Requiem for Raymond

Raymond Jeffery, an Australian citizen, was murdered on 3 August 1995 while working as a management consultant to Marcopper Mining Corporation, on Marinduque Island in the Philippines.

This tragic incident occurred several years ago, and the responsible parties are still at-large.  Unfortunately, there has been no apparent progress in finding Ray's killer(s), despite Marcopper's reward for information, plus assurances that the Philippine National Police and even the Philippines' National Bureau of Investigation are involved.

Prior to his death, Ray indicated that he was directly involved in negotiations to resolve an ongoing labor strike affecting the mine site, in the course of his responsibilities as in-house consultant to Marcopper over that period.  During one extensive visit, Ray indicated that due to the strike (then well underway) precluding transport of people or provisions in or out of the mine site, he was required to eat nothing but fried chicken for several weeks (hardly the diet-of-choice for a cardiac patient otherwise extremely fat-conscious).

Marcopper's legal officer, Ted Gabor, was quoted in a 5 August 1995 article in The West Australian (copied below) immediately after Ray's murder as saying, "Ray was never in any way related to that labour dispute.  As a matter of fact, when that strike was on, he was back in Australia."  This is clearly untrue.  Ray's first visit to the company's island mine site was in July 1994, and until his death just over one year later, Ray was based there continuously, except for a few brief (around 3-week) visits home to Perth, after which he returned each time at the company's what-seemed-like desperate request. 

Indeed, in the same paragraph, Mr Gabor is quoted as describing Ray as a "Labour Relations Expert."  Would Marcopper have repeatedly flown in this "Labour Relations Expert" as long-term resident consultant during a crippling protracted strike, to undertake some responsibilities more pressing than labor relations?  

Many unanswered questions remain.  For example:

• Who would have benefited from continuance of the strike?

• Who would have benefited from apparent intimidation of upper management?

• Who else (either in Australia or the Philippines) would have benefited from Ray's death?

• Why was Ray alone at the time?  How could an Australian multinational company fail in duty-of-care to those under its employ, by providing security guards who failed to adequately protect Ray?

• How is it that the company's "security guards" failed to see or hear anything?

• What efforts have been made to trace the bullet to a particular gun?

• Doesn't the "contract killing" nature of this incident (e.g. single shot to the chest, fired at distance through a window) highlight broader conspiracy?

• Why would the company deny that Ray was present on the island during, or involved in, the labor dispute negotiations, when he very definitely was there during those negotiations, and at least perceived by the locals to be part of the management team representing the company?

• Could company failure to disclose the true extent of Ray's involvement in attempts to resolve the strike have intentionally impeded the investigation, and therefore reflect some deeper responsibility?

• Who but Marcopper personnel would have known Ray's movements within the company grounds, gunning him down while alone on the evening of his departure?

Correspondence with the Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Canberra, as well as with the Australian Ambassador to the Philippines, has yielded the following information:

• It is Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's view that the Philippine National Police have in process a thorough investigation into this tragic incident.

• The Australian Government, which includes the Australian Federal Police, is not able to intervene in, or conduct, investigations outside Australia. [Why not? Active government participation would seem entirely appropriate in cases where an Australian life has been jeopardized or taken. France, UK, & the US routinely protect their citizens extra-territorially.]

• The Embassy in Manila is closely following the progress of investigations into this tragic incident.

• The Philippines' Government is aware of the Australian Government's interest in this case.

• Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will continue to do all that is "practicable" to ensure that this case is investigated thoroughly and professionally by the appropriate authorities in the Philippines.

No one is aware of any contribution whatsoever made to-date by DFAT, toward resolution of this crime against one of its own citizens.  (DFAT personnel failed to even confer with Ray's wife, Luisita, on her visit to the Philippines to retrieve his ashes!)  As an Australian citizen, it would seem that Ray would deserve a more aggressive commitment on his government's part to seeing that justice was appropriately applied.

