WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO EAT

At 80 years, Opanin Kwadwo Boahene, Oman Abusuapanin of Yayaso in the Birim District of the Eastern Region, has seen it all. Since Newmont broached the idea of exhuming royal and ancestral corpses in order to bury mineral waste in the royal mausoleum and ancestral groves, he had known no sleep.

'All night, I stay awake. I cannot believe what I am hearing. They want us to remove our souls so they could put the effect of the degradation of our soils in the­ir place. It is agonising. We cannot accept this supreme sacrifice for a pittance they are offering,' Abusuapanin Boahene told The Chronicle on cellular phone, his voice visibly shaking.

To add insult to injury, Newmont has destroyed cocoa farms that feed the community. According to Opanin Boahene, most people have had their farms bulldozed. 'Maame Akosua Apedua and James Nkansah were going to harvest their cocoa. When they arrived in their various farms, bulldozers were at work. Their entire livelihood had gone. It took a lot of counseling to get them regain their health,' the Abusuapanin lamented.

Since then, 14 cocoa farmers have had their cocoa farms destroyed, according to the Abusuapanin.

'Now they say we should leave our town and settle in another community. We have nothing to eat. They have destroyed our farms. What are we going to feed on in another community? We are not moving.

Some of us are prepared to die in our own homes than to become destitute in another community,' Opanin Boahene said, calling on the government to come to their aid.

Meanwhile, The Chronicle can report that the youth of Yayaso have turned themselves into vigilantes keeping guard over the royal mausoleum, the Yayaso Town Cemetery, and other ancestral groves.

'We are positioned at the cemetery to ensure that no one sneaks in to exhume our royals and other dead bodies, or desecrate the resting places of our ancestors,' Mr. John Appenteng, one of the youth keeping guard over the resting place of the their ancestors, told The Chronicle.

In Accra, External Affairs and Communications Director of Newmont, Adiki Ofeibea Ayitevie, described the new development as unfortunate.

He said Newmont had involved the local community in all negotiations, and that as a company that takes its social responsibility seriously, the multi-national company had met all its responsibilities in connection with the evacuation of the people of Yayaso.

'We have worked out a compensation package for the community. We have reached an agreement under the Agriculture Improvement and Land Access Programme Agreement with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, under which Newmont would pay for land for the potential evacuees in their new settlement community for farming purposes, with extension service technicians providing the technical know-how to improve on their yields.

'Currently, the scheme operates in our mining communities in the Brong Ahafo Region. We are going to do the same in the Akyem Area. We want to help the people in both food and cash crops,' Ofeibea assured.

She said Yayaso community elders and opinion leaders were involved in all the negotiations. 'It took the negotiation team nine months to work out fitting compensation packages in line with the country's laws and Newmont's social responsibility code to work out everything.'

The External Affairs and Communications Director said the Land Administration and an expert from the School of Land Economy, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, were involved in working out the evacuation plan, resettlement, and their compensation packages.

'We have never sold our host communities short,' Adiki Ayitevie stated.

Yesterday, The Chronicle reported the story of a stand-off between Newmont and the people of Yayaso following the decision by the gold mining company to exhume the mortal remains at the royal mausoleum and other ancestral groves in the town to pave the way for the company to deposit mineral waste in their place.

The Yayaso town residents are also required to evacuate the town to Adeesina, a town two miles down the road, as part of the deal. But the residents have refused to leave.

In a petition to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, dated December 5, 2010, the residents of Yayaso complained of the destruction of their heritage sites, including the royal mausoleum, public cemetery, and other sacred sites, and invited the Ministry to intervene.