, Nadia Wheatley, Michael Kirby, Peter Cundall, Gary Foley and Anne Summers—who were under surveillance by ASIO. Writers from across the political spectrum have opened their ASIO files, read what the state’s security apparatus said about them and confronted their pasts. Reflecting on the interpretations, observations and proclamations that anonymous officials make about your personal life is not easy. Yet we see outrage mixed with humour, not least as ASIO officers got basic information wrong a lot of the time and many of the writers had to contend with personal betrayal. [T]hose who were spied on now look right back at the watchers.

I read Stasiland by Anna Funder, a revealing and engaging book about “individuals who resisted the East German regime, and others who worked for its secret police, the Stasi”. Other books and authors I read that stand out include The Castle by Franz Kafka, Silencing Dissent by Clive Hamilton, books by Naomi Wolf, Noam Chomsky, Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. There was a 2006 movie, The Lives of Others, written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, a suspenseful story of a writer targeted by the Stasi in East Germany. Another excellent 2006 movie, The Good Shepherd – a thriller set in the 1960s about the CIA, revealing and critical of the agency, starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, directed by Robert De Niro. I read an interesting play by Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People. I perused ground-breaking articles by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram (described earlier). I read articles by journalists and whistle-blowers such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, articles about the American Senate’s Church Commission in 1975, which investigated intelligence agency abuses including assassinations; and journalist reports disclosing the US NSA’s watchlists which contained thousands of names of prominent and powerful Americans.

So many books, movies and articles speak to the corrupt secret police powers that shape and control societies—including the USA today.

Worlds Collide – The Castle, by Franz Kafka

There are strong parallels between Kafka’s characters and the way modern day “dissidents” are targeted and punished silently by the likes of the FBI and ASIO in the West today.

The Castle tells of the protagonist, “K.”, a regular member of civil society, who tried to arrange a meeting with the mysterious, out of reach authorities to clear up what he felt must have been an unfortunate misunderstanding. K. sought to meet the authorities to resolve what he thought must be an error in their classification and mistreatment of him as a dissident and enemy of the state. While Kafka started the book in 1922 and died in 1924 before finishing it, he indicated the intention was K., despite his various efforts, would wait a lifetime and still not succeed in his mission—neither being granted a meeting by the authorities (the government officers and secret police/security agencies who control “the Castle”), nor resolve his problem.

A timeless book, Kafka superbly captures the human impact of these agencies’ intrusions on the life of the target. He describes the mysterious and surreal impact to the life of a target that has offended and subsequently fallen out of favor with the authorities. The modern-day Western intelligence agencies’ equivalent efforts diminish, and silence (“de-platform”) targets include gas lighting, industrial level cancel culture and oppressive surveillance.

The quote below is from Kafka’s The Castle:

We all knew there would be no specific punishment; people just avoided us, people from the village as well as from the Castle. But while of course we noticed that the people from the village avoided us, there was no sign from the Castle. But then we hadn’t seen any sign of help from the Castle before, so how could we have noticed any change of attitude now? This silence was the worst, far worse than the people here avoiding us; they hadn’t done it out of conviction, perhaps they didn’t have anything against us at all, there was none of the contempt they have today, they had only acted out of fear, and now they were waiting to see how things would develop ….

“How can I explain?” said Olga. “We weren’t afraid of what was going to happen, we were already suffering, we were in the process of being punished….They were all sorry for what they had done—when a family respected in the village is suddenly completely ostracised like that, everyone losses out in the same way; they had only thought they were doing their duty by avoiding us, we would have done just the same in their place. And they hadn’t even known exactly what it was all about … but again, it wasn’t out of hostility towards us at all, it was simply out of duty, just as it would have been anyone else’s in the same situation.”

The authorities never formally notify K. of his new status, but K. experiences new mysterious blocks, locked out of a system and relationships he once took for granted. From afar, the authorities in The Castle attempt to destroy him by derailing his career, relationships and hopes, to isolate and effectively remove him from the “normal” workings of society.

Indeed, the authorities in the Castle interfered in the lives of the subjects freely without official notification, as in the West today, certainly in Australia and the USA. As agent Steve Garber of the FBI said to me, most people never realize they’ve been targeted or interfered with.

Waiting for months, then years, and eventually decades for the DOJ, FBI and ASIO and ASIS to respond to my requests for information, for records, to explain their interference parallels the timeframes and frustrations of K. All the while, questions remain unanswered and unacknowledged. The public interest and accountability of our agencies is not served by their actions: I have never been formally notified I was under investigation for any crime, or for any other reason, let alone formally questioned or charged. Formal requests, even FOIA lawsuits, encounter evasive or non-responsive responses, a brick wall of untestable exemptions and unchallengeable denials put forward by today’s occupants in the Castle.

In The Castle, as with the FBI and ASIO/ASIS, protagonists are silently blacklisted, ostracized, and their relationships are maliciously and meticulously targeted and undermined. In one case, Kafka’s authorities went so far as to ensure the extended family lost its business, collateral damage, in the authorities’ efforts to remove the last supporting network available to the target. These are disturbingly consistent with agent Steve Garber’s disclosures to me about how and why the FBI (and ASIO/ASIS) targets dissidents in the USA (and more broadly, in the West) today, to smear and damage them socially and professionally, gradually and meticulously removing their support networks till the target collapses in a breakdown. The FBI uses the metaphor of the kids game “Kerplunk”, in which sticks holding up balls are gradually removed by the players till the balls collapse.

Kafka describes what could pass for the experience of the agencies’ timeless interference tactics. Ostracism by recruiting one’s peers—peers who meekly oblige the authorities’ requests but have no awareness of the background circumstances; blacklisting to diminish economic means and social status; gaslighting and entrapment. These are cornerstone features of the FBI and ASIO/ASIS’s approach to marginalizing and isolating targeted citizens today.

Widespread collection of metadata, electronic surveillance of all kinds and variety, give the intelligence agencies vast access to our lives today and with that great power over every individual they personally target. It is the most sophisticated system of control and influence likely ever devised and implemented. Friends, family and other people with influence over the target are recruited, scripted, sometimes with tainted advice, and sent unannounced, as a powerful tools of FBI sabotage.

Like K., eventually, the target finds they are living in a world in which there is no such thing as a “normal” interaction, trust is undermined, and any meaningful interaction is rare. One can be ambushed at any moment by friend or stranger, and frequently is. The agencies use this enormous trove of electronic data and other surveillance material to fortify and buttress their attacks—for any purpose—they are not required to specify—and against any individual—including the most powerful, those lower down and even against those within their own ranks.

There is pain for the targets in having friends and family betray them, bought out by the agencies with cash or other rewards. At least American agencies, too, know the pain of betrayal and the problems it causes. They, too, know the relatively low cost paid by foreign agencies to recruit and “turn” their own agents. Some high-profile US moles, recruits and defectors include Robert Hanssen of the FBI, Aldrich Ames of the CIA, and Ed Snowden—high profile defectors.

Modern-day “Virtual Gulag”

The US offered safe-haven to Nazis after WWII, to individuals from whom there was something to be gained in return—rocket technology, military, science, and access to spy networks developed by the German spy agencies throughout Russia. With their entry to the US, baggage arrived in the form of knowledge and know-how in notorious police state tactics.

The extent to which these German war criminals shaped American agencies like the FBI and CIA isn’t clear. Irrespective of whether the methods were imported or homegrown, insights offered by Czech writer Franz Kafka in works like The Castle, The Trial, and Metamorphosis about the subtle and horrifying impact of secret government police agencies remain chillingly prescient for the West today.

In summary, I have seen firsthand how our intelligence agencies, spearheaded by the vast powers given to agencies like the FBI, ASIO/ASIS and the CIA, have abused the separation of powers intended as the bulwark of accountability and foundation of our democratic system. Centralized and secretive, the agencies’ vast powers and secret surveillance are potent tools of social and political control. Through the banyan tree analogy of the strangler fig, our intelligence agencies have undermined the separation of powers, compromised the independence of democratic institutions like the media, oversight agencies, regulators, legislators and civil society. Their stranglehold renders redress all but impossible without political backing. And into this space American and Western “dissidents” are gathered, marginalized or removed, like a virtual gulag. In the modern-day virtual gulags of the West, given its secret and isolated targeting of individuals, there is no brotherhood, no bonding within a community of similarly designated “dissidents”, no sense of solidarity.

The agencies continue to do all this, their multitude of non-public programs, intrusions, surveillance and interference, in secret. They pull down the shutters and claim national security privilege. No meaningful response from the FBI, DOJ, various inspector’s general and oversight agencies despite multiple efforts at accountability, detailed complaint letters, requests under Freedom of Information Act, approaches from lawyers. Stonewalled and still waiting. Years of prolonged harassment and interference met with repeated and disingenuous denials; the Western government’s omerta – bound by a brotherhood of silence, with the unofficial mantra deny, deny, deny.

In the next section, I provide comments about West Papua, Indonesia, why American authorities are so sensitive about the region, its military annexation by Indonesia and rising adverse publicity.

Part C

West Papua, Indonesia

Militarised Mining

West Papua, Indonesia, is a region that possesses vast resource wealth, is populated by militarily weak Indigenous populations, and people with strong connections in Washington take an avid interest in it.

Denise Leith provides deep and disturbing insights into corporate America’s relationships to US intelligence agencies and military, and to foreign governments that intersect with the personal details of my story. She details the company Chairman and CEO Jim Bob Moffett’s motive and background for his emergency flight to West Papua, Indonesia, on March 12, 1996, the same day my contentious report was published. She put in sharp focus the motivation for silencing not only me, but at least seven other professionals in the USA she names (named earlier).

As the reality in West Papua, Indonesia, and the FBI’s response at home to control and silence dissent sunk in, I read more widely and deeply to find perspective. Initially, I did not fully appreciate how dire and unjust was the situation of the Indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia, in 1996, and that continues to the present day, nearly thirty years later in 2024. Descriptions of the military attacks backed and enabled by Western governments led by the USA were shocking, as were the pernicious deployment of Western intelligence agencies to chill civil society and hide these evil acts from the public at home.

As I learned more about why these agencies reacted the way they did in response to my 1996 work report and subsequent question to Freeport Chairman and CEO Jim Bob Moffett at the company briefing for Wall Street analysts at its headquarters in New Orleans, the insights of writer Hermann Hesse could not have rung more true or timely as I reread Steppenwolf, one of my favorite books from youth:

Every age, every culture, every custom and tradition has its own character, its own weakness and its own strength, its beauties and cruelties; it accepts certain sufferings as matters of course, puts up patiently with certain evils. Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.^[28]

Hesse’s insight well describes the forces at work in West Papua following the military annexation by Indonesia. Anthropologist and academic Hugh Brody, Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley, wrote in 2011 directly of the military annexation of West Papua by Indonesia backed by the USA as a betrayal of its former WWII ally:

What we have to understand is that Indonesia invaded an independent country. It did so with the help of UN confusions and many forms and levels of trickery, and with US collusion. This invasion depended on a profound disregard for the rights and aspirations of the people of Papua.

The flow of political turmoil in Jakarta, the resultant deals with US military interests and the unleashing of unrestricted mining in West Papua—this set of events was the underlying cause of the oppression, imprisonment and murder of horrifyingly large numbers of tribal people, as well as the total destruction of many of their homes and villages.[29]

The history of the Indonesian military, not only under Suharto but since, reveals the military authority in Indonesia acts with a culture of impunity, is responsible for gross human rights abuses, including murder, rape, and torture. The country has one of the worst human rights records in the world. The Indigenous people have never had much of a chance in defending themselves with primitive weapons against an army supplied with modern US weapons, technology and supported by US military advisers. The death toll in West Papua, Indonesia, has been horrendous. While it is difficult to pin down firm numbers, Australian observers estimated in 2005 that 100,000 West Papuans have been killed by the military since 1969, and other sources indicated another 100,000 or more people displaced.

The brutality of the Indonesian military in West Papua is documented only sporadically. The province is all but closed to foreign visitors, and it remains under media blackout. Nonetheless, enough information has emerged to paint a clear picture of the devastating consequences for the traditional Papuan landowners, and particularly the original inhabitants of the Freeport concession area, dominated by the Amungme and Kamoro, but also the Moni, Nduga and other peoples. Though closed to the official media, news reports of ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua, Indonesia, still find their way into the Western media via NGOs and the internet.

Colonial history is repeating in West Papua, Indonesia, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Large numbers of traditional landowners have been killed in recent decades in an undeclared war that has wiped out villages, entire communities, their livestock—all trace of them gone. It is the frontline of another interminable war financed and supported by America and the West in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Unlike colonial wars in Australia and the war in Vietnam, this war is on-going, part of a grim “general silence that surround[s] the process of occupation.”[30]

A Yale Law School report for the Indonesia Human Rights Network (April 2004) described the secret war in West Papua, Indonesia, targeting the Indigenous people:

Strafing and bombing missions killed numerous West Papuan villagers and caused thousands to flee their homes into the jungles. In May 1977, OV-10 Broncos dropped antipersonnel “Daisy Cluster” bombs near the village of Ilaga, located on the other side of the Puncak Jaya mountain chain from Freeport’s mine. At the end of August, two OV-10 Bronco Bombers shelled the region of Akimuga. Soldiers also destroyed most of the food gardens belonging to Papuans in the region. As a result, many Papuan children suffered severe malnutrition.[31]

A footnote stated:

“Daisy Cluster” or “Cluster bombing” is a high-altitude delivery of a 15,000-pound conventional bomb designed to kill everyone present within a huge area. Originally it was designed to create an instant clearing in the jungle.

The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia by Australian academic Denise Leith was one of the most confronting books I read of the atrocities of modern-day West Papua, Indonesia. Leith describes the operation against the Indigenous people in and around the Freeport concession:

American Broncos and helicopter gunships carpet bombing, strafing, and reputedly napalming the surrounding villages. This operation was aimed at punishing the perpetrators and deterring further attacks on the mine.[32]

The Amungme people from the highlands near the mine were especially targeted by the military to clear them from the area of the mine. Those that survived this napalm-fueled fire were forced to move to the lowlands where many died from malaria, a pervasive disease to which highland people had little or no resistance.[33]

The tribal chiefs and leaders were singled out for special treatment. As if further intimidation were required, the US advised military captured the headmen at different villages in the Baliem Valley, took them up in helicopters and hurled them to their deaths into the jungles or sea below. It was a chilling tactic of fearsome colonial domination.[34] Eerily, the tactic is reminiscent of Chile’s US backed dictator General Augusto Pinochet who dealt in a similar way with dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s—kidnapped, drugged and pushed from helicopters far out at sea. It is a strange and frightening common thread of military dictatorships supported by the West, and the USA in particular, a cold-blooded campaign of murder intended to neutralize opposition to the regime. Disturbingly, the once feted and now infamous US statesman and businessman Henry Kissinger’s (who died in 2023) name is closely associated with both regimes during the reign of these particularly heinous dictators. Later, a systematic campaign of state sanctioned assassination of West Papuan political leaders occurred.