Ray's murder (and whatever subsequent investigation thereof) coincided closely with Philippine President Ramos' visit to Australia, the objective of which was to shake off the Philippines' bad international reputation (e.g. as military dictatorship, polluted, poverty-stricken, over-populated, pedophile tourist destination, etc.), so as to attract Australian investment.  Both countries' governments clearly benefited from playing down the Philippine murder of an Australian businessman.  I fear that lack of progress in resolving my friend's murder (due to the Australian Government's non-involvement) is the price being paid for insurance of otherwise cozy international relations and secure international investments.

It is worth noting the tragic loss of Western Australian family overseas while furthering Australia's international business interests, highlighting the total ineffectuality of the Australian federal government in securing the identification, capture, and punishment of the parties responsible.  (Australians...once you set foot overseas, you are truly "on your own.")

Perth mine man gunned down

By Luke Morfesse, The West Australian, August 5, 1995

A Perth mining consultant was shot dead in the Philippines on Thursday night, hours before he was due to return to WA.  Raymond Jeffery, 56, was inside his quarters at Marcopper Mining Corp's minesite on Marinduque Island, 160km south-east of Manila, packing his bags about 10.45pm when he was killed.  Mr Jeffery had been working late in an administration building before returning to the company's guest house.  The gunman was outside the guest house and fired the fatal shot through a window.  

Marcopper's legal officer, Ted Gabor, said yesterday that Mr Jeffery, who was married to a Filipina, was a labour relations expert.  The site was racked by industrial trouble and a lengthy strike earlier this year, but Mr Gabor doubted whether that was linked to the killing.  "Ray was never in any way related to that labour dispute," he said.  "As a matter of fact when the strike was on he was back in Australia.  It's very peaceful here... it is very unusual for this to happen." 

Mine site security staff reported that no cash or valuables were stolen.  The killer is being hunted by four agents from the National Bureau of Investigation and local police.

"Everybody was very downhearted this morning to learn that Ray, our good friend, had passed away because of this incident," Mr Gabor said.   "He's a very good friend . . . a softly spoken lay minister who used to officiate at worship service if there are no priests available.  He was a very well liked man.  The West Australian  understands that Mr Jeffery had previously worked in WA in the north-eastern Goldfields. 

Australian Embassy spokeswoman April Pressler said from Manila yesterday that Mr Jeffery's body was being returned to the Philippine capital for an autopsy.  "I believe that it's not a fairly big place, and they are fairly hopeful that they'll find the person that did it," she said.

Murders too hard for police

by Nick Cater, The Sunday Times, January 28, 1996

The gangland-style assassins of a Melbourne businessman have escaped justice because a key witness refuses to testify, investigators in Manila claim.  Filipino police admitted this week they had reached a dead-end in their investigations into the murder of businessman Bill Lutrell, one of four Australians to be shot dead in the Philippines in less than 16 months.  They say a hotel waitress, who watched as two men shot Mr Lutrell in a Manila hotel coffee shop in October 1994, has gone into hiding fearing for her life.  The development is another setback for the country's notoriously inefficient and corrupt police force, which has failed to convict any of the killers of the four murdered Australians.  It is also a blow to the Government's attempts to reassure investors and tourists that the country is safe.  The four murders since October 1994 puts the Philippines at the top of the list of dangerous destinations for Australians, ahead of well-known trouble spots such as Cambodia and Somalia.  Mr Lutrell's murder was linked by friends to a dispute with his local business partners over the sharing of profits from a beach resort he had established on the Philippines island of Boracay.  But the head of Manila's homicide squad, Senior Inspector Pedro Angulo, said he had not sent a single investigator to Boracay. 

Investigators have also drawn a blank in their search for a lone gunman who shot dead Australian mining consultant Raymond Jeffrey on the island of Marinduque last August.   Mr Jeffrey, 56, from Perth, was killed by a single shot to the chest fired through the window of his room in a guest house owned by the mining company, Marcopper, where he had been working as a consultant for more than a year. 

Also unresolved is the murder last March of Lawrence Mclnnes, 48, from Victoria, who was shot with an M-14 rifle while sitting in his pickup truck in the city of Angeles, 120km north of Manila.  Police claimed Mr McInnes was killed by two men high on drugs.  But the two Filipino suspects were themselves shot and killed by police while they were allegedly trying to escape and the case has never been resolved. 

