By APSM
By Jason Thomas
While TE Lawrence, otherwise known as Lawrence of Arabia, engineered the military defeat of the Turkish in the Middle East during World War I, it was through a careful study of the human terrain and resisting the urge to impose Western constructs that enabled his extraordinary campaign to succeed.
Fearing his demise on the battlefield, Lawrence’s superiors asked him to put his strategy in writing following the battle at the Jordanian port of Aqaba. In August 1917, Lawrence published his now legendary 27 Articles in The Arab Bulletin. They could easily be a prescription for resource companies operating in hostile, culturally complex or high-risk environments. Lessons to reduce community conflict and violence as well as improving security and creating a more predictable operating environment can be found in Lawrence’s work. For brevity, I have condensed Lawrence’s Articles down to 10. They are merely a guide and respectfully are not meant to suggest practitioners do not already apply similar principles.
Feels like counter-insurgency
Resource and mining companies operate in complex human environments. The task of extracting globally-important minerals is made even more demanding when seeking to develop a Greenfield site located in a conflict-prone or fragile, tribally divisive landscape. Much like what Lawrence was confronted with as he set about building a coalition of normally warring tribes across the Arab desert.
Often, the ore body is situated in a remote part of the country where the host government has little influence and local politics is fiercely contested. At the same time the military and police may have a poor reputation among the population and stand accused of human rights abuses.
Armed anti-government forces could – and often do – operate in the hills, and the lack of government services and a poor history of engagement with foreigners often results in a community highly suspicious of outsiders. The promise of a future paved in billions of dollars of taxes and royalties means little to a villager who lives off the land. There will also be intense monitoring and instantaneous reporting from international non-government organisations (INGOs) and environmental groups, who conveniently forget that while they are anti-mining, nearly everything they use to run their anti-mining campaigns is derived from mining.
Meanwhile, local contracting companies with deep political connections are rubbing their hands together for the big construction gigs in the oft-blissful ignorance of the Western rule of law and transparent bidding required by multi-national listed entities to advance their projects. The mining company’s base camps resemble Forward Operating Bases – with armed guards, watch towers and travel restriction zones for staff. It feels like a counter-insurgency operating environment. Mismanaging any of the issues just mentioned can result in security risks.
To deal with these social and cultural challenges, Western Governments, human rights organisations, the media and social development lawyers have devised Western constructs such as the Voluntary Principle on Security and Human Rights, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Equator Principles, Free and Prior Informed Consent, school building and health or hygiene clinic programs, detailed capacity building and social development activities. It looks like nation building. Resource companies are led to believe that as long as they keep implementing social development projects and corporate social responsibility packages, the locals will stop looting their camps, shooting at their workers and blockading the roads. In fact, there are often existing layers within a community that could provide the resource company with a more enduring level of security and stability.
This is where TE Lawrence’s 27 Articles could be a guiding set of principles for how resource and mining companies should engage in these challenging human environments to reduce security, community and political risks as well as improve their standing within the communities in which they operate. However, as Lawrence said, they are only his personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while he worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab armies. Handling Hejaz Arabs or any other culture in isolated, conflict prone communities is an art, not a science.
The 10 Principles of Security & Community Engagement
This guide is meant to help harmonise security and community engagement for the future success of resource companies in winning and maintaining a social licence to operate.
1. Patience is a virtue
Go easy for the first few months, carefully working your way into the inner circle of a tribe or community leadership. A bad start is difficult to atone for, and the tribal people tend to form their judgments on external cues that we ignore or simply do not see. One, two or three power presentations, lunches, cups of tea, eager hand-shakes and smiles do not equal acceptance by the local leadership or its population. Behind the smiles, they will find you just as puzzling as you may find them.
2. Know Your Area (Areas, Structures, Capabilities, Organisations, People, Events)
Study and get to know the people, topography, economy, history, religion, culture and nodes of influence. Know every village, road, field, population group, local produce grown, traditional ceremonies, tribal leader and old grievances, and develop a mental model and map of your area. Understand the broader area of influence – this can be a wide area especially with social media and instant communication platforms. Local oppositions can draw on global support and global opponents can use local causes to promote their own standing with governments, media and well-connected donors. Get equally familiar with those who like you as well as those who do not want the project or worse – do not understand it or see benefit from it. You cannot avoid the local tough guys because it might offend the corporate lawyers. You need to work out not what will make them love you, but what will get them – at a minimum – to leave you alone; not do you, your people or your project harm.
3. Be There
Establishing a permanent physical presence is crucial. You cannot know your area, understand the opposition, and build cultural and situational awareness if you are not physically present. You cannot
Source: Asia Pacific Security Magazine