The Indonesian government, Freeport-McMoRan and the US government are taking no chances in West Papua, Indonesia, with the heavy militarization of the mine site in significant part, at times, paid for by Freeport. In addition, Freeport has, at times, provided logistical support to the Indonesian military; and in the US, Freeport’s extensive, high level political connections help protect it at home. Washington delivers a US-government-backed flanking maneuver initiated by the FBI to silence commentators that might otherwise raise the public profile of the project and potentially jeopardize the company’s legitimacy in the USA and elsewhere. The US government wants no repeat of the nationalist Bougainville Revolutionary Army’s successful shutdown of Bougainville Copper Ltd.’s Panguna copper mine (owned by CRA, now part of Rio Tinto) in 1989 in the neighboring independent country, Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The economic returns to Freeport in profits, and to the US and Indonesian governments in taxes and royalties, have been huge, but are still utterly insignificant compared to the US’s overall massive GDP. Encouraged and empowered by support from their countries, these men seemingly have had the ability to control West Papua, Indonesia, and have used every means at their disposal to do so. Perversely, the moral toll of the craven blood money taken at such a reputational cost to Western authority and human cost to innocent West Papuans in Indonesia is borne by the general population while a small coterie of powerful figures become rich in the process. At every level, it is a travesty of governance, a betrayal of the people and of democracy.

The American electorate would be aghast if it knew the killings of Indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia backed by the US government and corporate-funded Indonesian military, had underwritten and maximized the profits and dividend streams to Freeport’s shareholders. The governments responsible contend there are no available alternatives to military action: No possibility of a moratorium on mining; no possibility of conducting operations in line with international environmental and social standards as per those in the US; no possibility of the expense of paying higher royalty payments to traditional owners in line with royalty payments paid to landowners in the US; and certainly no possibility of uniting the ethnically aligned Melanesians in West Papua, Indonesia, with neighboring PNG to unite the Indigenous cultures on the island of New Guinea.

With a neocolonialist worldview running deep in the West, it seems unlikely things are going to improve any time soon for the West Papuans living under the military annexation and oppressive rule of Indonesia.

The West’s Long History of Colonialism

Ongoing colonialist attitudes are evident in a long tradition of Western governments that continue to surreptitiously target Indigenous communities for their wealth in out of the way places.

In writing this section, I read with alarm histories of Australian atrocities directed against its Indigenous communities during colonial rule. Among these was an especially confronting account by Judith Wright in The Cry for the Dead, with echoes in West Papua, Indonesia today, that documented the horrifying extent and brutality of the atrocities, the dispersal and destruction of the Aboriginal people by the white settlers and governments of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. These were the Black Wars in which pastoralists and governments through “an unwritten law made men keep silence” on these events.

Equally eye opening to Wright’s historical account was Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC’s Murder at Myall Creek, to which he brings a forensic legal mind focused on a single event—the 1838 massacre of Indigenous People at Myall Creek by white settlers, and subsequent efforts by the authorities and community to bury and silence complaints. In 1838, twelve stockmen murdered twenty-eight Aboriginal men, women and children who were camped peacefully at the Myall Creek station in northern New South Wales. In an extraordinary story of legal courage and persistence in standing up to the establishment interests and powers of the day, then attorney general of NSW John Plunkett took to trial and won the conviction of seven of the stockmen responsible for the murders; they were subsequently hanged.

The techniques of the colonial powers recounted by Tedeschi and Wright closely echo the current-day methods used by the modern governments of the USA and Australia, among others. Indeed, the parallels are haunting in how they bury the evidence to silence, discredit, isolate and marginalize those of their own ilk and kind who speak out to expose their crimes. These methods include the extraordinarily long official delays in response to complaints, denials, ostracism, gaslighting, a system of captive regulators, reprisals that sabotage careers, and interference in social, family and professional networks—the modern-day definition of cancel culture. Nothing has changed in 150 years. It is even more affronting given the new deference with which governments now claim to hold local Indigenous people. Unfortunately, this support is all too hollow, spoken by an unrepentant political-military-industrial complex endlessly intent on wealth accumulation, careers and power. The Australian, British and US governments continue to fund, aid, and abet the slaughter of Indigenous groups and destroy their culture in hidden places like West Papua, Indonesia, the Niger Delta in Nigeria, Ecuador, and parts of the Amazon.

These days, people still “keep silence”, even in the face of outrageous abuses in places like West Papua, Indonesia, fearful of “security” agency retribution. Nothing has changed from colonial days except the level of sophistication, the physical and psychological torment of extra-judicial punishment to “deplatform” and cancel opponents, and chill civil society.

Leith, Wright and Tedeschi’s accounts have demonstrated the power, reach and importance of the written word and spurred my own determination to persist in telling this story.

West Papua, Indonesia: Weake – Life, Death and Human Rights

Author Peter Matthiessen^[35] poignantly captures the human face of tragedy in West Papua, Indonesia. He distils the many thousands of deaths through a single lens, recounting that of a young West Papuan boy named Weake, and the impact his death had on his friends, family, and village. While Weake was not a direct casualty of a colonial landgrab, through him Matthiessen conveys the beauty and sophistication of Melanesian Indigenous culture. It is rich, sensitive, and caring, with elaborate ritual, mourning and grieving for the loss of loved ones.

He was ambushed near a river where he and a couple of his young friends were playing. Weake suffered more than twenty puncture wounds, Matthiessen describes how the boy cries out in deep pain with each breath. His friends helped him back to his village. All those with him in a room there try to comfort him but are powerless to change the outcome. He describes the elaborate funeral that follows, the personal impacts on family and friends, and the days of mourning.

The impotency these people felt in the face of Weake’s death echoes my own feelings at the death of a good school friend of mine. Diagnosed with leukemia when we were fifteen years old, he died within twelve months. His doctors, family, and friends looked on too, powerless to change the outcome. The daily observance of physical decline, his courage, questions, angst and hope resonate deeply. It was a different coming-of-age ritual, an unusual and secret initiation into the adult world, a reality few adults in the Western world had even experienced. They lacked wisdom and knew nothing of the suffering in the loss of a child. Their collective response revealed a societal failing and existential angst that undermined their authority, and precipitated a loss of faith in their wisdom and leadership.

Our society invests so heavily in healthcare to save lives, so how perverse it is that, with the mere flick of a pen, the same society tortures and destroys innocents in distant places like West Papua, Indonesia, knowing the personal distress and devastation it causes. Why would people, our countrymen, so maliciously inflict this suffering and pain on a community of innocent, defenseless people, and do so repeatedly? I feel ashamed and aggrieved. The moral collapse of the perpetrators is yet to be reckoned with, and also of our society that gives them safe harbor and is thereby complicit in these deeds.

Part D

Conclusion

What values lie behind the notions of realpolitik and exceptionalism? State secrecy goes way beyond the common sense understanding of national security to include suppression of information about the government’s skullduggery in places like West Papua, Indonesia, where atrocities are regularly committed in support of business interests, such as the massive US mining company Freeport-McMoRan, to the spy agencies’ intrusions into our everyday lives at home. There are large unresolved questions around whom the government represents, whom it is targeting behind this veil of secrecy and why, and what exactly it hides. Capitalism is a brilliant, efficient system of organizing markets, production and services—but it requires effective regulation and political oversight to ensure it operates in the best interests of society.

Our leaders—Western governments—re-commit the tactics and injustices of past generations, secretly inflicting great harm on Indigenous people in out of the way places to take their land and wealth. Their tactics are cruel, inhumane, and devastating to Indigenous communities that face unspeakable trauma and loss. Nothing really has changed from colonial times when major power imbalances were abused in secret.

America is a country I deeply love, and I am grateful to be rooted in its people and places. In what has become an unfortunate rite-of-passage for many young professionals, one is unofficially presented with a bleak choice, to be complicit in the suffering of others by remaining silent, or face career impediment, rebuke and sanction (at the hands of our intelligence agencies). Under duress, opting for “contentment with guilt” seems to be the preferred option of many faced with that bleak choice—they conclude there is no point challenging the US government. It seems leading a “perfect” life is premised on accepting a tacit social contract of silence and complicity, no matter how egregious the abuse. Some likely repress the memory of their decision to be complicit, while others recalibrate their moral compass to allow for the infliction of suffering on others, reasoning that it is unavoidable, or possibly, that those afflicted deserve it. Some wilfully harm others if the benefits to self and others are sufficient—the utilitarian approach—maximum good for the maximum number of people. They reject the argument that intrinsic human rights should be equally respected for all people.

Personal Consequences of FBI Interference

The payback for speaking out against Freeport-McMoRan has been going on for over twenty years. For the first eight years, I didn’t realize the FBI was involved till confirmed by undercover FBI agent Steve Garber in 2004. At the same time, I have been getting on with the rest of my life. Through my consulting business when it was operating, then my wife’s professional roles, we have fortunately had sufficient income. It may not have been the career I expected, but then careers frequently, for many, are not.

I have been fortunate to have greater involvement with raising our two beautiful young children too. My wife and I have now been married going on twenty years (since 2005), despite the background issues described in this volume of intelligence agency interference and the pressures that places on relationships and the family.

My uprooting has not been as abrupt nor as painful as for many, like those ripped from earth in sudden early death, as those in West Papua, Indonesia. However, for me personally, lots has changed at the hands of agency intervention: new country, new vocation, new partner.

I moved countries to get away from the FBI’s abuse in the US, only to encounter the same allied abuses from ASIO/ASIS in Australia operating as seamless extensions of the US intelligence agencies. The FBI interfered with my career, my relationship with my then long-term girlfriend—Susan Holmes, an undercover FBI operative—my friends, and various networks.

Ironically, despite the persistence of the agencies’-imposed constraints on my social and professional life, and my loss of privacy through oppressive surveillance, I am, to use Nietzsche’s phrase, freer of the constraints of the “they”—the forces of peer and societal pressure—than I ever had been or would have been. Indeed, I have been grateful for this time, freedom and space. I have discovered a great deal about my government and myself, have been surprised by what I have encountered, and have taken time to rethink my closest held beliefs, personal and otherwise. It has at times, been a challenging journey, but overall wonderful.

I have come to see the wisdom of great religious figures, with their extraordinary transformative spiritual insights into life, death, and society. I am not saying I am better off overall because of FBI interference, though I might be. It is impossible to know for certain. As I have been forced to let go of former aspirations and opportunities, a new work-life balance opened. In their place, I have a new life with rich and rewarding insights and interests. Aside from my former small boutique research business and other consulting work, these benefits include more time for family and personal interests—like hiking, traveling, religion, contemplation, reading, writing, and more recently soccer. I am also more engaged in political and environmental activism.

Goals in Publishing

A key motivation for writing this book and accompanying archives is to shed light on the media blackout and injustice in both the military annexation of West Papua, Indonesia, and the cruel and unusual methods of our intelligence agencies to silence civil society at home in the West.

This story is in part an exposé of the corruption of our democratic institutions, the undermining of the separation of powers, and the hollowing out of these key institutions through pervasive infiltration of the intelligence agencies on the pretext of providing greater “security”. I am also seeking justice on a personal level.

The plight of, and atrocities committed against, the First Nations people of West Papua, Indonesia, and elsewhere, are acts of modern-day colonialism. It is my hope that one day West Papuans will achieve independence or form a unified nation on the island of New Guinea with their neighbor Papua New Guinea (PNG) free of Indonesian and US backed violence, to live with the safety, security, and dignity all people are entitled to, and to find peace and prosperity in their land.

Efforts to achieve transparency and accountability of the agencies and some semblance of justice in the USA through the proscribed oversight channels has been stymied at every turn for around twenty years. Writing a book to publicize the abuses both in West Papua, Indonesia, and domestically, seemed a last resort. Intriguingly, the agencies continue to interfere even in this process, at times over the years compromising advisors and editors. I am hopeful that something fruitful and positive will come of my written endeavors here but accept that this story may never end and give no more satisfaction than the telling of it.

At the end of the day, human potential is to be celebrated. All through history, across all civilizations, we have seen this blossom in extraordinary ways, irrespective of the system that claims credit for nurturing it. This book is not about criticizing the undeniable fruits of civilization. It is about bringing criminals to account, those individuals a neocolonialist system might have corruptly backed and did back in some clear cases. Simply, they are murderers and plunderers—modern day pirates—educated and armed with mighty military technology—taking what is rightfully the property of others. Their actions diminish not only their victims, but all of us, and they add nothing to the amazing scientific renaissance blooming in the modern world. They act contrary to our laws, values, and conventions, and not least, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

As with mainstream journalists, people in the public eye such as celebrities, scientists, academics, artists, all potential opinion leaders, there are things mainstream analysts are apparently not allowed to mention. There is a personal sense of justice, of healthy self-esteem and power in exposing the tactics of this self-serving bully. For this I am grateful. I feel in a small way I have helped expose an abusive, secretive intelligence agency culture that uses ruthless tactics at home and abroad.

Unresponsive Oversight

The FBI abuses at home have not abated in the ensuing decades but intensified. My efforts to access justice and to hold the FBI accountable through regulatory, judicial, and media oversight channels have been thwarted at every turn through each of the successive presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Joe Biden.

I applied to the FBI/DOJ under FOIA for my personal records. Despite all the details disclosed to me by agents Holmes in 2003 and Garber in 2004 that revealed the FBI’s extensive access to my personal information spanning decades, and the agency’s coordinated gaslighting efforts which require detailed agency record keeping, nothing was released. The inability to find the records reminded me of Holmes’ questions to me during an FBI covert interview at Café Fiorello in NYC in 2003 in which she raised the “shell game” analogy—a game run by a con artist—an apt analogy for trying to access personal records under FOIA from a government agency.

