Rio Tinto Zinc: Extract from 'Written in Flames'

Rio Tinto Zinc Is a multinational robber baron and few people would bother to deny It. At a strike last year at the Rio Tlnto copper mine which gave- RTZ half Its name, Spanish miners laid off by the company, held up placards saying -English thieves go home-, Meanwhile, one thousand Cornish tin miners were being held to ransom by RTZ untl1 the government loaned out £ 15m Interest free to keep their mines open,

RTZ mines copper In South Africa and Ch1Je. Iron Ore. Bauxite and diamonds In AusraJ1a, where It Is accused of polluting aboriginal land (in partnership with BP). It steals uranium from South African occupied Namibia In breach of International law Together with the uranium It mines In Canada, this goes to supply the nuclear power stations and arm the missiles. Silver and gold come out of Bougalnvl1le In Papua New Guinea and 011 and gas out of the North Sea.

At RTZ share holders' meetings, Greenham women shout at the executive chairman. Sir Al1stalr Frame, a former director of the Atomic Energy Authority and of Vickers; a man who dines with top army generals. This 58 year old Is a director on the boards of engineers Plessey and the drug company Glaxo. He lives at Pine Cottage, Church Hill, Holmbury St. Mary. Dorking in Surrey

John Birkin (58), deputy chair and chief executive, Is also a director of the construction company George Wimpey. He represented RTZ's Australian mining interests at a Grosvenor House banquet of the BriUsh-Austral1an Society earl1er this year. At the same table were the chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Davld Cralg and other top men of the RAF and' Royal Navy. Also there was Bruce Matthews, boss of Rupert Murdoch's News International. Birkin went to Hemsworth grammar school In a Yorkshire mining town. Now he lives In Surrey, at The-ClocK House, Pains Hill Cobham

Lord John Assheton, the 2nd Baron Cl1theroe, an RTZ execuuve director, went to Eton, Oxford and served in the Ufe Guards. His stately home Is Downham Hall, Clitheroe. in Lancashlre:

Sir Anthony Tuke, former Barclays Bank chairman, was the RTZ boss until '85 when he took over the Savoy Hotel. He's stll1 on the RTZ board. Sir David Orr, former head of Unilever and chair of the Hong Kong and Singapore trading company, Inchcape, and Mark Littman, the barrister who has made a career out of company directorships are also non-executives.