PETITION TITLE:
BLOOD GOLD: The Mine That Killed Three Protesters, Poisoned a Village, and Supplies Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, and Starbucks

DEMAND:
Immediate Investigation, Nullification, and Criminal Referral Regarding the Illegal Ratification of the Bea Mountain Mining Corporation First Amended Mineral Development Agreement (August to September 2023)

ORGANIZED BY: 
The People of Grand Cape Mount County, Bong County, All Liberians at home and in the Diaspora, Friends of Liberia and Environmental Enthusiasts 

TO:
President Joseph Boakai, Republic of Liberia
Speaker of the House of Representatives, National Legislature of Liberia
Senate Pro Tempore, National Legislature of Liberia
MKS PAMP SA, Geneva, Switzerland
Apple Inc., Cupertino, California
Nvidia Corporation, Santa Clara, California
Alphabet Inc., Mountain View, California
Starbucks Corporation, Seattle, Washington
Walt Disney Company, Burbank, California
International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment
UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
Responsible Jewellery Council, London
London Bullion Market Association

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Essah Massaley was shot in the back on February 29, 2024.
Abraham Kerkula was shot in the back on February 29, 2024.
A third man, whose name the government of Liberia has never officially acknowledged, was also shot dead that day.

They were not armed. They were Liberian workers and residents of Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County, standing in front of a gold mine that extracts between US$1.65 billion and US$2.33 billion from their land every year. They were demanding clean water. They were demanding fair wages. They were demanding that the company honor the legal obligations it had signed and repeatedly broken.

The Liberian National Police, deployed to protect the mine, opened fire.

Police Support Unit Commander George Fahnbulleh — who witnesses and investigators confirm received a monthly private salary from Bea Mountain Mining Corporation on top of his government wage — shot and killed Abraham Kerkula. Grand Cape Mount County Police Commander Joseph Soko Mulbah allegedly shot a school-age boy at point-blank range.

The Government of Liberia's official response: US$5,000 per family. Fifteen thousand dollars for three lives. The families rejected the money and filed a US$30 million wrongful death lawsuit that remains unresolved.

That gold — extracted from land where three protesters were killed, where a village was poisoned, where workers earn US$7 a day while Turkish supervisors earn US$3,000 to US$4,000 a month — was sold to Swiss refiner MKS PAMP. MKS PAMP refined it and sold it into supply chains that reach Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Starbucks, and Disney.

You may be holding this mine in your hand right now.

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WHO OWNS THIS MINE

Bea Mountain Mining Corporation is not a Liberian company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Avesoro Resources Inc., which is controlled by Murathan Günal — son of Turkish billionaire Mehmet Nazif Günal, whose business empire operates under the Mapa Group. Ownership of the mine is structured through companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and Jersey, two offshore secrecy jurisdictions, to insulate Günal family profits from the communities and governments whose resources they extract.

The International Finance Corporation — the private sector arm of the World Bank — invested US$19.2 million in the mine's parent company in 2014. The United States representative on the IFC board abstained from that vote, warning in writing that the project lacked basic environmental safeguards and that the tailings dam posed unacceptable contamination risks. The IFC funded it anyway.

Those warnings were accurate. The community paid the price. The IFC has not acknowledged its role.

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WHAT THIS MINE HAS DONE TO THE PEOPLE OF GRAND CAPE MOUNT COUNTY

I. They Poisoned the River

The people of Jikandor village drank from, bathed in, and fished the river that flowed through their forest for generations. Between 2016 and 2023, cyanide, arsenic, and copper leaked from Bea Mountain's tailings dam into those waterways at levels Liberia's own Environmental Protection Agency confirmed exceeded legal limits. Fish died. People drank contaminated water. Three independent consultancies — Golder Associates in 2012, Digby Wells in 2014, and SRK in 2015 — identified these exact risks before the mine produced a single gram of gold. Every warning was ignored. In 2022, Bea Mountain failed to notify regulators after a spill. The company then obstructed government inspectors attempting to access its laboratory and review water test results. When the Associated Press and The Gecko Project, supported by the Pulitzer Center, published their investigation on January 30, 2026, the EPA reports documenting these violations had been removed from the government's public website. They were only recovered through the journalists' own investigation. Canadian toxicologist Mandy Olsgard reviewed those recovered documents and described what she found in three words: "sustained negligence."

The community of Jikandor was not compensated for a decade of contamination. In May 2025, they were relocated — moved off ancestral land to make way for continued operations. The mine expanded. The people left.

II. They Killed the Workers Who Asked for More

Liberian underground workers at Bea Mountain earn US$7 per day. Turkish workers performing equivalent roles earn between US$3,000 and US$4,000 per month. When the Ministry of Labor sent investigators to the mine following the February 2024 killings, they found that 185 Turkish and other foreign workers were employed without the legally required work permits — a direct violation of Liberian law and the company's own MDA commitments to prioritize Liberian employment. The company had failed to honor collective bargaining agreements. It had failed to provide adequate housing. It had failed to provide safe drinking water to its own workers.