“Did you ever play the shell game?” she asked. “You know, where someone has three cups facing down and they place a ball under one of the cups. They then shuffle the cups and ask you to guess which is the cup with the ball under it?”

ChatGPT describes the game as a trick: The trick is performed in a way that makes it seem easy to keep track of the ball, but the operator of the game uses sleight of hand to manipulate the shells to keep the ball hidden. This makes it very difficult for the player to correctly identify which shell the ball is under. The shell game is typically used by con artists to cheat people out of their money, as the operator often has various tactics to ensure that the player loses.

The analogy to FOIA requests is obvious to people who have filed one – trying to identify where the records are held, only to be told there is nothing there. In the case of FOIA requests, records can be moved between agencies, filed under unspecified names or categories, held in unspecified or undisclosed databases the location of which can change or remain secret. There are lots of ways agencies can deceptively manipulate how and where the records are held to frustrate the applicant. Citizens do not have access to a fair process, and intentionally so.

I have turned to writing this archival volume after having no meaningful response from a multitude of official channels—captive regulators and ineffective oversight—including the DOJ, FBI, various offices of inspectors general, Freedom of Information requests, media, elected representatives, human rights NGOs and so on. All these have been infiltrated and compromised at some level.

As a result of ineffectual oversight, in this volume, as well as previously, I have named FBI agents and Australian intelligence agents. Naming and shaming are an important part of the accountability for people and agencies that have done the wrong thing, especially where there is no alternative effective oversight that deserves the name.

One agent in Australia told me that my efforts to address agency abuses had made a significant impact, precipitating amendments to agency protocols in targeting of dissidents. Other amendments seemed to be directed solely at strengthening the opaqueness of their work, such as new legislation that prohibits the naming of ASIO and ASIS agents, among other agencies, (a change that occurred after my meeting with, and disclosures to, former Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock in 2013). The agent mentioned also the impact made by my having the matter raised in the Australian Parliament on several occasions though my elected representatives, publication of letters to various parliamentary enquiries critical of, and detailing, agency abuses, various prominent advertisements outing agency abuses, and social media coverage, among other things.

However, in the absence of my accessing the courts, I am skeptical there will ever be any tangible results on transparency and accountability, let alone justice. Unfortunately, a standing Royal Commission to oversee the intelligence community in Australia, a powerful fulcrum for obtaining justice and accountability, was never implemented, despite it being one of the key recommendations from Justice Hope in his Royal Commission into intelligence agency abuses in the 1970s.

Obstacles to Publication

Having little joy with official oversight channels, I decided to write a book as a way to get the story out. As the various drafts unfolded, I found the task confronting and challenging, deciding what to tell, what not to tell, thinking about what was relevant to the public, what may be relevant to my family, and eventually to my then young children. In 2009, when I first thought about writing a book, the personal aspects of the story were still raw for me—the betrayals and psychic wounds. The story was still unfolding in West Papua, Indonesia, too and potentially for Freeport-McMoRan in the US courts. I was awaiting any meaningful response from regulators and oversight authorities in the USA and Australia to my complaints—thinking, naively, that oversight might be independent and effective. Writing was frustrating and slow, as I recalled events, pieced together notes and joined the dots. The story became more complex, more nuanced, more personal.

At the very least, potential publication of this story, and others in the series, has been delayed years by agency interference and thereby, in the meantime, readers denied a chance to read a book critical of the central powers in our new Western style of government. My efforts in the first instance to retain the services of an experienced writer or ghost writer to take on the task were met with a wall of intelligence agents or collaborators coming forth to “help”, but, in fact, were spoilers. If I found someone that was independent, they were promptly compromised. Over the years, I retained some writers/editors for short standalone sections of the book, and their tactics were almost always the same: interminable delays for every draft, no matter how many pages, from individual chapters or articles of ten to twenty pages, to an entire book, stretching from an estimated several weeks to eventually take up to six months to deliver—one excuse after the next for delays. The draft eventually delivered would invariably be riddled with newly introduced inaccuracies of every kind: basic facts wrong, events turned around, ideas of benefit to the agencies introduced and accolades for their work included, meaningful events removed, errors introduced into citations and quotes. Drafts were unusable, or virtually so, and usable only with significant effort from me to re-edit them.

In writing this, I have faced threats to my business, which have been subsequently carried out by the agencies. Since 1996, I have also received veiled and not-so-veiled threats of blackmail and death threats. The blackmail threats relate to release of any personal information that the agencies have collected on me through surveillance or other means, legal or illegal, that may cause embarrassment to me. One agent said threateningly, “If you publish, they’re [the intelligence agencies] not going to like it. You know what to expect. They will hit back.” In relation to death threats, comments from agent provocateurs, such as, “You are lucky to still be alive;” and, “How long do you think you will live?” have been directed at me with menace. “You might want to be careful. You might find your water laced with something!” They instill a sense of fear or uncertainty as to what their intentions are. And further threats in the form of “friendly advice” from inside “friends”: “You might want to be careful. These are dangerous people.” A comment left on my association Facebook page in 2013 read, “Sorry dude but you’re a dead man walking sorry man its just avmatter of time.” (sic).

It takes a special skill to write a book that would tell the story in a way that would attract wide readership and get the story out to a wider public—an artform. Sure, I could write it report style, reliably document, annotate and provide supporting references where available. I could philosophize, ruminate and provide personal background. I put it out on Facebook and WordPress. As mentioned, attempts to retain or team with co-writers, ghost writers, researchers and editors has been widely interfered with by the agencies. One qualified, accomplished and published author in Australia interested in probing and challenging the lies of government declined to help, citing concerns he held for his wife and small son.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the wonderful people and beings in my life, my family, parents, and children in particular. All the beings I cherish, those who are friends, those that are neutral, and those that have been adversaries; we have all served each other in different ways. Thank you.

John Wilson

Sydney August 2024

Archive Overview

This archival volume contains twenty years of my correspondence and court documents in the USA. The letters and emails, starting in late 2004 and continuing to the publishing of this volume in 2024, comprise correspondence either directly by me or my attorneys with various FBI/DOJ departments, as well as elected representatives including Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Jerrold Nadler. It also includes emails, freedom of information requests (FOIA), details of administrative reviews, two notarized Declarations I made, and two court challenges under FOIA for release of records.

Together, they tell the story of my efforts to gain FBI and DOJ accountability in the USA, efforts which for the most part have been thwarted. This follows interference since 1996 and disclosures to me by the FBI in 2003 and 2004 that I have been the subject of a “payback” operation following my March 12, 1996, analyst report published while working as a mining analyst on Wall Street for a major UK investment bank, SG Warburg (now UBS Warburg). My work as a mining analyst involved covering NYSE listed US mining companies, and one of my reports on Freeport-McMoRan came to the attention of the “authorities”. It touched on controversies surrounding Freeport and the region’s human rights record.

Freeport-McMoRan, through its associate, PT Freeport Indonesia, owns and operates the massive Grasberg copper and gold mine in West Papua, Indonesia. Today, it retains a large interest in the project of around 49% and has a special permit to operate the mine until 2041. At the time of my report in 1996, the company was reportedly under investigation by the US State Department following a series of eyewitness allegations it was involved in the killing of Indigenous protestors in and around the mine site. The company denied any role in human rights abuses and eyewitness reports were never proven in court.

Since commencing operations there, the company has surrounded itself with heavy hitter Washington insiders, retaining them as employees, consultants or board members, including former secretary of state Henry Kissinger who was both on the board and also was a consultant to the company. According to Denise Leith (author of Power of Politics: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia) Kissinger, around the time my report was published, was running around Washington trying desperately to get the company’s rescinded US$100M political risk insurance (OPIC) policy re-instated. It’s cancelation by the US government agency had cited environmental concerns, however, according to an FBI source, the “real” reason had been intended as a slap on the wrist for the bad press coming out of West Papua concerning allegations of Freeport human rights violations. At least seven other people in the USA were targeted for their criticism of Freeport around this time, including journalists and academics.

The archive, in aggregate, tells the story of a pervasive corrosion of justice in the USA, marked by political influence, “captive” regulators, corrupt DOJ/FBI and the power of money.

I am a dual Australian and USA citizen. I moved to the USA from Sydney in 1991 to attend The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where I graduated with an MBA in 1993 and moved to New York City. I retained the ephemeral benefits of political representation in the USA, registered as a Federal Voter in NYC, after I returned to Australia in 1999. This move followed a period of sustained harassment and interference from the FBI in my personal life and career since 1996.

Two undercover FBI agents disclosed the FBI’s involvement to me. The first was my former girlfriend from 1994 to 1997, Susan Holmes, in 2003. She was an environmentalist closely involved with the Sierra Club, living in NYC and an undercover FBI agent. The other disclosure in 2004 was from Dr. Steven Garber, a Sierra Club volunteer and biologist living in NYC, and an undercover FBI agent. These disclosures are detailed by my attorney Pete Sorenson in a letter to the DOJ, AUSA John Moustakas in 2023, and in my 2021 and 2022 notarized Declarations, both included in this volume one of my archives.

The letters and court documents reveal anything but “good faith” patterns of behavior by the FBI/DOJ to thwart accountability. These methods include their repeated refusal to officially confirm or deny the involvement of FBI operatives. The DOJ/FBI’s lack of “good faith” was evident across a range of activities, including suppression of dissent, misuse of surveillance powers, evasive and misleading responsiveness to allegations of abuse of power, attempted entrapment, political suppression, tainted records and planted evidence. Their methods echo those used by British colonialism in Australia (and by extension elsewhere) to conceal the murder of Indigenous inhabitants and supress dissent described by Mark Tedeschi in Murder at Myall Creek.

It is hoped that this book will be of value to a wide audience, including current and future citizens of the USA, UK and Australia as they seek to learn about their countries’ governance and history.

Introduction to the Archives

This is the first of an intended four volume archive; and potentially a related, though separate extended exposé and memoir narrative.

Volume 1: (2024) is focused on the backstory and accountability of the FBI/DOJ in the USA. The appendix contains court records and correspondence with the DOJ/FBI and others—emails and letters.

Volume 2: (Target release date 2024) is directed at the US State Department. The appendix contains court records, emails and letters primarily concerning the State Department. It contains a discussion of Freeport-McMoRan’s activities in West Papua, Indonesia. It will likely also include a wider ranging discussion of my story.

Volume 3: (Target release date 2024). This is a transcript based on my notes and recollections of the FBI covert interview of me in 2003 at Café Fiorello in NYC. It amounts to around four hundred pages of transcript and commentary.

Volume 4: (Target release date 2025). This is focused on efforts to seek accountability in Australia with partnering agencies of the FBI and CIA. The appendix contains emails and letters primarily concerning Australian intelligence agencies ASIO and ASIS.

At some point, I may endeavor to publish a detailed exposé-style memoir detailing the entanglement of my personal life while dating an undercover FBI agent who was an articulate, well-educated environmentalist, my work as a Wall Street analyst covering Freeport-McMoRan, and the State, whose agencies are primed to defend and promote corporate behemoths. It is an unholy alliance that apparently creates and protects wealth irrespective of the source, with flagrant disregard of the Constitution and laws, prompting one US senator decades ago to describe it as “a new form of fascism”.

Volume one of the archives is set out broadly in chronological order with the oldest material dating from 2004 up front to the FOIA court documents of 2024 at the end.

A summary of each section follows:

Section I: DOJ/FBI – US Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies

FBI conduct not in “good faith”: One of the lawyers I retained in NYC early on, Rachel Minter, filed an FOI request on my behalf to the FBI in 2004. She exclaimed upon hearing my story, words to the effect, “Mr Wilson, if the FBI is involved, you can’t believe a word they say!” Such is their reputation in New York and among the legal fraternity more broadly.

In this section, with the assistance of ChatGPT, is a summary of how the FBI/DOJ fails to act in “good faith”. I have then provided specific instances from my experience where the FBI has failed to act in “good faith”—including attempted entrapment, misuse of surveillance power and political suppression.

Undercover FBI operative – contractor Dr. Steve Garber: In 2021, I retained New York City law firm BLHNY to commence litigation against the FBI. BLHNY retained, at their instigation, the services of a private investigator to provide background reports on various undercover FBI operative – contractors involved in my long running complaint against the FBI, including Steve Garber. A redacted, abridged report on Steve Garber is included in the appendix.

Complete Social Security Numbers (SSN) for the subjects were identified but practice is not to include the complete number, nor DOB in public documents, a policy outlined and followed by the FBI. An email from Assistant United States Attorney Tabitha Bartholomew to my attorney Pete Sorenson in 2024 explains the DOJ’s policy in redacting the personal identifiers of subjects when making documents public – a practice I followed here (email excerpt below):

DOJ email from AUSA Tabitha Bartholomew:

Per our local rules, the only personal identifiers that must be redacted (unless the court orders otherwise) is SSNs, DOBs, names of minor children, and financial account numbers. …I note that … “other private information” are not subject to our local rule….

Section II: Correspondence with DOJ, AUSA John Moustakas – 2023

Letter to Assistant United States Attorney John Moustakas: This section contains a letter to Assistant United States Attorney Mr. John Moustakas. My attorney Pete Sorenson sent an extensive letter to the AUSA Moustakas concerning the search concerns we have with our FOIA request to the FBI intended as a good faith collaboration and negotiation with the FBI.

In the letter, Pete Sorenson outlines the evidence and circumstances supporting the assertion that the FBI holds records on me. Much of the material comes from my notarized sworn Declaration dated August 30, 2022, included in Section III of this volume. It includes some extra material, concerning efforts by the FBI to “gaslight” me, a form of psychological attack that necessarily involves the active use and retention of records by the FBI.

An excerpt from the letter on gaslighting explains (for full details and context see the letter and Declarations in the appendix):

Mr. Wilson believes, and has stated, that the FBI collected distinct descriptions and scenarios from Wilson in the 2003 interrogation of Wilson by Holmes at Café Fiorello, NYC and engaged in subsequent efforts using those descriptions and scenarios to gaslight Wilson as a form of psychological attack. Mr. Wilson is prepared to state that this suggests the FBI is hiding and withholding records that Wilson is entitled to.

During Holmes‘ questioning of Wilson, she would periodically ask Wilson to describe specific scenarios about the future, imaginative events, and stories. When Wilson had no response to many of her requests, Holmes would implore him to “say anything. It doesn’t matter. Just say anything. Make it up,” she said repeatedly.

