Note: This letter was sent by way of participation in an Oxfam Campaign and borrows content from a sermon by Sociologist Anthony Campolo on corporate responsibility.
Golden Star Resources Ltd.
10901 W. Toller Drive, Suite 300
Littleton, Colorado
80127-6312 U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Tom Mair,
I read the reports from Oxfam (who is like the Mother Theresa of global care and relief agencies), and like a lot of people, I don’t know how to get through to you. We live in a time when people do not believe there will be an accounting for what we do, for how we live our lives. We live in a time when people believe that the lives of one set of families must be improved by exploiting another set of families – in short, we live according to the most primitive ethos with the most advanced technology. We’re savages with computers.
I am asking you to consider the following words, which no doubt you’ve heard before:
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He improved the land, and strengthened the land, and he gave it into the trust of some men to keep in good faith as honorable stewards of the land. When it was time to harvest the good rewards from the land, he sent his servant to the tenants to collect his share. But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him back empty-handed. So the landowner sent another servant, and they hit this one on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent another servant and that one they killed. He sent many others, and some of them they beat and some of them they killed. Finally, he sent his own son, whom he loved, thinking “They did not respect my servants, but they will respect my son”. But the tenants had a meeting and decided, “This is the heir. If we kill him, the land will be ours to do as we please.” So they took him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to these stewards when he comes?
When you read that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness of it, the earth and all that is in it.” what does that mean to you? You see, you’re not the owners of the land or of the company, not really. You are just stewards, temporary keepers of the land, but it belongs to the Lord. And you are not running the company, and keeping the land, and treating his servants with integrity, and decency, and goodness, and kindness, and fairness, and compassion. And one day the owner of this ‘vineyard’ is going to come back. And when he does, he’s going to get you.
Prestea, Himan, and Dumase are servants of God. The Bogoso/Prestea Mine, and indeed all the land that it impacts, are the vineyard. You are the stewards, and God is the Lord who is coming back to collect.
I urge you to rise above the law of the jungle, and think about how your company can *both* turn a profit and do it with righteousness. I urge you to think about how you can make every dollar you earn a dollar earned from compassion more than greed. No one wishes to deny you your desire to take care of your
families and improve your place in the world. But when it is improved on the backs of the poor, the helpless, the voiceless, then it is not really improved. We have merely traded, in that moment, our heart, our soul, our compassion, our capacity for honoring our fellow human beings, for extra wealth. We’ve sold our birthright for a bowl of stew.
No one can make you better but you. But remember, that on that last day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord – on that day, you will not be able to say that you were not told. These words will rise up in the voices of angels, and you will be called to answer, if you do
not listen to them. The poor will stand up and, even if they are going into the fire, will point their fingers at you and say “There they are. These are the ones who broke our backs, and the backs of our wives and children.” And the Lord, who is the Protector and Mighty Defender of the poor, will hear them, and you will know dread.
Save yourselves. Be compassionate to the poor. “For as much as you have done it to the least of these, the poor, my brothers, you have done it to me.” Those are the words of the Lord who hears, the Lord who sees, the Lord who never forgets.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
- Daniel DiGriz