VZCZCXRO8455
PP RUEHGR
DE RUEHPO #0291 1372004
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 172004Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARAMARIBO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8331
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE
RUEHAO/AMCONSUL CURACAO 1032
RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA 0076
RUEHMT/AMCONSUL MONTREAL 0008
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC

UNCLAS PARAMARIBO 000291 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAR LLUFTIG, WHA/EPSC, OES/ENV, EB/IFD/OIA, 
EB/ESC/IEC, AND CA/OCS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EMIN ETRD ELAB ECON EINV SENV NS CA
SUBJECT: STRIKE AT CANADIAN GOLD MINE IN SURINAME 
¶1.  On Sunday, May 14, some 300-500 employees of the Rosebel 
Gold Mines N.V. ("Rosebel"), a subsidiary of Cambior 
(Montreal-headquartered international gold-mining company), 
engaged in a work stoppage called by non-accredited union 
 
representatives. This forced Rosebel to suspend all 
activities at its gold mining operations in Suriname. The 
group leading the strike demanded increases in salary, to be 
denominated in U.S. dollars, improved health care, and 
better working conditions. Workers, who took control of the 
front gate and several buildings, prevented mine management, 
including at one point as many as three American citizens, 
from freely circulating or departing the premises of the 
mine.  A first group of 50-80 people fled the mine the 
evening of May 15 via a back road, leaving some 20 
expatriate workers including one American citizen on the 
premises.  Many of these were essential personnel overseeing 
gold and explosives; they were eventually confined to one 
administration building by the striking workers. 
 
¶2.  After pleas from Cambior and the Canadian Ambassador, 
the Government of Suriname on the evening of May 16 told 
labor leaders to return their grievances to the bargaining 
table or face military action against what had effectively 
become a hostage situation.  As of May 17, equipment and 
effective control of the mining site has been returned to 
Rosebel, but miners have not yet returned to work. 
¶3.  Labor-management negotiations on the workers' demands 
have been complicated by a lack of clarity on their current 
union representation. The current officially certified union 
responsible for representing the gold miners at Rosebel is 
"C-47."  Rosebel management claims the workers have not 
voted to change their representation to the competing 
Moederbond union which apparently was behind this work 
action.  In fact, one of the strike demands was that the 
Moederbond be recognized, a step management rejected given 
their uncertainty about employee preferences.  Rosebel has 
requested assistance from the Government of Suriname to 
clarify workers' representation at the Rosebel mine. 
¶4. The two-year-old Rosebel mine employs about 950 workers 
in total. The open-pit gold mine, 100 kilometers south of 
the capital of Paramaribo, is owned 95 per cent by Cambior 
and five per cent by the Suriname government. The company 
expects this year's production to amount to 335,000 ounces 
of gold. The rise in international gold prices has spurred 
growing cries for a renegotiation of Cambior's concession 
terms among Surinamese pundits and politicians of all 
stripes. 
¶5. The union responsible for instigating this action - De 
Moederbond - is Suriname's oldest labor union organization, 
and is politically linked to former president Jules 
Wijdenbosch's party DNP-2000, which now sits in the 
opposition. The president of De Moederbond is Errol 
Snijders, who previously served as Minister of Labor and 
Minister of Foreign Affairs in Wijdenbosch's cabinet. He is 
known to have been a strong supporter of opposition party 
leader Desi Bouterse's NDP party before the rift between 
Wijdenbosch and Bouterse leading to the formation of the DNP 
party in 2000. C-47 is led by Robby Berenstein, who is a 
former member of parliament, and is politically linked to 
Suriname Labor Party (SPA) one of the parties of the current 
ruling coalition. 
 
 
¶6. The remaining American citizen employee arrived in 
Paramaribo in the afternoon of May 17.  It is yet to be 
determined whether the company plans to take actions against 
the striking workers, or when the two sides might reach the 
bargaining table over the workers' demands. 
¶7.  Comment:  The union's actions put the governing 
coalition in a difficult spot, caught between workers' 
demands against a multi-national corporation perceived as 
reaping huge gains from increased world gold prices, and the 
legitimate concerns for Suriname's investment climate image 
should such aggressive actions as hostage-taking be allowed 
to supplant the normal negotiating process.  The story isn't 
over yet, but a volatile situation has for the moment been 
defused. 
LEONARD