When workers gathered to discuss these conditions, Bea Mountain flew surveillance drones over them, recorded the footage, and used it to identify and dismiss employees.

On February 28 and 29, 2024, those workers protested. They were killed.

III. The Government Offered Them Five Thousand Dollars Each

Following the deaths of Essah Massaley, Abraham Kerkula, and a third unnamed victim, President Joseph Boakai's government produced a formal communication offering US$5,000 per family — a total of US$15,000 — as its official response to three deaths by live police fire at a mine generating over a billion dollars annually. The Minister of Information initially denied that more than one person had died. The President's own letter to the Minister of Justice contradicted that denial, acknowledging "three victims."

No police commander has been criminally charged. No officer has been suspended pending investigation. PSU Commander George Fahnbulleh, named by witnesses as the officer who fired at Abraham Kerkula, remains in service.

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THE LICENSE WAS RENEWED IN SECRET, WITHOUT QUORUM, AFTER THE LEGISLATURE HAD ADJOURNED

With this record in place — the poisoned river, the dead protesters, the surveillance drones, the wage theft, the contaminated drinking water — the Government of Liberia's National Legislature extended Bea Mountain's mining license for 25 additional years in September 2023. The total term of the renewed agreement runs 50 years. Three generations of people in Grand Cape Mount County now live under a contract they were never asked to accept.

This is how it was done:

The House of Representatives formally adjourned on September 4, 2023. Between September 5 and 6 — after adjournment, with no Speaker's order reconvening the chamber, and no lawful plenary session — signatures were collected from fewer than 20 members to purportedly "concur" with the Senate. The Liberian Constitution requires a quorum of 37 members for valid House action. The threshold was not approached. The Joint Committee on Concession and Investment had publicly promised community hearings. Those hearings never happened. The agreement reached the President on September 7, 2023 in direct violation of Article 35 of the Constitution, which requires a bill to have been lawfully passed before presentment. Senator Simeon Taylor of Grand Cape Mount County — the host county of the mine — chaired the Senate committee that approved the extension and described the deal as beneficial. The county he represents has no reliable clean water, no functioning public hospital, and no paved road to or from the mine.

This was not a procedural error. This was a ratification conducted in deliberate concealment, after hours, below constitutional quorum, without the communities it governs being permitted to speak.

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WHAT THE RENEWED AGREEMENT ACTUALLY GIVES AWAY

The substantive terms of the agreement ratified in this unconstitutional midnight process are, if anything, more damning than the process itself. These are not characterizations. These are the actual provisions of the signed document:

The community development fund for 537 square kilometres of operational land: US$250,000 per year. That is US$0.46 per acre annually. At current production rates, Bea Mountain generates approximately US$1.83 million per acre of concession area every year.

The clan MOUs binding the communities of Darblo, Laar, Manna, and Matambo require those communities to: waive all claims to 2% of the exploration budget; actively defend Bea Mountain's legal title against any challenge from within their own communities; and promise never to disrupt operations, on pain of losing all payments. Traditional leaders were made into corporate enforcers. The Land Rights Act of Liberia prohibits exactly this kind of arrangement.

The government's equity stake in the mine producing US$1.65 billion to US$2.33 billion annually: 5%. The African standard is 10 to 20 percent. Ghana requires 10%. Mali now mandates 35%. Liberia accepted 5% — and that 5% generates zero dividends until the company declares all capital investment fully recovered, a threshold the company itself controls and may never formally reach.

All tax terms are frozen for 15 years regardless of changes in Liberian law. The income tax cap of 25% is fixed and cannot be raised under any circumstance. Import duties on heavy mining equipment are replaced by a flat fee of US$400,000 per year. Environmental violations trigger a mandatory 90-day waiting period before the government may act — then London arbitration, not Liberian courts. No Liberian court has jurisdiction over any dispute with this company. Every case travels to the United Kingdom at costs that effectively foreclose any community access to justice.

The one-time signature fee for a 50-year agreement: US$1 million. One million dollars, once, for five decades of extraction rights over the land of Essah Massaley and Abraham Kerkula.

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MKS PAMP MARKETS ITSELF AS "RESPONSIBLE."
THEY ARE BUYING THIS GOLD.

MKS PAMP SA holds certifications from the Responsible Jewellery Council, the London Bullion Market Association Responsible Gold Guidance, and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance. On its website, it promotes its "Provenance" program as evidence of ethical sourcing. It sells "Carbon Neutral gold bars" in partnership with Breitling and UBS.

In early 2025, following the AP and Gecko Project investigation, MKS PAMP commissioned an internal assessment of the Bea Mountain mine. That assessment found, in MKS PAMP's own words, "no basis to cut ties" — but identified areas requiring improvement in security, health, and safety. MKS PAMP declined to publish the findings, citing confidentiality.