In this vein, Holmes asked Wilson about 25 or 30 different topics and scenarios and Wilson gave brief answers, many of which subsequently were presented to Wilson in various ways at various times years later, gaslighting him as a form of psychological attack. Examples are below.

This information was provided to AUSA Moustakas in addition to details concerning evidence of FBI entrapment, misuse of surveillance powers, suppression of dissent, abuse of power, and so on.

The long delay by AUSA Moustakas in responding, and what he said when he did respond, was hard to interpret as being in “good faith”. When, after three weeks, there had been no response from Moustakas, my attorney sent him a follow-up email on August 3, stating “We sent that letter to you on July 11, 2023, and we would like the FBI’s response in a timely fashion.”

The next day, August 4, Moustakas responded, “Have you received any response whatever? Is the search completely done? Is this the mining expert? Or it that L______?” The FBI/DOJ provided no further response to the letter. It’s unlikely that anyone would interpret this as a government agency acting in “good faith”!

Six weeks later, evidently disillusioned with working for the DOJ, AUSA, John Moustakas resigned. He emailed my attorney Pete Sorenson, and forthrightly declared late on September 12, 2023, at ten minutes to midnight, “Friday I am interviewing for another position to get the f out of here”, (excerpt of email in Section II). While my attorney and Moustakas did not always see eye-to-eye, they nonetheless seemed to have a close professional relationship.

A few months later, John Moustakas departed, and this case was passed on to AUSA Tabitha Bartholomew. Both Moustakas and Bartholomew seemed to be serially behind in their work commitments, frequently requesting extensions of time to meet their obligations to the court (refer to emails in Section II). I mention these details in the summary, as it reflects on the culture and corruption of the DOJ, adding another perspective that helps put in context the struggle I faced with holding it to account.

Section III: John Wilson Declarations – 2021 and 2022

This section contains my notarized Declarations.

The first declaration, dated November 16, 2021, deals largely with the issues surrounding my targeting following my work as an analyst on Freeport-McMoRan in 1996, including the work by my then long-term girlfriend Susan Holmes, who was an undercover FBI agent, threats made to me by a federal agent in Freeport’s boardroom alcove, threats and payback to at least seven other professionals critical of Freeport at the time, and Freeport’s activities in West Papua, Indonesia.

One of the annexures (Exhibit 3) includes the names of alleged Australian agents listed in an email I sent on June 14, 2013, to the former Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock, whom I met with on three occasions in his electoral office to discuss my complaint. Names included:

Robert Sadleir: Sydney; son of former ASIO Director General David Sadleir (1992-96);

Dr Trent Allen: Sydney, stockbroking analyst;

Michael and Claudia Hackman: Sydney business people;

Deborah Bye: Melbourne, former lawyer;

Daniel Aitken: Central Coast, NSW, and Boston, USA;

Richard Kaan: Sydney, former business consultant; and

Fabian Babich: Sydney, former stockbroking analyst

Other alleged Australian agents named in the Declaration include Charlie Cropper (formerly of the Eastern Suburbs, Sydney). Agent Susan Holmes in 2003, during the FBI’s covert interview in New York City at Café Fiorello, went further in her discussion of Cropper. She suggested he was part of a small coterie of 1980s college boys which the FBI referred to as the “rat pack”, some of whom were recruited to work for an Australian intelligence agency. (The original “rat pack” of the 1960s was an informal group of singers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, known for their sordid, wild carousing). She said that via this group, Australian agencies had been influenced by a would-be rival of mine who had “white-anted” (undermined) me. Holmes used the allegory of ancient Roman justice in relation to modern-day intelligence agency processes, where authorities gave the crowds a say in the punishment of “offenders” Barabbas and Jesus. She alluded to the thumbs up or thumbs down nature of a populist process – a nod, she said, to the role small cogs play in the modern-day intelligence agency process of who can end up on a watchlist, watchlists intended to chill civil society. She alluded to the, at times, arbitrary nature of ASIO/ASIS assessments, capricious and lacking in professionalism, and that they would have been consulted in the process of the FBI launching an attack on me.

Also mentioned in the Declaration are Richard Maish (formerly of ANZ and Warrama Consulting, Sydney), and Mark B. Wilson (formerly of Avalon, Sydney). There are more names of alleged Australian agents I could provide, but this list provides enough for the record to substantiate my claims of agency interference with me.

If there is a standing Royal Commission into our agencies at some point in the future, as recommended by Justice Hope in his two Royal Commissions of the Australian intelligence agencies in 1974 and 1983, this list of names is sufficient to establish the truth of my allegations and provide a basis for the Commissioner to dig deeper. Establishing a standing Royal Commission into the intelligence agencies was a key recommendation of the Hope Royal Commission. It was a key part of a two-step oversight process. The other was an internal regulator, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), which was subsequently established. However, without establishing the Royal Commission to bring judicial rigour, independence and public accountability to the oversight process, oversight of Australia’s intelligence community remains deeply flawed and open to wide abuse.

While Justice Hope designed a complete system of oversight for independence, rigor, accountability and justice, the politicians sought ultimate control of the oversight process and intentionally built it without the essential Royal Commission—a huge flaw that gives politicians backdoor control. The act of excluding the Royal Commission deprives members of the public a powerful judicial pathway for addressing grievances and a remedy for injustice.

A separate annexure (Exhibit 2) includes the name of FBI agents (operatives) I encountered through the late 1990s and 2000s in various letters sent to the DOJ/FBI over time including March 9, 2015, and February 23, 2016. Names included:

Michael Mills: the FBI agent who moved into my apartment in NYC at Apt 906, 170 West 74th Street, NY, NY 10023 in 1999 and occupied it for several years when I sublet it before my return to Australia.

Kathleen Walton: former mining analyst at Merrill Lynch in NYC.

Matthew Levey: – Kroll Associates, Inc (New York City midtown office): consulting work case manager 2003 and 2004. Former State Department employee.

Jeffrey S Robards: corporate finance, formerly Ernst & Young (E&Y) NYC. Now working for C.W. Downer & Co—a boutique M&A firm in Boston.

Susan A. Holmes (formerly resident in New York City in the 1990s); Sierra Club NYC volunteer; Dartmouth College; resides Washington, DC.

Stephan Chenault: volunteer Sierra Club NYC Group since 1990s.

John Klotz: volunteer Sierra Club NYC Group since 1990s.

Ben Worden, Rob Haggerty and Allison Dey (Tucson area): FBI agents involved with Diamond Mountain Buddhist group in southern Arizona and California.

George Schneider and Livingston Sutro (Sierra Vista, AZ); Jennifer Conner (NYC): Associated with Diamond Mountain Buddhist group in southern Arizona.

Paul Whitby: (Tucson): biologist.

Leigh Freeman: Cherry Creek, Denver based head-hunter. Downing Teal.

Robert Schultz: Albuquerque based head-hunter. MRC Mining Search. http://www.miningsearch.com/mining-search/our-team/

Steven D. Garber: (wife Andrea—collaborator) additional details: biologist; lived in Manhattan for much of the 1990s before taking a two-year posting to teach biology at Embry Riddle in Prescott, AZ, before returning to the New York area (White Plains). Books authored include The Urban Naturalist (New York. John Wiley and Sons. 1987). PhD in Ecology, Environmental Sciences—Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-Newark. BS in Natural Resources, Cornell University.

First Declaration 2021: This first Declaration was submitted to the court in 2021 as part of the evidence in my first FOIA court case against the FBI. It subsequently was appended to my second Declaration.

Second Declaration 2022: My second notarized sworn Declaration, dated August 30, 2022, was submitted to the FBI as part of my new FOIA request in the administrative appeal.

This second Declaration includes much additional material about my relationship with undercover FBI agent Susan Holmes from 1994 to 1997 in part to ward off comments that she was not a real girlfriend but part of the later (post-1996) FBI operation against me. The Declaration includes disclosures from Holmes to me, disclosures about her work for the FBI that an undercover operative would not make to their target. Our relationship lasted for three years, including an invitation to her parents’ home in Detroit for Christmas in 1997 to get engaged. It commenced in 1994, well before the threats and interference I started to receive in 1996 on account of my work on US mining company Freeport-McMoRan. Her disclosures to me include, on multiple occasions, details of her work for the FBI, her mother’s disclosures of the same, showing me her FBI ID card, FBI apparel like T-shirts and jacket, disclosure of multiple aspects of various operations she was involved with for the FBI and techniques used by the FBI. All these details are readily independently verifiable should there ever be an opportunity through the court to subpoena witnesses, including Holmes and Garber, FBI officials or find an independent regulator that is not “captive”.

Interestingly, Holmes also mentioned techniques used by the DOJ/FBI to evade accountability, including the mischaracterization of FBI operatives as “employees” or some other misclassification. She said she was not technically an employee of the FBI but worked for them in a role akin to an “independent contractor” like many other undercover FBI agents, which was denoted by the black background of her FBI ID card. This contrasted with the white background of FBI employees. Retaining the services of operatives as “independent contractors” as opposed to “employees” is a legal maneuver intended to shield the FBI from legal accountability for these agents conduct.

I found, as mentioned in my Declaration and also contained in the correspondence of Section IV, the DOJ/FBI repeatedly misclassified Holmes, Garber, Sutro and other FBI operatives I complained about. The DOJ/FBI created a strawman, misclassified them, then denied they were “Special Agents” or “employees” of the FBI, but never whether they were operatives of the DOJ/FBI. Despite multiple attempts by myself and attorney Barry Fisher over nearly two decades to get a response to this issue from the DOJ/FBI and US Attorney General, there were only ever evasions or non-responses from them. Never did they address the substance of the relationship of the DOJ/FBI to the operatives and thereby make themselves accountable for their conduct.

Also of interest, as transcribed in my Declaration August 30, 2022, when we were dating, Holmes and I were walking home late one evening in summer 1996 through NYC after an Irish folk music concert she invited me to. On our walk, she outlined various FBI tactics to me, recounted here over about fifteen pages, including those used to target dissidents, the use of FBI “honeytraps”, training, oversight, fishing expeditions, her FBI target David Foreman, etc. Some excerpts are below:

“It’s a big fishing expedition,” I remarked indignantly.

“Yes. A witch hunt,” Susan confirmed.

“But how do they get away with that,” I challenged circling back. “Doesn’t the FBI get accused of bullying or unethical behaviour? Isn’t there some kind of oversight process?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t stop it. So, it doesn’t look like a witch hunt, the FBI waits till they find some legitimate reason to investigate the target, or can manufacture a reasonably plausible reason, to justify their investigation, make it less obvious that it is vindictive,” she said. “Judges don’t like witch hunts, and there is a backlash against the agency if this is what it looks like. So, they conceal it, try to make it appear legitimate, like a discovery that came out of a routine, impartial investigation. Not a stitch-up. But some judges are motivated by ambition, not integrity, and are complicit.”

“What else does the FBI do to them?” I asked, assuming there must be a lot of things they could do to their targets, things they wouldn’t like.

“They try not to do physical things, not leave a physical trail to get the police and courts involved,“ she said.

“Another thing they do is smear them with sexual assault or complaints of abuse. They undertake a major fishing expedition,” she continued. “They look back to peoples’ college days— they almost always find something. And if they don’t find it there, they look wider, they go back through the teen and tween years, if need be, till something comes up. Somewhere they overstepped the mark, it doesn’t need to be rape or anything like that, it doesn’t matter how innocent or slight, so long as it was not welcome or out of line. The FBI can find something like this on virtually all men, and even many women.”

“You would be surprised,” she said continuing, again as a matter of fact. “Every male has something. The FBI always finds something. They even find something on a lot of females. If it is not in college, they look closely in later years’ and go back to high school years or earlier. They recruit people close to the person in that time or place they are looking at, find the people and ask them the questions. “Did so and so ever do anything inappropriate to you. Just curious. I heard something, I don’t know if it is true, and am just asking around. It doesn’t matter, they eventually find someone where something has happened. They can get someone to say something. Anything at all that could be construed as sexual assault; an unwanted kiss, an inappropriate hug, or something more.”

“But does this work? What does this do? Does anybody listen or care if it is a minor thing? High school, or puberty age, everyone seems a bit awkward, unsure, looking for boundaries,” I responded trying to understand what damage the FBI could do with this tactic.

“Yes. You can always get someone to listen, someone they [the dissident] cares about. It always has an impact somewhere, no matter how small.” Susan continued. “If it is college age, 18 or over, it is sexual assault. It is relatively easy to get someone to make a formal complaint about it to the police, even years later. They just encourage them to do it for the record. If it is a relatively minor thing, or at a younger age in high school, or even primary school, it still takes a toll on the target. There can still be a police report, the information leaked or given to people around the target to embarrass them. It still takes a toll, no matter what. But if it is serious, the person could go to jail. If they have done something wrong, they will get them a long sentence, the harshest punishment permissible. And sex offenders are treated as the scum of the scum in jail and prison life is very unsafe and hard for them.”

“If they find something to prosecute them for and the matter goes to court, the FBI gets a reporter friendly to the agency to cover the case, someone they are close to, maybe on the payroll, maybe gets preferential treatment from the FBI. They put it in the newspaper, whatever newspapers they can get to carry it, local, state, national – whatever level of coverage they can get for it. It doesn’t matter. They try to destroy them in the public eye.”

Section IV: General Correspondence—DOJ, FBI, Elected Reps

This section comprises emails and letters primarily between me or Barry Fisher, my long-term personal attorney on this matter from 2005 to 2022, and the FBI/DOJ. It also includes discussion between me and Barry assessing responses from the DOJ, FBI, OIG Senators, and Congressmen and looking at options for moving forward. Barry Fisher was a senior partner at Fleishman and Fisher, lawyers in Los Angeles, an esteemed constitutional lawyer who was referred to me by a friend from California. He was a valuable sounding board and advocate who also kindly offered his services to me on a generous reduced fee and pro bono basis. The responses we received to complaints we sent to the FBI, DOJ, and OIG were form letters, perfunctory in tone and substance, repetitive and they disingenuously side-stepped accountability.

The section is broken broadly into four chronological parts. In places, boundaries are moved slightly to maintain continuity of strands of correspondence. The four chronological parts are: 2004—2011; 2010—2014; 201—2019; and 2020—2024.

