A US class action against mining giant Rio Tinto seeking damages for human rights abuses stemming from operations at the Panguna copper mine, Bougainville, has cleared a crucial hurdle - and could reach trial within two years.
A US court ruled this week that three of the claims - for alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes and racial discrimination committed by the company in the 1980s and 1990s - should proceed under an American law that permits foreigners to bring actions on major international crimes.
This week, after years of litigation going from the US District Court in Los Angeles to the appeals court of the 9th Circuit and back again, the District Court ruled that it was not necessary for the plaintiffs, a group of Bougainville islanders, to first exhaust their legal rights in Papua New Guinea.
Instead it said that the alleged crimes were of such ''universal concern'' that the US would hear them under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
The case, when it finally proceeds to trial, would open up a chapter of history that could be as embarrassing to the Australian Government as the events surrounding the Balibo Five in East Timor.
The islanders allege that Rio Tinto appropriated their land and then developed Panguna mine - currently closed - with wanton disregard to the environment and the health and culture of the local people.
They defoliated the pristine rainforest and bulldozed an entire mountainside. During the mine's operations, billions of tonnes of toxic mine waste was dumped onto the land and into waterways, filling the rivers with tailings, the claim says.
It alleges that Rio's treatment of the indigenous people was part of a pattern of behaviour worldwide that amounted to treating non-caucasian indigenous people as racially inferior and expendable.
''The mine was an ecological disaster. It was the equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped into their culture,'' said attorney Shayne Stevenson of the plaintiff firm, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro.
The plaintiffs also claim the damage to the island was so egregious it led to an uprising, leading to Rio and the PNG Government, which owned a 17 per cent share in the mine, sending in troops.
With the help of the Australian Government, the PNG Government then instituted a 10-year blockade of the island, which prevented medicine and health care reaching the population. By the time the war ended in 1999, 15,000 civilians - or 10 per cent of the island's population - had died, it says.
Central to the claim is an allegation that Rio Tinto provided support for the military and blockade efforts. Australia's role in the blockade is also likely to come under scrutiny.
A spokesman for Rio Tinto, Tony Shaffer, said the truth of the islanders' claims had not yet been tested in court.
''Rio Tinto completely rejects the allegations of wrongdoing made in the Bougainville complaint and will continue to vigorously defend the matter,'' he said.
He said Rio strongly denied any involvement in war crimes allegedly committed by PNG forces. Rio continues to believe the case should be brought before the PNG courts, he said.
One problem facing the plaintiffs is that some members are ageing and a few have already died. Hagens Berman specialises in class actions and was involved in actions against the tobacco industry that resulted in the biggest settlement in the history of litigation.
