The explosive charges of mass murder reached Amnesty International, which reported briefly on the incident in its 1997 report on world human rights and in its two subsequent annual reports. Under pressure from Barrick and the Tanzanian government, Amnesty revised its report on Bulyanhulu in its 2000 report. Because the Tanzanian authorities have persistently stonewalled Amnesty's request to conduct an investigation, the human rights organization's rules prevent it from saying that the charges have been verified. But human rights lawyers and parliamentary dissidents in Tanzania provided Palast with evidence of the live burials that he found compelling.

How many miners, if any, may have died to make the Bulyanhulu mine safe for Western exploitation remains unknown. But Palast was certainly accurate in citing Amnesty's original reports. Unfortunately for him, though, there is no right under British libel law to repeat previously published material, as there is in most instances under American law.

Almost immediately after Palast's column appeared, Barrick’s litigious chairman, Munk, filed a libel action in the British courts, where the laws are notoriously restrictive of press freedom, and where truth alone is not a defense. His legal advantage is amplified by the mismatch in resources between Barrick -- one of the five largest firms on the Toronto stock exchange -- and the trust that publishes the Guardian. Under the circumstances, both Palast and the Observer have little choice but to try to settle the case, as investigative journalists in Britain are so often forced to do.

	Print story E-mail story

But the Barrick attorneys, who have denounced the Observer column as "false and defamatory," are demanding much more than a mere retraction or correction. They are making another, much more ominous, demand. As a condition of settling the case, Barrick insists that Palast must remove the offending column from his U.S.-registered Web site.

In other words, Barrick is cleverly using the libel statutes of a nation without a Bill of Rights to suppress an unfavorable article in the United States, where Palast (and his Web site) would be protected by the First Amendment.

And Barrick has gone still further, by threatening litigation against both Palast and a courageous Tanzanian human rights lawyer named Tundu Lissu, who has dared to gather evidence of the Bulynahulu atrocity -- including witness statements and names of the deceased -- on behalf of a Tanzanian environmental and human rights group.

Even more outrageously, Barrick is attempting to force Palast and the Observer to acknowledge publicly that an "independent investigation" by Amnesty International established that the horrific burial never happened. Yet what Amnesty actually said in its last report on Bulyanhulu was that the government had rejected Amnesty's call to "open an independent judicial inquiry," and that the organization thus "was unable to substantiate the allegations of deaths." On the advice of their British lawyers, Amnesty officials will no longer comment on this matter. Their prudent silence is abetting Barrick's libel suit, and jeopardizing the ability of journalists and human rights monitors to report on corporate malfeasance.

Barrick's lawyers have various other quibbles with Palast's column, few of which would be entertained by a fair-minded judge in the United States. Their chief concern involves Bulyanhulu, perhaps because their client's venture is financially supported by the World Bank, whose regulations prohibit lending to projects tainted by armed violence. And the embarrassment caused by further circulation of the Bulyanhulu story might frighten away figures such as Bush, Barrick board member Vernon Jordan and other eminences who have promoted the company's fortunes abroad.

So far, Barrick has avoided any such consequences. The official opening of its huge mine at Bulyanhulu, attended by Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa and other dignitaries, proceeded as scheduled on Wednesday, despite local protests and some unfavorable coverage in the Tanzanian media. Aside from the Observer column, Western news outlets have taken little notice of the controversy.

According to Palast, he remains perfectly willing to publish Barrick's side of the story. "If there's an error, I'll correct it; a misinterpretation, I'll clarify it. I'm a reporter, I'm not the pope, I'm not infallible. What I can't do is cover up evidence or say a lie is the truth. If Barrick has a case to make, evidence to present, I'll print it."

What Greg Palast dared to expose were a few of the most unappetizing aspects of globalization, from the employment of former heads of state as corporate fixers to the dispossession (or worse) of native populations when they pose an obstacle to corporate profit. What the award-winning journalist didn't anticipate, however, was that he and his writing would provoke a dangerous experiment in the globalizing of corporate "information management."

Salon Politics: Unflinching daily political news, analysis and commentary.