Correspondence includes that with my NYC congressman Jerrold Nadler, my New York senator, Chuck Schumer, as well as other representatives at various times over the span of nearly two decades, the House Judiciary Committee around 2005—2010, in addition to the DOJ, FBI, and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the DOJ. The OIG has responsibility for conducting investigations of DOJ/FBI employees and programs. My correspondence campaigns waxed and waned over this time, sometimes with intervals of five years or more, but in aggregate I contacted agencies and representatives multiple times over the span of around two decades from 2004 to the time of publication of this volume in 2024. I mention a few notable highlights below.

House Judiciary Committee: Around 2005, I directly contacted the House Judiciary Committee (HJC), which has oversight responsibility for the FBI, with details of my complaint. Jason Cervenak called me back and interviewed me at length, for around 1.5 hours and followed up with a second call to me with further questions. He was oversight counsel with the House Judiciary Committee and his number was 202 225 3926/6793(d). It was unusual for a staffer to act in this direct way, as I learned later, normally the Committee acts only upon representation and request from a member of Congress. Nothing came of his extensive interview. At his request, I gave him a detailed statement outlining FBI abuse, including names of individuals involved and he said he would contact them. My efforts to follow-up were stonewalled. His boss Mindy Barry became involved, speaking with and emailing me on several occasions. Still, nothing transpired. Eventually, both Cervenak and Barry were transferred into other departments. Some years later, in an attempt to rekindle the complaint, I contacted the Committee office but staffers could find no record of the complaint or interview file notes.

DOJ, Investigative Specialist, Marvin Hernandez: In 2006, DOJ employee, “Investigative Specialist” Marvin Hernandez acknowledged in an email to me on May 11, 2006, that one of the people I named without specifying which (from the list of Holmes, Garber, Sutro) was an employee of the FBI:

Good afternoon John,

Per our conversation, I wanted to let you know that the FBI, acknowledged on out of the three individuals as being employees. Unfortunately, the other 2 individuals, are not, and have not been employed with the FBI.

I will let you know, what else can be done.

He later retracted this. I believe he did so under duress. Marvin subsequently advised me that the DOJ management had told him to not correspond or talk with me any further. I believe he was correct in making his original disclosure to me and his subsequent retraction is unreliable. This subsequently was stone walled by the DOJ/FBI and went nowhere.

Senator Charles Schumer: As a Federal Voter (US citizen residing overseas) registered in NYC, I approached my elected federal representative Senator Chuck Schumer, for help, via my attorney Barry Fisher. Senator Schumer followed up with the DOJ/OIG about my complaint, but the DOJ/OIG merely responded to him with similar shallow blow-off statements from their form letters. As Barry Fisher emailed me after receiving a copy of the DOJ/OIG letter dated August 9, 2006, sent to Senator Schumer, “John-here is the response to Shumer. not very helpful. Barry”. Despite my requests to take the matter further and probe the FBI/DOJ evasive and non-responses to the substance of the complaint, Senator Schumer took the matter no further and stopped corresponding with myself and Barry Fisher.

Over the years, I approached other elected reps for assistance too, including my second NY federal senator, Senator Hillary Clinton, in May 2005 (and later in 2022, I contacted her successor, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand). At the behest of Congressman Nadler’s staffers, I contacted Congressman Scott, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee later that year. Nothing budged on any front. There was no discernible action anywhere to hold the FBI/DOJ accountable on the matters comprising my complaint.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC): In 2007, having met only dead ends with requests for accountability from the FBI/DOJ in the USA, I sent a complaint via Barry Fisher to UNHRC on April 14, 2007. The UNHRC responded August 20, 2007, that they did not have jurisdiction over FBI/DOJ abuses as the USA is not a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Congressman Jerrold Nadler: In 2009, I circled back to my NYC Congressman, Jerrold Nadler. In September 2009, I met with Congressman Nadler’s staffer Celine Mizrahi in the federal office building in NYC. During the meeting, a large security guard made his presence known, constantly wandering the corridors by the congressmen’s offices with loud clanging keys, chains, handcuffs and weapons, as if transported from a scene in a Dickens novel. While the meeting with Celine went well and she said she would talk to the Congressman about my case and act on a number of fronts, nothing was ever acted on. Her promised action points on behalf of Congressman Nadler, all which came to zero, included:

1. Follow up with the House Judiciary Committee over their staffer’s previous interviews with me and records of enquiries they made; ascertaining the Committee’s powers and rights with respect to the FBI/DOJ in relation to investigating the specifics of the allegations I have raised; ascertaining the steps/process for further enquiry/investigation.

2. Direct follow up with the FBI/DOJ to broaden the terms of reference.

3. Follow up with Senator Schumer’s office to ascertain status of my complaint with regards to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

4. Celine offered to undertake/discuss further action that may be appropriate.

Over the following two years from November 2009 to November 2011, I sent emails and made multiple telephone calls to her or her boss, Ellen Wallach, most of which went unanswered. In the end, there was no follow-up by Congressman Nadler on anything. My last email in relation to the meeting was sent November 10, 2011, to Celine Mizrah and cc’d to Ellan Wallach:

Hi Celine,

I have not heard back from you since December 2010 – nearly 12 months, despite a number of attempts to contact you. At that time you confirmed that Congressman Nadler, a member of the House Judiciary Committee – a Committee which has oversight responsibility for the FBI, would raise my concerns with staffers at the Committee and you would provide me with feedback.

As a registered Federal Voter in Congressman Nadler’s NYC district I initiated dialogue with his NYC office over two years ago. I would like to bring closure to this matter of prolonged FBI interference with myself (ongoing for 15 years) and I seek my Congressman’s help in this regard. I am concerned that there has been no further communication from you and would appreciate any clarification of the status of your enquiries into this matter.

Thanks and regards.

John

It’s a pity nothing moved forward from my personal point of view, the point of view of the Indigenous people of West Papua, Indonesia, living under military oppression, and strengthening the authenticity of democratic channels in America.

The United Steelworkers Union (USW): Allied concerns: I was not the only one seeking clarity and being rebuffed about what was happening in West Papua, Indonesia. In addition to at least seven other professionals already mentioned that had been targeted after speaking out on Freeport, the powerful United Steelworkers Union (USW) in the USA was also rebuffed by the DOJ. The USW made a request to the DOJ to investigate allegations, reported in The Wall Street Journal, that Freeport made direct payments to Indonesian police in contravention to the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act. In February 2013, I emailed the USW to see what response they received from the DOJ (news item and my email below). The DOJ fobbed the USW off, saying it wouldn’t comment and suggested instead, it follow-up directly with the Indonesian government.

Hi,

I am a former Wall Street analyst doing some work on Freeport. Where did your complaint to the DOJ get to concerning the below issue about Freeport? Are there any letters/documents you can share? [See article below]

Mining News: US DOJ investigation.

Grasberg at 5% capacity: report, 7 November 2011

“…… the recent revelations that Freeport made payments to Indonesian police have resulted in a United Steelworkers request for investigations from the US Department of Justice.

“The Indonesian police have recently been quoted in the local media acknowledging that they accepted millions of dollars from Freeport-McMoRan’s Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport to provide security for the miner’s operations in Papua, Indonesia,” the major US union said.

“The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bans companies from paying foreign officials to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty.”

A spokesman from the US Department of Justice declined to comment on the matter, according to the Wall Street Journal.”

http://www.miningnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=2491536Mining News: US DOJ investigation.

Regards.

John Wilson

The USW responded with the DOJ’s response:

We received an initial response from the DOJ on April 27, 2012 saying that they reviewed the allegations, but “cannot comment publicly on whether we are pursuing a particular matter.” The letters also encouraged us to bring the events of October 10, 2011, to the attention of appropriate authorities in Indonesia. That was the last we heard.

Unfortunately, “That was the last we heard” is an oft repeated sentiment from individuals and groups after attempting to hold US corporations and government agencies to account.

Section V: Freedom of Information Requests (FOIA), Administrative Appeals, and OGIS Mediation

This section comprises applications and correspondence over multiple attempts to access FBI records on myself through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. These efforts from 2004 to 2022 resulted in no significant releases, despite Holmes and Garber stating the existence of an FBI file on me, outlining some specific contents, and the ongoing interference in my life as outlined in the 2023 letter to AUSA John Moustakas, included earlier in this volume.

In 2014, the FBI released one disc of documents which ostensibly comprised correspondence concerning my FOI requests. A second disc was released by the FBI in 2023, again related to correspondence around FOI. The FBI refused to release certain documents claiming either “criminal” investigation exemption (in 2014) or “other than criminal” exemption (2023)—an inconsistency in application of exemptions without explanation.

I appealed the FOI findings to no avail, and mediation services through the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), National Archives and Records Administration, to no avail around 2017—2019.

Subsequently, I retained FOIA lawyers and filed two lawsuits against the FBI/DOJ.

From 2004 to 2024, various FOIA attorneys have made requests for accountability from the FBI/DOJ through FOIA. These include Rachel Minter, David Sobel, David Rankin and Peter Sorenson. At the time of publication of this volume, Peter Sorenson is litigating against the FBI/DOJ on my behalf under FOIA.

One of the FOIA attorneys whom I retained from a large firm some years ago in NYC left me with cause to wonder if one or more of the team advising me had been compromised. Thery acted, at times, in a way consistent with what FBI operative Susan Holmes disclosed years prior as being FBI techniques intended to weaken or undermine legal action. This included sending me key documents at the twelfth hour to review and edit with no prospect for me to respond meaningfully in time. I was instructed verbally over the phone by an associate to exclude quotations in my Declaration—contrary to what other lawyers advised was good practice—statements that form the basis of evidence and credibility. I felt taunted by the partner on several occasions who explained that being co-opted by the FBI was only an issue if they were caught doing so and then held to account; that I was way too naïve in having confidence in democratic processes to resolve my complaint in a just way; and long-winded phone conversations where they frequently skirted the substance of issues. Having said that, there were also moments of seemingly genuine effort and input on their part.

As with the previous section, Section IV, I have included email trails of communication with different lawyers, in part to illustrate different approaches, strategizing as to who to talk to, which reps, and so on. It is included also partly as a record of correspondence with elected reps and other officials. It also shows the large amount of accumulated time and effort over the years (spread intermittently over two decades) not just be me, but attorneys as well, giving the illusion that the wheels of justice are turning whereas, in reality, there was no progress in that direction whatsoever. Indeed, the incessant time and delays undermine justice, weaken memories and corrode evidence. As one well-placed person said, “It is not by accident that there is no way through this,” alluding to the legislation and captive regulators that make the system a brick wall to most.

Office of Government Information Services (OGIS): The OGIS offers FOIA mediation services between federal agencies in the USA and the public. Following my initial approach to them, Barry Fisher emailed and called them. However, disappointingly, their processes were not discernibly different to the FBI’s—no transparency, no follow through with witnesses, and long, inexplicable delays. On October 24, 2017, Barry emailed me in palpable frustration the response he received from OGIS to the message he left them months before: “I received this today as a response to my email and call months ago.” OGIS’s response was boilerplate, including the unhelpful message: “Your case is in our queue pending assignment.” Six months later, after further efforts to engage OGIS, Barry emailed me April 10, 2018: “[n]ever possible to reach someone by phone??and if live person, someone knowledgeable or simply registering concern?”

On June 11, 2018, after over twelve months of attempting to engage OGIS, I emailed Barry seeking alternative avenues to address FBI abuses and lack of accountability: “This [] FOIA appeal review has now been sitting with OGIS for over a year – one could reasonably wonder if there is any real hope of resolution here….” On June 16, 2018, I emailed Barry a sampling of various dead ends we had hit in seeking accountability:

[T]he complaint is shifting from FBI abuse, to lack of any viable means for individuals abused by which the FBI can be held accountable, i.e. oversight channels compromised or ineffective – based on loss of my complaints, interview records and files by the House Judiciary Committee (you spoke with a couple people there at one point about my case); no access to records via FOI; inordinate delays (in the vicinity of 12 months) in their correspondence and refusal to address the substance of complaints; year/s in delays to address appeals; no follow through from congressman (Nadler) and senators (Schumer) in seeking accountability. You have been involved in much of this over the years and know firsthand the number of avenues we have tried and the nature of meaningless or incorrect answers and in cases no response at all. There is probably more I could add, but this gives you the gist of it.

Whether the channels lack independence, are compromised or underfunded is not the point. It is that they are not effective – in effect system leaves people in my position without any rights regards justice/fairness, etc.

Barry responded: “yes, corrupt system. inspector general Horowitz justice department jumps to trump/republican requests but connected to you, others, including imprisoned oppressed client of mine, a dead ear, unmoving hand. and getting worse”

Alternatives Options: There are few ways through, it seems: a careless fragment left by the intelligence agencies in the form of physical evidence could be their undoing in court; or access to a well-connected individual with the influence to make things “happen” within the agencies. Who knows, maybe one day one of the courts will call the FBI/DOJ’s “bad faith” conduct by name, subpoena witnesses and allow cross examination to get to the truth.

Despite the intent of the US Constitution and separation of powers, the US system has subverted justice to the point that the federal government’s totalitarian-like intelligence agencies are able to get away with whatever their counterparts in totalitarian states elsewhere in the world can.

Irrespective of the David and Goliath power indifference, I pushed ahead with judicial review. With next to no expectation of justice, it seemed, at least, a way to create a permanent record of events. A record that removes control of the narrative from the intelligence agencies with their incessant deceptions, manipulations and propaganda, and offers an opposing point of view.

On May 9, 2019, I asked Barry what we should do next given the FBI had justified its incursions into my life for matters concerning “criminal” investigation. What that was about or what I was accused of was never disclosed, merely hidden behind FBI-claimed exemptions in their response to FOIA request:

Can I re-engage your services to help with a renewed effort to get to the bottom of whether I am a suspect or have been “legitimately” investigated by the FBI for some possible or alleged crime? It is now over 20 years since the interference began, and over 5 years since the last FOI request was responded to (in 2014). The implication of 552a (j)(2) in the FBI FOI response appears to be that I am or have been a suspect or investigated by the FBI for some possible or alleged crime – is that correct? How do I find out what it is the FBI has suspected me of, or investigated me for?

As you are aware FOI requests went nowhere and previous requests to the internal inspector general at DOJ provided no useful information.

Recent OGIS emails re my request for arbitration are below – but ultimately the process went nowhere.

