Resignation After Demolition Of The Aboriginal Site
The boss of the mining company Rio Tinto and two other top managers resign. As the Australian-British company announced, Managing Director Jean-Sébastien Jacques will vacate his post by March 2021 at the latest, if a successor is not found beforehand. With this move, the group is responding to the demolition of two important Aboriginal sites in May of this year in the Juukan Gorge for the extraction of iron ore.
In 2014, an archaeologist found important artifacts in the caves in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, including a 28,000-year-old kangaroo leg bone that had been machined into a pointed tool and a 4,000-year-old belt made of human hair.
The age of the two sites in the Juukan Gorge is estimated at 46,000 to 48,000 years. They are among the oldest settlement areas on the continent. Its destruction had sparked a storm of indignation and led to a parliamentary investigation.
Irreplaceable loss
The UNESCO chairman for the protection of cultural property, Peter Stone, had called the demolition a "tragedy" and one of the worst destruction of cultural property in recent history. Stone compared it to the destruction of the Buddha statues of Bamiyan by the Taliban and the Syrian oasis city of Palmyra by the "Islamic State".
"What happened in Juukan was wrong," admitted Rio Tinto. The company will ensure that the company never again destroys a cultural heritage of such exceptional archaeological and cultural importance. In August, following the protests, the board had already cut the bonuses of the three top managers. An internal investigation showed that although Rio Tinto obtained the necessary permission for the blasting, the blasting itself did not meet the Group's "standards and internal guidelines".
The chief of the Aboriginal Legal Claims Council (NNTC), Jamie Lowe, welcomed the resignation of the top executives. This sends "a strong message to the entire mining sector". In doing so, the Rio Tinto board of directors shows that it is ready to "take the decisive first step towards accountability". The reduction in the premiums, however, was not a sufficient measure.