A mine where three protesters were shot dead by a police commander on the company's private payroll. A mine where a village was poisoned for a decade. A mine where workers earning US$7 a day were surveilled by corporate drones when they gathered to speak. A mine whose license was renewed without constitutional quorum while communities slept.

MKS PAMP reviewed all of this and found "no basis to cut ties."

Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Starbucks, and Disney have not publicly disclosed their due diligence assessments for this supply chain.

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OUR DEMANDS

To the Government of Liberia:

1. CRIMINAL PROSECUTION: Immediately refer PSU Commander George Fahnbulleh and Grand Cape Mount County Police Commander Joseph Soko Mulbah to the Ministry of Justice for criminal prosecution for the killings of Essah Massaley, Abraham Kerkula, and the third unnamed victim on February 29, 2024. A US$30 million civil lawsuit is not justice. A criminal trial is.

2. VOID THE AGREEMENT: Declare the First Amended MDA null and void ab initio. It was ratified by fewer than 20 members of a chamber that had adjourned. It violates Articles 33 and 35 of the Constitution of the Republic of Liberia. It has no legal force. Void it now.

3. CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE RATIFICATION: Refer all persons who procured legislative signatures after the House's September 4, 2023 adjournment to the Ministry of Justice for investigation on charges of forgery, fraud, and official misconduct.

4. REPARATIONS, NOT RELOCATION: The people of Jikandor village and all downstream communities affected by Bea Mountain's decade of chemical contamination are owed reparations measured against the documented harm to their health, their livelihoods, and their land — not a relocation agreement that serves the company by moving its victims out of sight.

5. INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION AUDIT: Commission an internationally credentialed independent audit of all Bea Mountain production figures from the commencement of operations, with results published in full and reconciled against LEITI reports, customs declarations, and MKS PAMP import records BEFORE ANY RENEWAL IS CONSIDERED.

To MKS PAMP, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Starbucks, and Disney:

6. PUBLISH YOUR DUE DILIGENCE: Release your complete due diligence assessments for the Bea Mountain supply chain. If you cannot demonstrate compliance with OECD Guidelines, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the LBMA Responsible Gold Guidance, suspend procurement immediately.

7. SUSPEND PURCHASING: MKS PAMP must suspend gold purchases from Bea Mountain pending an independent investigation into the Kinjor killings, the chemical contamination of Jikandor, and the constitutional validity of the current operating license.

To the International Finance Corporation:

8. ACCOUNT FOR YOUR INVESTMENT: The IFC funded this mine over the explicit objection of the U.S. board representative, who warned in writing in 2014 that basic environmental safeguards were absent. The subsequent decade proved that warning correct. The IFC must publicly account for its role and use whatever leverage its equity position provides to demand justice for the communities it helped expose to this harm.

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WHY YOU MUST SIGN THIS

If you have ever bought an Apple product, worn jewelry, used a Starbucks card, or owned a share in an index fund, there is a statistical probability that you have a financial relationship with this mine. That is not an abstraction. It is the architecture of the global gold supply chain, and it is designed to make the distance between your purchase and Essah Massaley's body feel so large that no accountability is possible.

This petition is the accountability. Your signature tells Apple, Nvidia, MKS PAMP, and the Günal family that the distance is not as large as they calculated. It tells the Liberian government that the world is watching what it does with Bea Mountain's license, its Kinjor investigation, and its US$5,000 offer to the family of a man shot in the back for asking for clean water.

Sign. Share everywhere. Tag Apple. Tag Nvidia. Tag MKS PAMP. Tag your government's trade mission in Switzerland. The gold is leaving. The people are staying. The world needs to see both.

Essah Massaley. Abraham Kerkula. The people of Jikandor. The workers earning US$7 a day under surveillance drones.

They cannot make the world see this. We can.

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SOURCES

Associated Press / The Gecko Project, "Cyanide River" / "Liberia's largest gold miner repeatedly spilled dangerous chemicals, records show," January 30, 2026, Pulitzer Center supported | LEITI 16th Report, 2023 | Inclusive Development International, "Holding Avesoro Resources to its community development promises," 2021 | Smart News Liberia, "Families Demand Justice for Victims of Bea Mountain Mining Company Tragedy," November 2024 | The Liberian Investigator, US$30M lawsuit filing, June 2024 | Analyst Liberia / STAND Report, Kinjor killings investigation, May 2024 | The New Dawn Liberia, "Koung Visit Sparks Gold Revenue Shock," April 13, 2026 | The New Dawn Liberia / GNN Liberia, Bea Mountain production figures, April 13, 2026 | FrontPageAfrica, Labor Ministry fines announcement, March 2024 | The People of Grand Cape Mount County, Statement of Support for Investigation into the Illegal Ratification, 2023 | Analyst Liberia, "For Killing 3 Unarmed Protesters — Govt. Offers Bereaved Families US$5,000 Each," May 2024 | MKS PAMP Responsible Sourcing disclosures, mkspamp.com | STAND Investigators Report, FrontPageAfrica, April 2024