Barry recommended I commence an FOI lawsuit working with a specialist attorney in that area. In an email to me June 26, 2019, he re-affirmed his view:

the judicial and legislative branches of the government are the only separate one that might look at what the executive branch, DOJ, State etc., have or have not done. Nothing has resulted from direct complaints to the executive and legislative branches. perhaps if there was implication of Clinton and/or Obama administrations, this executive regime or the republican controlled senate might take interest. otherwise, the judicial branch.

Given the expected high costs and doubtful prospects of victory, litigation had not been an approach I wished to pursue. But my view changed in 2020.

Section VI: FOIA Judicial Review

Since 2020, I have filed two lawsuits under FOIA against the FBI.

The first lawsuit was filed in New York by David Rankin of BLHNY (based in NYC) in December 2020. We had a technical victory that forced the FBI to conduct further searches, but no new documents were released. (Costs were partially awarded, the bulk of which were assumed by BLHNY, and which they intended to appeal at their expense).

The second lawsuit was filed in Washington, DC, by Peter Sorenson of Sorenson Law LLC (based in Oregon) in October 2022 (ongoing at time of publication of this volume in 2024). In an apparent coincidence, Pete disclosed he was also the attorney to David Foreman, the environmental activist and co-founder of Earth First! targeted in the mid-1990s by my then girlfriend, FBI agent Susan Holmes.

In both cases, testimony was provided by an expert witness, Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent and veteran of twenty-five years.

Overall, the court documents, based on sworn Declarations tell the detailed story of FBI retribution against me for work I undertook as a Wall Street mining analyst covering NYSE listed US mining behemoth Freeport-McMoRan’s activities, through its associate PT Freeport Indonesia, at its Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia. The company was reportedly under investigation by the US Department of State at the time, following eyewitness allegations it was involved in the killing of Indigenous protestors and other human rights and environmental abuses. (As mention, the company denied these claims and they were not subsequently proven in court.)

These documents are from FBI filings in an FOIA case against the FBI in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The case is ongoing as of May 2024.

Declaration of FBI Veteran, Expert Witness Jennifer Coffindaffer—FOIA Case

Excerpts from the Declaration of former FBI agent, Expert Witness, a 25-year veteran of the FBI, Jennifer Coffindaffer are below, in support of the Plaintiff, John Wilson. She attests the FBI is not acting in “good faith” and suggests a number of key databases the agency neglected to search. As former FBI Special Agent, Senior Supervisory Resident Agent (“SSRA”), and Supervisory Special Agent (“SSA”) Jennifer Coffindaffer explains in her Declaration:[36]

2. I was retained by counsel for the Plaintiff to review and evaluate the totality of the records provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) pursuant to Mr. Wilson’s Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) Request No. 1548515-000 and to give my expert opinions thereafter as to the adequacy of the search conducted by the FBI and any Exemptions asserted by the FBI with respect to the records requested.

3. In developing my opinions, I have relied on my knowledge, training, skill, education and experience developed during my 25 years as FBI Special Agent, Senior Supervisory Resident Agent (“SSRA”) and Supervisory Special Agent (“SSA”) with the FBI, including specific experience in the areas of conducting electronic searches, and finding and retrieving documents within the FBI’s databases, including: the Central Records System (“CRS”), Automated Case Support system (“ACS”), Sentinel Electronic Surveillance files (“ELSUR”), Informant Databases (“DELTA”) as well as other FBI databases. I have also relied on the experience of fellow agents and clerks in the FBI related to searches within the same FBI databases.

20. In short, there is no reason for any records to remain hidden more than 20 years after the documents were created and using GLOMAR as an excuse to not produce the records undermines the legitimate use of GLOMAR to withhold records under FOIA.

21. Based on the FBI’s track record of unresponsiveness concerning the production of records regarding the Plaintiff’s FOIA responses, and a court ordered recommendation, it is my opinion that the FBI’s assertion that they have acted in “Good Faith” and have been responsive is not accurate. Specifically, initially the FBI responded they had no records. Then, the FBI responded they had one record. Then the FBI responded they had 22 records but provided limited production of the 22 records. Then the FBI asserted they had 35 records, yet again limited the production. With each request, the FBI’s answer has changed.

22. Based on each of the points cited above, it is my opinion that the FBI has not in good faith conducted responsive searches pertaining to the Plaintiff’s FOIA requests.

Appendix

[1] Washingtonblog, 20 June 2013, NSA Whistleblower: NSA Spying On – and Blackmailing – Top Government Officials and Military Officers

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-nsa-spying-on-and-blackmailing-high-level-government-officials-and-military-officers.html

[2] Jenny Denton, 18 October 2013 Swedish Pension Funds Divest Freeport McMoRan Holdings, Environmental News Service. http://ens-newswire.com/2013/10/18/swedish-pension-funds-divest-freeport-mcmoran-holdings/

[3] Elizabeth Brundige, et al., Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic Yale Law School, April 2004, Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control.

[4] Hugh Brody, 30 November 2011 December 1, 1961: Fly the flag of independence – West Papua and the Indonesian Empire, www.opendemocracy.net

[5] Denise Leith 2003, The Politics of Power Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia, University of Hawai’i Press. p7, footnote 10 p262.

[6] Robert Bryce, 1 September 1996 Spinning Gold, Mother Jones.

[7] Bob Carr, 7 December 2016 Donald Trump is finding new enemies where he should be seeing allies, The Sydney Morning Herald.

[8] Washingtonblog, 20 June 2013, NSA Whistleblower: NSA Spying On – and Blackmailing – Top Government Officials and Military Officers

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-nsa-spying-on-and-blackmailing-high-level-government-officials-and-military-officers.html

[9] James Risen and Laura Poitras, 28 September 2013 N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens, The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=US_NGD_20130928&_r=0

[10] Annie Machon, 5 October 2013 Intel union: Spy agency heads won’t roll with US and UK allied, RT. http://rt.com/op-edge/nsa-gchq-prosecute-spy-leaders-770/

[11] Kendra Cherry, undated, The Milgram Obedience Experiment: The Perils of Obedience, psychology.about.com, downloaded 10 February 2014. http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm

[12] Quote from former US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara from 1961 to 1968, who was a key architect of the Vietnam War, in the 2004 documentary The Fog of War.

[13] Tom McKay, 21 March 2022 Princeton Study Discovers What Our Politicians Really Think About Us, New York Progressive Action Network,

https://nypan.org/about/news-and-updates/2022/3/21/princeton-study-discovers-what-our-politicians-really-think-about-us

[14] Mark Hosenball, 12 June 2013 Edward Snowden Search Began Days Before NSA surveillance Program Reports Went Public, Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-security-snowden-hunt-idUSBRE95B1A220130612

[15] Noam Chomsky 17 August 2013, Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy, Salon. http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy/

[16] Eben Kirksey, 2012 Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power, Duke University Press, p68-p73.

[17] Brian Knappenberger, 25 November 2013 Why Care About NSA Spying, The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002571435/why-care-about-the-nsa.html

[18] Kurt Opsahl, 27 November 2013 The NSA is Tracking Online Porn Viewing to Discredit “Radicalizers”, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[19] Washingtonblog, 20 June 2013, NSA Whistleblower: NSA Spying On – and Blackmailing – Top Government Officials and Military Officers

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-nsa-spying-on-and-blackmailing-high-level-government-officials-and-military-officers.html

[20] Katie Rogers, 2 October 2013 Glenn Greenwald and Janine Gibson: 10 highlights from their Reddit AMA, Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/01/glenn-greenwald-janine-gibson-reddit-nsa

[21] Glenn Greenwald, 27 September 2013 Sen. Ron Wyden: NSA ‘repeatedly deceived the American people’, Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/27/ron-wyden-nsa-systematically-deceived

[22] Kurt Opsahl, 27 November 2013 The NSA is Tracking Online Porn Viewing to Discredit “Radicalizers”, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[23] Ronald Kessler, 2011 The Secrets of the FBI, Crown Publishers, NY as reported by Jay Stanley, 15 October 2013 On the Prospect of Blackmail by the NSA, American Civil Liberties Union.

[24] Jay Stanley, 15 October 2013 On the Prospect of Blackmail by the NSA, American Civil Liberties Union.

[25] Kurt Opsahl, 27 November 2013 The NSA is Tracking Online Porn Viewing to Discredit “Radicalizers”, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[26] Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher, Ryan Grimryan, 26 November 2013 Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit ‘Radicalizers’, Huffington Post.

[27] Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher, Ryan Grimryan, 26 November 2013 Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit ‘Radicalizers’, Huffington Post.

[28] Hemann Hesse, 1927 Steppenwolf, Penguin Group 2009, translated by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd 1929, p28.

[30] Judith Wright, 1981 The Cry for the Dead, Oxford University Press,

[31] Elizabeth Brundige, et al., Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic Yale Law School, April 2004, Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control, p23.

[32] Denise Leith 2003, The Politics of Power Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia, University of Hawai’i Press. P227

[33] Ben Bohane, Liz Thompson, and Jim Elmslie, 2003West Papua Follow the Morning Star, Prowling Tiger Press, p100.

[34] Ed. Alan Whittaker, 1990 West Papua: Plunder in Paradise, Anti-Slavery International, p15.

[35] Peter Mathiessen, 1962 Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea, Penguin Group, p151-172.

[36] Jennifer Coffindaffer’s full Declaration is contained in Section IV of the Appendix in this volume.

Posted in Aboriginal, ASIO, ASIS, ASIS, corporations and financial services, corruption, dissident, FBI, Freeport McMoRan, Grasberg, Holmes, human rights, Indigenous, indigenous rights, Indonesia, Inquiry into whistleblower protections in the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors, intelligence agency, JCATSIA, joint parliamentary committee, Kissinger, Kroll, Levey, Matthew Levey, mining, national security, non fiction, oversight, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes, UNDRIP, War criminal, West Papua, whistleblower, Wilson | Tagged ASIO, ASIS, Ben Worden, books, CIA, corruption, FBI, Freeport, Freeport McMoRan, Garber, Grasberg, Holmes, human rights, intelligence agency, kissinger, news, OPIC, politics, Ross Cameron, travel, West Papua, Woolsey | Leave a comment

John Wilson’s The Untold Story of the FBI: Unveiling State Corruption and Intelligence Agency Abuses

Posted on December 16, 2024 by mininganalystnow

Explore John Wilson’s exposé on state corruption within the Five-Eye intelligence agencies, blending personal narrative with archival evidence. Discover how the book sheds light on alleged abuses by the FBI, DOJ, ASIO, and ASIS, revealing a web of surveillance, manipulation, and intimidation.

John Wilson, a former Wall Street mining analyst, delves into the dark underbelly of intelligence agencies in “The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst.” Through a mix of personal accounts and detailed records, Wilson uncovers systemic abuses by the FBI, DOJ, ASIO, and ASIS.

The book chronicles Wilson’s journey since his groundbreaking 1996 report on Freeport-McMoRan, exposing environmental degradation and human rights violations in Indonesia. The ensuing backlash from the FBI includes covert surveillance, psychological tactics, and attempts to discredit Wilson through police interventions.

Drawing parallels between Wilson’s experiences and broader systemic issues, the book reveals how government power can silence dissent, target activists, and manipulate professionals. It examines corporate influence, political lobbying, and the chilling effects of surveillance and covert actions on democracy and human rights.

Wilson’s inclusion of documents and court records bolsters the book’s credibility, serving as a valuable resource for researchers and shedding light on alleged institutional power misuse. By exploring global implications and key players like Henry Kissinger, the CIA, and Australian intelligence agencies, Wilson broadens the narrative’s scope, underscoring the far-reaching effects of U.S. intelligence activities.

Delving into personal encounters with an undercover FBI agent, the narrative exposes the lengths to which intelligence agencies may go to monitor and control individuals. Critics have drawn parallels to dystopian literature, emphasizing the disturbing portrayal of systemic power abuses.

An article by business reporter Gareth Hutchens on ABC 15 December 2024 titled Australia leads the world in arresting climate and environment protesters touches on related themes:

A new study was released in recent days that should have been newsworthy, but it escaped the media’s attention in Australia.

It showed Australian police are world leaders at arresting climate and environmental protesters.

…..Australian efforts to repress climate activism are part of an alarming global trend to squash dissent. They characterise that trend as a “threat to both the environment and liberal democratic systems.”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-15/australia-leads-world-in-arresting-climate-environment-activists/104721294

Here are additional details and insights into The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst by John Wilson:

1. Broader Implications of Surveillance

Wilson’s experiences are framed as part of a larger issue concerning civil liberties and the erosion of democratic accountability. The book critiques how intelligence agencies may manipulate legal systems and use their resources to suppress dissenters, even in cases where the dissent is against corporate malfeasance. This raises questions about the balance between national security and individual freedoms.

2. Connections to High-Profile Figures

The narrative brings attention to the influence of prominent figures, such as Henry Kissinger and James Woolsey, in lobbying for corporate interests. Their involvement in the Freeport-McMoRan controversy underscores the intersection of business, politics, and intelligence operations. This element makes the book not only a personal account but also an exposé on systemic power dynamics.

3. Structural and Institutional Critique

Wilson discusses how secrecy within intelligence agencies enables abuses to persist, often unchecked by oversight bodies. He highlights the role of culture within these institutions, particularly the use of informal and covert operations that evade scrutiny. This critique extends beyond the FBI, touching on global intelligence practices and partnerships, such as those with Australian agencies.

4. Interpersonal Dynamics

One particularly striking aspect is Wilson’s account of being in a long-term relationship with an undercover FBI agent. This personal element not only adds a dramatic layer to the narrative but also illustrates how far-reaching surveillance tactics can be, intruding into the most intimate aspects of an individual’s life.

5. Planned Series Expansion

The book is the first in a four-volume series. Future installments are expected to explore:

• The U.S. State Department’s role in West Papua, Indonesia.

• Collaborations with Australian intelligence agencies.

• Transcripts of covert interviews conducted by the FBI. These volumes promise to provide a more comprehensive view of global intelligence practices and their impacts.

6. Potential for Broader Impact

The book has been lauded for its detailed documentation, which could serve as a resource for scholars, journalists, and policymakers interested in intelligence accountability. It also invites readers to consider how such practices might affect whistleblowers, activists, and others who challenge powerful entities.

