Who Is to Blame? Holding Multinational Corporations Accountable for Atrocities in the Coalfields by Rachel Jennings
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • July/August 2013 Vol. 26 Issue 6•
Where they operate in countries around the globe, coal companies lack accountability. Even identifying the names of companies or their executives can be difficult. When Sister Valsa John was hacked to death by a mob on November 16, 2011, many news accounts reported that she had been threatened by the Indian “coal mafia” because she had tried to protect the land and way of life of the indigenous Santhal people in the east Indian state of Jharkhand. Practicing mountaintop removal, a coal company had been forcibly displacing the Santhal people from their homes. One finds little additional information, however, about this “mafia” affiliated with an unnamed powerful coal company. In the United States, too, holding individuals and companies responsible for crushing unions, ignoring basic safety standards, and practicing mountaintop removal is difficult. Corporate mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies make prosecutions and lawsuits more symbolic than effective in combating crimes against workers, residents, and the environment. A case in point is the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in Montcoal, West Virginia on
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April 5, 2010. Massey Energy, which owned the mine through its subsidiary, Performance Coal Company, filed for bankruptcy not long after the explosion and was acquired by Alpha Natural Resources (even the name is obfuscatory, lacking the word coal). Don Blankenship, a legendary figure in Appalachia due to his role in crushing strikes and unions and promoting mountaintop removal, has become the individual most often blamed for the Upper Big Branch disaster. In interviews for TV and film documentaries, he becomes a larger-than-life figure, a symbol of all that is wrong in the Appalachian coal fields. While Don Blankenship is completely blameworthy and should be held accountable, we must not divert our attention from the real culprits, which are corporations exploiting regions across the world from South Asia to Latin America to Appalachia. Multinational capitalism is the true culprit, not a hillbilly villain who meets stereotyped expectations of Appalachian backwardness and satisfies some core need for a sole individual to blame. n
Murder of Sister Valsa in Hired Killers for Big Coal by Rachel Jennings
Letter to a Jesuit: On the India by
Her death hits me hard, Father, though I had not heard of her until this news. To be honest, I know little about her Church. What I know now is just that she was a nun hacked to death by a merciless mob for supporting the rights of the Santhal people against the avarice of a mining company. Your question was whether I believe in the Devil. You are serious, and so am I. In Appalachia, growing up, we had few doubts about the Devil. He was a force, a power, in our lives. We knew why we could not pay the rent, why our mother had cancer, why gas built up in a mine. And if the Devil is not incarnate in coal companies or coal bosses, a notion you warn me against, we all being creatures of God, let us just say that coal executives everywhere
have been lured to greed, tyranny, lies by what you call the Evil Spirit. And I agree with Baudelaire, whom you quote, that the Devil’s “most clever trick is to convince us that he does not exist.” No one wants to believe the evil acts of coal barons across the globe. My friend Marie, who suggested I write, agrees the Devil roams but begs me to focus on holy saints like Sister Valsa. That is, the good in the world. I must try to remember her counsel. Thank you for responding, Father. The murder of the sister hits me hard. For your insights, your guidance on this topic, accept my thanks. I see you are right. Sister Valsa John (1958-2011)