In the fourth murder case, three men are being held for the shooting of Australian Gregory Bitmead, 41, at a lodging house in Paringao, La Union, 14 months ago. But despite numerous court appearances, the police have failed to secure a conviction."   Criminals commit crimes in the most brazen manner with the police either looking on helplessly, turning a blind eye or acting as willing accomplices,'' anti-crime campaigner Professor Tessie Ang See told a conference recently.

Paradise Lost to Pollution

By Norman Aisbett, The West Australian (Asia Desk), July 19, 1996

The picturesque Boac River, on the central Philippines island of Marinduque, died in March.  In blunter terms, it was killed -- suffocated by a massive leak of copper-tailings sludge from a waste dam at Marcopper Mining Corporation's mountainside operation.  At the height of the pollution, toxic tailings were being disgorged into the Boac at the rate of  5-10 cubic metres a second, enough to fill a dump truck every tick of the clock.  The initial outpouring caused flash floods that isolated 4,400 villagers.  Four hundred families from one village fled as their homes disappeared.  Soon after officials declared the 25-kilometre Boac River biologically dead.   Today, sludge still leaks into the river, at the slower but still significant rate of about 5,000 tonnes a day (1,200 dump trucks). 

Tricia Caswell, executive director of the children's aid and development agency PLAN International (Australia) -- which has helped Marinduque islanders for 20 years -- said after visiting the scene, "It was unbearable to see the suffering from this disaster.   The island's 250,000 people rely on the river for 70% of their mainly-subsistence economy.  Now it's unfit even for irrigation."  The river's reduced capacity might cause serious floods, mass evacuations, and even the collapse of the tailings-dam wall, sending another 15 million tonnes of sludge "hurtling down." 

Marcopper, the country's third-biggest copper-mining company, is 40% owned by Placer Dome, Inc. of Canada.  Two of five officials facing prosecution are Australians.   Recently replaced president John Loney, of Brisbane, expects to be charged with reckless imprudence and violations of the Water Code and Mining Act.  Recently replaced mine manager Steven Reid, of Adelaide, faces similar charges -- plus another of a Pollution Control Law violation.  Both have been ordered not to leave the country.   There are reports they face up to 18 years jail, but Mr Loney claimed yesterday any jail terms would be concurrent and would not exceed six years.  He was nevertheless concerned.  He said the leak was through a former drainage tunnel under the wall of the tailings dam.  An 8-metre-long concrete plug was put in the tunnel in 1990, before sludge was stored there.  "We don't know what happened in the tunnel to cause the leak, but there was an earthquake about six days earlier," he told The West Australian.  "The amazing part is that they have rushed to charge us before knowing the cause.  "No one wanted this accident.  We have to work together to overcome it.  Placer Dome has said it will pay off an Asian Development Bank loan of $US 24 million and will itself spend $US 16 million to fix the problem."

The company is getting little sympathy from environmental groups.  In 1975, when the dictatorial Ferdinand Marcos was in power, Marcopper got a blanket permit to operate.   The permit allowed it to pipe tailings into Calancan Bay, 13 kilometres away at the rate of  2½ tonnes a second.  This continued until 1990, when the mine was closed by Cory Aquino's government.

Two Australian mine executives face long jail terms in connection with the Philippines' worst industrial disaster.  The case highlights concerns that controls on foreign mining companies are too lax.   The Marinduque disaster comes as Fidel Ramos' Government strives to revive the country's mining industry.  A new mining law, introduced in March last year allows foreign firms to have 100% equity and total repatriation of profits.   Australian companies are among those attracted by such terms. 

Manila-based Legal Rights and Natural Resources Centre executive director Marvic Leonen is among those who have warned that the rush into the liberalised mining sector may cause more environmental disasters.  "What happened at Marcopper was the very thing we warned against.  Ecological sustainability was sacrificed in the face of millions of dollars dangled before our Government," he said recently.