If you’re intrigued by its themes, the book is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other book retailers:

Barnes and Noble: (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-untold-story-of-the-fbi-john-wilson/1146308174?ean=9781763521407)

Amazon: (https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi&crid=5EI7XX55KYW7&sprefix=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi%2Caps%2C652&ref=nb_sb_noss)

Author website: https://wordpress.com/post/mininganalyst.net/602

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ASIO, ASIS, bullying, CIA, corruption, FBI, Freeport, Freeport McMoRan, gaslighting, history, human rights, Intelligence agency abuses, intimidation, news, politics, surveillance, West Papua | Leave a comment

New book available: The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst: DOJ

Posted on September 21, 2024 by mininganalystnow

The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst – DOJ, by John Wilson is now available.

This book/archive documents efforts of John Wilson to hold the FBI to account following his work as a Wall Street mining analyst covering US company Freeport-McMoRan. It’s a chilling account of political retribution as dystopian as any in Kafka.

Buy the book:

Kobo: (https://www.kobo.com/au/en/search?query=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi&fclanguages=en)

eBooks.com: (https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/searchapp/searchresults.net?term=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi)

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and via multiple other retailers in ebook, hard and soft cover formats. More purchase options listed at bottom.

Description

This book documents the long-standing efforts of John Wilson to hold the DOJ and FBI to account. It’s a chilling account of political retribution as stark and dystopian as any in Kafka.

It follows FBI retribution after a work report Wilson authored in March 1996 as a Wall Street mining analyst critical of US mining behemoth Freeport-McMoRan’s activities at the Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia. At the time, the company was under investigation by the US State Department following eye-witness allegations it was involved in the killing of Indigenous protestors. At least seven other professionals were targeted at this time in retribution for their work critical of Freeport.

The federal insurance agency OPIC had recently cancelled Freeport’s political risk policy citing environmental concerns. It was a major embarrassment for Freeport and the first time in OPIC’s 25-year history that it had canceled a policy. Henry Kissinger (former US Secretary of State) and James Woolsey (former CIA Director) were advisors to Freeport in 1996. They were in Washington DC desperately lobbying to have Freeport’s rescinded policy re-instated.

Through letters, Declarations and court documents, Wilson recounts FBI tactics to target “dissidents” that include the use of secret surveillance, cancel culture, and gas lighting – all furtive activities that undermines American democracy.

Adding a twist to the tale, and background on the FBI’s secretive programs, John Wilson’s long-term girlfriend at the time was a professional environmentalist and an undercover FBI agent. It was also one of his key relationships the FBI targeted.

Note: The book comprises around 50 pages of background and summary narrative in the front, and an extensive archive-appendix in the back (from page 62) that contains supporting documents and records.

(Further details below…)

About the Author

John Wilson was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. He is a dual Australian/US citizen and lived in the USA in the 1990s for eight years, six of which were in New York City. During this time, he worked as a mining analyst on Wall Street for global British investment bank SG Warburg and SBC Warburg (now part of UBS Warburg) where he covered US mining companies, including Freeport-McMoRan. Prior to that he worked as a mining engineer in outback Australia. John has an MBA with a major in finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a BA from the University of Queensland and a BE from the University of Sydney. In 1999, he left the USA as a direct consequence of FBI persecution and currently lives in Sydney with his wife and two children.

Review Quotes

[Review excerpt from Andrew Gibbs, Senior Editor at BusinessMK]

I wanted to express my admiration for the incredible work you’ve done with your book.

Your words resonate deeply, particularly when you say, “I feel in a small way I have helped expose an abusive, secretive intelligence agency culture that uses ruthless tactics at home and abroad.” As a reader, you absolutely achieved this. Your detailed exploration of the FBI’s practices opened my eyes to their true interests and methods.

Your relentless efforts, documented through years of writing letters, filing FOIA requests, engaging with elected representatives in Australia and the USA, raising issues in parliament, and consulting with lawyers, journalists, human rights advocates, regulators, and various staffers, speak volumes. The frustratingly slow or non-existent responses and the eventual bureaucratic dead-ends you encountered highlight the enormous challenges you faced. Yet, you persisted. This unwavering commitment is truly inspiring.

Your narrative about how these experiences infiltrated your life to the extent that you had to move countries is both compelling and courageous. It adds a powerful personal dimension to your book, making it even more relevant and impactful.

I believe you’ve written an exceptionally important book, one that is not only relevant to your audience but also deeply engaging for me. [Reading] it has been a unique experience, and unlike any other project I’ve worked on, this one is particularly close to my heart. I have immense respect for your activism against such a powerful agency.

Your book will undoubtedly serve as a valuable resource for current and future citizens and residents of the USA. It provides crucial insights into their countries’ governance and history, and it will help many understand the complexities and the stakes involved.

Further Details

This book/archive documents and tells the story of the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) corruption and evasion of accountability when targeting civil society “dissidents”. It also tells of Wilson’s efforts to hold the FBI and DOJ to account.

The official documents and correspondence appended in the archive paint the picture of the corrupt means by which these agencies crush and silence civil society in support of America’s corporate behemoths. Their tactics are Orwellian and Kafkaesque. For the most part, Wilson’s efforts from 2004 to the publication of this work in 2024, and those of his attorneys over the past twenty years, have been thwarted, compromised by hollowed out oversight agencies and regulators.

Intended as a historical record of official documents, appended are Wilson’s notarized Declarations and court documents that include evidence of FBI malfeasance, oppressive surveillance, wiretaps, entrapment, gaslighting and cancel culture. These Declarations contain detailed accounts of events, and disclosure of FBI methods targeting “dissidents”. Agents are named, dates and locations provided, and details of events discussed. The archive comprises correspondence either directly by him, or his attorneys, with various FBI/DOJ departments, elected representatives including Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Jerrold Nadler, and Freedom of Information requests (FOIA).

Some notable documents in the book’s archive include a detailed letter from Wilson’s attorney Pete Sorenson to Assistant United States Attorney John Moustakas at the DOJ outlining, in detail, multiple FBI abuses directed at Wilson; the Declaration of former FBI agent, Expert Witness, a 25-year veteran of the FBI in support of Wilson’s case that the FBI is not acting in “good faith” in relation to this matter; and a report on undercover FBI operative Dr Steve Garber based in Stamford, CT, instigated by Wilson’s then New York law firm that retained the services of a private investigator to provide background reports on various undercover FBI operatives subject of his complaint.

The book provides backstory of the events that occurred since Wilson’s Wall Street analyst report came out in 1996 critical of US mining company Freeport-McMoRan’s activities in West Papua, Indonesia. It sheds light on the travesty occurring in resource rich West Papua, Indonesia, backed by the US, where New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed Freeport-McMoRan has interests in the massive Grasberg copper and gold mine. The book also contains background on the US surveillance state. It provides context for the complaint letters, included in the appended archive, he has sent over the years to the FBI and DOJ, among others, and outlines FBI retribution against him. Key points and timelines are provided in this volume, however, it is not intended as a narrative that offers a complete account of events. A narrative will be included in volume two.

At least seven other people in the USA were targeted for their criticism of Freeport-McMoRan around this time, including journalists and academics. Our intelligence agencies frequently covertly target professionals, those who speak out, or protest, against establishment interests, typically on business and human rights issues. As one agent, Steve Garber said to Wilson, most people in America don’t even realize they’ve been targeted.

Buy the book:

Ebook

Kobo: (https://www.kobo.com/au/en/search?query=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi&fclanguages=en)

eBooks.com: (https://www.ebooks.com/en-au/searchapp/searchresults.net?term=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi)

Print copy (hard and soft cover formats)

Barnes and Noble: (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-untold-story-of-the-fbi-john-wilson/1146308174?ean=9781763521407)

Amazon: (https://www.amazon.com.au/s?k=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi&crid=5EI7XX55KYW7&sprefix=the+untold+story+of+the+fbi%2Caps%2C652&ref=nb_sb_noss)

The book is also available via multiple other retailers.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged CIA, donald-trump, FBI, news, politics, trump, West Papua | Leave a comment

FBI not acting in “good faith” – former FBI agent and veteran of 25 years

Posted on March 30, 2024 by mininganalystnow

Wilson Vs. FBI – FOIA Update 2022-2024

Court documents below tell the detailed story of FBI retribution against a Wall Street mining analyst for his work covering US mining behemoth Freeport McMoran’s activities at its Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia. The company was under investigation by the US Department of State at the time, following eyewitness allegations it was involved in the killing of indigenous protestors and other human rights and environmental abuses.

These documents are from FBI filings in an FOIA case launched by analyst John Wilson against the FBI in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The case is ongoing as of March 2024. Pete Sorenson is John Wilson’s attorney.

Declaration of FBI veteran, Expert Witness Jennifer Coffindaffer – FOIA case

Excerpts from the Declaration of former FBI agent, Expert Witness, and 25-year veteran of the FBI are below. In their Declaration they point out multiple shortcomings in the FBI’s search – skirting its obligations under FOIA. They attest the FBI is not acting in “good faith” and suggests a number of key databases the agency neglected to search. Excerpts from their Declaration:

22. Based on each of the points cited above, it is my opinion that the FBI has not in good faith conducted responsive searches pertaining to the Plaintiff’s FOIA requests.

– Declaration Of Expert Witness

Two Declarations of John Wilson

The Declarations of John Wilson detail the extensive facts indicating the existence of response records held by the FBI:

First Declaration of John Wilson: FBI – Defendant’s Exhibits to Seidel Declaration – redacted
Second Declaration Of John Wilson

DOJ and FBI – subverting American democracy

John Wilson is publishing mid-2024 the archives of his long-standing efforts, and that of his attorneys, to hold the DOJ and FBI to account in the USA. The archive is a repository of emails, letters, notarized Declarations and court documents.

It reveals methods used by the DOJ and FBI to delay and evade accountability. The picture that emerges is of corruption at the heart of the US justice system.

John Wilson describes the FBI’s use of secret surveillance to track and target relationships, smear campaigns in social and work circles, cancel culture, and gas lighting, among other FBI tactics that undermine civil society and democracy in America.

In making this archival repository public, the intention is to preserve these documents, and the insights they shed into the inner workings of the US government, for the historical record.

As undercover FBI operative Steve Garber said to John Wilson, “Most people never realise they’ve been targeted by the FBI!” This is something that could happen to anyone in this new America! It could already be happening to you, and you don’t know!

Background – Freeport McMoran, West Papua, Indonesia and militarised mining

In October 1995 the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) cancelled the political risk insurance policy of US mining company Freeport McMoran. It was the first time in OPIC’s 25 year history that the federal insurance agency had cancelled a policy and the company feared the negative PR backlash.^[1] The cancellation was a major embarrassment to the company, with OPIC citing environmental abuses, and the market potentially associating it with human rights abuses linked to the killing of indigenous protestors at the company’s Grasberg mine in West Papua, Indonesia.

Henry Kissinger (former US secretary of state) and James Woolsey (former CIA director) ^[1] were advisers to Freeport in 1996 (Kissinger was also on the Board of Directors) and were desperately lobbying in Washington DC to have Freeport’s OPIC policy re-instated at the time my Wall Street mining analyst report came out 12 March 1996, that drew the FBI’s attention. The Chairman/CEO Jim Bob Moffett arrived in West Papua the next day on an emergency trip following ongoing reports of human rights abuses in the vicinity of the Grasberg mine and growing concerns from the Indonesian President Suharto and US leaders to quell unrest.

Kissinger and Woolsey knew the screening mechanisms used by the FBI and other intelligence agencies, and could have subverted these, if they chose, to payback people, and silence them. Indeed, at least 7 other US professionals, in addition to John Wilson, including academics and journalists, complained of retribution for their work critical of Freeport at this time.

Adding a twist, John Wilson’s long-term girlfriend at the time, Susan Holmes, was a professional environmentalist with the Sierra Club and an undercover FBI agent. It was an opportune relationship for the FBI to target. She had a deep passion for the environment and added first-hand insight into the inner operations of the FBI dissident program that included targeting the environmentalist, co-founder of Earth First!, Dave Foreman.

The FBI, to make it appear John Wilson was an associate of eco-activist Dave Foreman, had him attend a lecture in NYC in 1997, and a rafting trip in Foreman’s dory down the Colorado – to subvert the screening process intended to keep innocent people off FBI watchlists, etc.

By subverting the screening process, the FBI is positioned to abuse its powers, subvert civil liberties and undermine democracy in the USA.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

The full listing of recent court filings from the Defendant (FBI) and Plaintiff (Wilson) are below.

Plaintiff’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment

(Filed 21 March 2024)

FBI – Defendant’s Motion of Summary Judgement

(Filed 22 February 2024)

[1] Denise Leith, 2003 The Politics of Power, University of Hawaii Press. p177.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged constitution, corruption, FBI, FOIA, Freeport, Grasberg, human rights, news, politics, trump, West Papua | Leave a comment

Australia’s secretive intelligence agencies undermine indigenous rights in Australia and regionally. ASIO and ASIS abuses have a common theme: profiteering from natural resources.

Posted on August 20, 2023 by mininganalystnow

Severe shortcomings in our intelligence agencies’ priorities and oversight regards Indigenous Peoples include:

ASIS bugging of East Timor’s parliament for oil and gas;
Assistance in suppression of indigenous people in West Papua, Indonesia for copper, gold, gas and more; and
Failure to act to prevent damage to indigenous cultural site Juukan Gorge, WA for iron ore.

It is time to vote Yes on The Voice.

The below is an excerpt of a submission made to the Australian parliament Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in February 2023 – RE: Inquiry into the application of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Australia.

Australia ratified the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2009 under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

[A link to the full submission is below]

(1) Overview

In the spirit and requirements of UNDRIP Australia should make reforms in specific areas discussed below to better serve the interests of indigenous people both at home and through its interactions with indigenous people offshore.

Strengthening Australia’s support for and implementation of the principles of UNDRIP will require review, and likely amendment of security legislation which is excessively partial to the status quo; and secondly, oversight of Australian intelligence agencies should be strengthened to ensure UNDRIP principles are respected and complied with by the agencies – specifically, a standing royal commission into the Australian intelligence agencies with broad terms of reference that encompasses the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), ought to be implemented as recommended by Justice Hope which was a key recommendation of his royal commission into the intelligence agencies in the 1970s but never implemented.

Australian intentions to adopt and support UNDRIP have been and continue to be undermined by Australian intelligence agencies that operate within an outdated mindset and insular worldview with counterproductive results that negatively impact broader national security interests. Our agencies, most notably ASIS and ASIO prioritise economic interests and vague notions of protecting “relationships” often ignoring or working against Indigenous people’s rights.

Examples of our intelligence agency shortcomings include:

1. Australia’s covert bugging of the East Timor parliament by ASIS to gain financial advantage. Even in the widely publicised case of Witness K and Bernard Collaery’s exposure of ASIS’s egregious, illegal bugging of East Timor’s parliament and Australia’s subsequent fraudulent misappropriation of a significant portion of East Timor’s oil and gas revenues, Australian regulators, most notably IGIS, did nothing to remedy the matter.

2. Australian intelligence agencies have played a central role in the political and military alliance against West Papuans in subjugating Melanesian traditional owners to Indonesian rule, a matter that is deeply divisive within the wider region. Many of our island neighbours are Melanesian and identify closely with aspirations of West Papuan indigenous people for a fair plebiscite. The military annexation of West Papua was deemed illegal by many of our neighbours after a rigged plebiscite in 1969 that was conducted under Indonesian military coercion and an unrepresentative process that undermined the integrity of the vote, according to reports by UN observers. Adding insult to injury, West Papua was a staunch WWII ally of America and its annexation is widely viewed as a betrayal by American, UK, and Australian governments. Australia has provided funds and military hardware to Indonesia knowing it was highly probable these would be used in the oppression of Melanesian West Papuan indigenous people,

3. Australian agencies failed to protect, and prevent the destruction of, 46,000 year old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in May 2020.

________________________________________

[The below link is a slightly modified version of my submission to JACATSIA Australian Parliamentary Inquiry. At the Committee’s discretion, the submission was not accepted as a formal “submission” for public disclosure. It was, however, accepted as correspondence for private review by the Committee and staffers.]

A full copy of the submission is available for download here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/r73mhm6k3bsbrl39hrk2o/JSCFADT-submission-and-attachment-merged-2023.pdf?rlkey=1ufy3exqc5b5pyxux715xqb96&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8ggqy3zaw4nkjbpj3ueaq/JSCFADT-rejection-notification-March-2023.pdf?rlkey=ndw4osrdosl7odbelr3rn1p57&dl=0

[Also on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mininganalyst%5D

Posted in ASIO, ASIS, ASIS, corruption, Freeport McMoRan, human rights, Indigenous, Indonesia, intelligence agency, mining, national security, oversight, UNDRIP, West Papua | Tagged ASIO, ASIS, Collaery, East Timor, Freeport McMoRan, Juukan Gorge, UNDRIP, West Papua | Leave a comment

FBI Gaslighting Tactics Revealed: FBI Abuse

Posted on August 19, 2023 by mininganalystnow

[Excerpts from Attorney Pete Sorenson’s letter to DOJ Assistant United States Attorney John Moustakas 11 July 2023 – link to full letter below]

NYC, 2003, Café Fiorello: FBI undercover agent Holmes interrogation of Wilson: Gaslighting – psychological attacks.

According to his Declaration, Mr. Wilson had a lengthy discussion with [FBI operative] Susan Holmes at Cafe Fiorello in New York City in 2003. Mr. Wilson has informed me that he is prepared, if this
matter goes to briefing, that the FBI has failed to search for and provide him with records
regarding this conversation. To illustrate the memory of, and notes he has on, this conversation,
Mr. Wilson will state under oath some of the more specific details of the conversation. These
include:

a) During Holmes’ questioning of Wilson she would periodically ask Wilson to
describe specific scenarios about the future, imaginative events, and stories. When
Wilson had no response to many of her requests, Holmes would implore him to
“Say anything. It doesn’t matter. Just say anything. Make it up,” she said
repeatedly.

b) In this vein, Holmes asked Wilson about 25 or 30 different topics and scenarios
and Wilson gave brief answers, many of which subsequently were presented to
Wilson in various ways at various times years later, gaslighting him as a form of
psychological attack. Examples are below.

c) Rembrandt costume: Holmes asked: “What would be a weird or outlandish thing
to wear to a business meeting, if you were to wear something to make fun of the
person, to mock, or to show you weren’t taking them seriously? Just come up with
anything, it doesn’t matter”, she said. Wilson intentionally offered ridiculous and
absurd imagery he said intrigued and to play along with what he found to be
Holmes’ odd conduct that evening. Wilson described a distinctive baggy
Rembrandt type costume, oversize floppy shoes, a very baggy suit, loose white
shirt with frills and a broad brimmed, large floppy hat.

d) In 2010, Wilson who owned a boutique equity research business at that time in
Sydney, states he interviewed a well credentialed job applicant. In September,
2011 Wilson received an email from someone claiming to be a Wharton MBA
who gave his name as Peter Benda. Wilson had never met him. Benda said he was
involved with the mining industry and in Sydney from the USA on business.
Benda, the applicant, arrived at Wilson’s offices wearing the distinctive
Rembrandt costume and turned out to be a fake candidate.

e) Mr. Wilson has stated that he had a second, similar experience. Holmes asked
Wilson to imagine he was interviewing someone for some position in the future.
“Describe something odd or unusual they might do while waiting for you,” she
requested. “It doesn’t matter. Just say anything!” Perplexed and intrigued about
Holmes’ odd behavior and questions, Mr. Wilson states that he described someone
in a dated business suit – Indiana Jones style, wearing a fedora or similar hat,
reading an archaic technical book on maritime navigation for sailors, someone
who was planning to undertake an epic round the world sailing odyssey.

f) Wilson further stated that, in 2010, Wilson, who owned a boutique equity research
business at that time in Sydney, interviewed another well credentialed job
applicant. The applicant, Fabian Babich, a well-known former Sydney equity
analyst and someone who Wilson had been warned of by operative Andrew
Martin now worked for an Australian intelligence agency, arrived at Wilson’s
offices an hour early and needed to wait. wearing the distinctive clothing
described by Wilson to Holmes, and reading an archaic maritime navigation
manual in prelude to an epic sailing trip he said he was planning. Again, Babich
turned out to be a fake job applicant.

g) Additionally, Mr. Wilson has stated that Holmes asked, “Describe a trip you
would like to do or wish you had done. Suggest anything; what souvenirs or
artifacts would you have purchased?” Wilson suggested a trip into West Papua,
Indonesia. “How would you do it, how would you organize it, what would you
bring back? Just say anything,” she encouraged. What was the point of all this
Wilson wondered, sensing these were questions whose answers she didn’t really
care about. She repeated the refrain: “It doesn’t matter, just say anything. Make it
up.”

h) Wilson described an epic trip into Papua New Guinea, a river trip up the Fly
River, taking river boats or canoes to different villages along the river and
returning with some crafts from the area. “What crafts?” she insisted. Wilson said
jokingly “three massive totem poles”. “How would you arrange or plan such an
expedition?” she continued. Wilson replied, ”I would ask a seller of PNG arts and crafts in the Sydney suburb of Paddington for their travel connections, agencies
and ideas on where to go and how to proceed.”

[e) sic] C.2008, in Sydney, Graeme Jolly, a lawyer Wilson knew from years’ ago bumped
into Wilson in the street and invited him back to see his legal offices. There, three
massive West Papuan totem poles lined the entrance and Jolly outlined where he
had got them outlining all the same details Wilson had provided to Holmes in
2003, as well, Jolly’s name and details had come up during the conversation. Jolly
had no interest in adventure travel, no particular interest in indigenous
communities and his story seemed fake to Wilson. Furthermore, Jolly was aware
of recent private events concerning Wilson, suggesting he had been “gotten to” by
a partnering Australian agency.

i) 4. House furniture: Continuing, Holmes asked Wilson, “What furniture would you
like for your house one day?”. Holmes pushed for answers. “Just say anything off
the top of your head. It doesn’t matter. Just make it up!” Wilson flippantly
described some bizarre furniture using small off-cuts of wood or any available
building material to make a rustic, hodge podge bar, stools and chairs of
assembled and overlapping off-cuts in a basement room.

j) In 2005, Mr. Wilson was introduced to Clark and was shown his home renovation
in Balmain, a suburb of Sydney. In his basement, he had the same bar, stools and
chairs as Wilson had described to Holmes in 2003. Clark said he had personally
made using offcuts. It was out of keeping with the rest of the furnishings in the
house and style of the renovations. Clark’s behavior was odd, he seemed
uncertain, and his explanation seemed fake.

k) There were other scenarios Holmes asked Wilson to describe which over time
were brought to the attention of Wilson in Sydney, or elsewhere, in the years after 2003. These included an introduction to a composer’s musical composition; a short film synopsis, details of a kids’ school skit, an outlandish party, distinct details of a eulogy for a parent, distinct odd comments at a high school reunion, distinctive odd tailor-made toys, and so on.

l) The creative scenarios on many of the topics Susan had asked Wilson to describe
to her in 2003 gradually over the years appeared in his life. They manifested in
unexpected places, at unexpected times, and with unexpected people. It soon
became clear why she had kept pushing him for answers, no matter the content,
saying, ” It doesn’t matter. Just say anything. Make it up.”

Download full letter:

Attorney Pete Sorenson’s letter to Mr. Moustakas AUSA, July 11, 2023

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q7nhzjn7prskr0tt9bjdy/Wilson-v-FBI-Search-and-Exemption-Letter-1-.docx.pdf?rlkey=cudhp695cnov8cv8klgj8t4io&dl=0

Letter to: John Moustakas Assistant United States Attorney outlining FBI abuse

Posted on August 14, 2023 by mininganalystnow

Overview

Attorney Pete Sorenson’s email and a link below to the letter he sent to Mr. John Moustakas AUSA, July 11, 2023.

The letter concerns FBI abuse of former Wall Street mining analyst John Wilson after work he published on US mining company Freeport McMoran. Attorney Sorenson has requested the FBI release records concerning Mr Wilson under FOIA which have been withheld by the FBI utilizing fake “exemptions”:

Moustakas email

John Moustakas
Assistant United States Attorney
601 D Street, NW
Washington, DC 20530
(202) 252-2518
john.moustakas@usdoj.gov

July 11, 2023

Dear John Moustakas,

Attached is a letter to you. Please send it to the FBI. Please respond in due course.

C. Peter Sorenson

Sorenson Law Office

Download full letter:

Attorney Pete Sorenson’s letter to Mr. Moustakas AUSA, July 11, 2023

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q7nhzjn7prskr0tt9bjdy/Wilson-v-FBI-Search-and-Exemption-Letter-1-.docx.pdf?rlkey=cudhp695cnov8cv8klgj8t4io&dl=0

[Also on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mininganalyst%5D

Posted in ASIO, ASIS, corruption, FBI, Freeport McMoRan, Garber, Grasberg, Holmes, human rights, indigenous rights, Indonesia, mining, national security, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes, West Papua, Wilson | Tagged Andrew Martin, Fabian Babich, gaslight, Graeme Jolly, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes | Leave a comment

Letter to: John Moustakas Assistant United States Attorney outlining FBI abuse

Posted on August 14, 2023 by mininganalystnow

Overview

Attorney Pete Sorenson’s email and a link below to the letter he sent to Mr. John Moustakas AUSA, July 11, 2023.

Moustakas email

John Moustakas
Assistant United States Attorney
601 D Street, NW
Washington, DC 20530
(202) 252-2518
john.moustakas@usdoj.gov

July 11, 2023

Dear John Moustakas,

Attached is a letter to you. Please send it to the FBI. Please respond in due course.

C. Peter Sorenson

Sorenson Law Office

Download letter:

Attorney Pete Sorenson’s letter to Mr. Moustakas AUSA, July 11, 2023

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q7nhzjn7prskr0tt9bjdy/Wilson-v-FBI-Search-and-Exemption-Letter-1-.docx.pdf?rlkey=cudhp695cnov8cv8klgj8t4io&dl=0

___________________________________________________________________________________

Email reply:

Mr John Moustakas, Assistant United States Attorney, in response to follow up three weeks later:

From: Peter Sorenson <peter@sorensonfoialaw.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2023 8:45 PM
To: Moustakas, John (USADC) <JMoustakas@usa.doj.gov>; Peter Sorenson <peter@sorensonfoialaw.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Wilson v FBI, 22-3062-ABJ / response to P’s 7-11-2023 letter

John,

We sent an extensive letter concerning the search concerns we have. We sent that letter to you on July 11, 2023 and we would like the FBI’s response in a timely fashion.

[Redacted]

Pete

From: Moustakas, John (USADC) <John.Moustakas@usdoj.gov>
Sent: Thursday, August 3, 2023 6:23 PM [note 9:23 PDT]
To: Peter Sorenson <peter@sorensonfoialaw.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Wilson v FBI, 22-3062-ABJ / response to P’s 7-11-2023 letter

Have you received any response whatever? Is the search completely done? Is this the mining expert? Or it that L______?

From: Peter Sorenson <peter@sorensonfoialaw.com>
Sent: Friday, August 4, 2023 2:45 PM
To: Moustakas, John (USADC) <john.moustakas@usdoj.gov>; Peter Sorenson <peter@sorensonfoialaw.com>
Subject: Wilson v FBI, 22-3062-ABJ / response to P’s 7-11-2023 letter

No response whatsoever. It’s Wilson v FBI.

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Posted in ASIO, ASIS, corruption, FBI, Freeport McMoRan, Garber, Grasberg, Holmes, human rights, Indigenous, indigenous rights, Indonesia, intelligence agency, Kissinger, Kroll, Levey, Matthew Levey, mining, national security, Steven Garber, Susan Holmes, UNDRIP, West Papua, Wilson | Tagged ASIO, ASIS, FBI, Freeport McMoRan, Grasberg, John Moustakas, Kroll, Matthew Levey, Moustakas, Steve Garber, Susan Holmes, West Papua | 1 Comment

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mininganalystdotnet

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Wilson FBI Complaint Dossier – November 2025

The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst: DOJ Volume 1

Preface

Introduction

Who runs America?

West Papua, Indonesia

Conclusion

Archive Overview

Appendix

John Wilson’s The Untold Story of the FBI: Unveiling State Corruption and Intelligence Agency Abuses

New book available: The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst: DOJ

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Australia’s secretive intelligence agencies undermine indigenous rights in Australia and regionally. ASIO and ASIS abuses have a common theme: profiteering from natural resources.

FBI Gaslighting Tactics Revealed: FBI Abuse

Letter to: John Moustakas Assistant United States Attorney outlining FBI abuse