Militarisation is Extraction: From Mines to Missiles

Yes to Life No to Mining is a global solidarity network rooted in the lived realities and resistance of Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities confronting the violence of extractivism. We are united by a shared belief: that saying No to Mining is not a rejection of development, but a collective act of protection of land, water, culture, sovereignty, and life itself. Our principles are grounded in justice, dignity, and care for the Earth. We expose the systemic violence of extractivism, a model that treats land as a resource, people as obstacles, and profit as the highest law.

Militarisation and extractivism have always been entangled. From colonial invasions to modern-day globalised mining concessions, armed force has been used to occupy land, displace peoples, suppress resistance, and secure access to minerals and metals. The capacity for organising colonial plunder has only increased as developing technologies have been harnessed for this end. Today, transition and so-called “critical minerals” such as cobalt, lithium, tungsten, nickel, rare earths and many more, are not only mined to feed consumer markets, but also to build ever more powerful and sophisticated weapons of war, surveillance technologies, and militarised borders. In this way, the mining industry is not separate from the military-industrial complex; in fact, it is foundational to it.

Military-industrial complex

Military-industrial complex is a term used to refer to the relationships between national and international military and political institutions and specifically describes a relationship in which political institutions profit from war and therefore benefit from ongoing militarised violence. This can occur when there is a revolving door between politics and the so-called defense industry or when politicians are beholden to weapons manufacturers to get elected.

Extractivism today increasingly relies on military, paramilitary, and militarised policing forces and, in some cases, organized crime to facilitate, protect, and expand access to resources. Increasingly at mine sites, armed forces are deployed to suppress community resistance, protect corporate operations, and impose extractive projects without consent. Along supply chains, entire territories are being militarised to secure access to minerals deemed vital for national security and strategic control of markets and supply sources.

At the geopolitical level, powerful states finance and use the threat or application of military force to secure access to the metals and minerals essential to weapons manufacturing, surveillance systems, and high-tech warfare. Additionally these mining operations pollute and leave lasting toxic and radioactive legacies in countries with limited capability to manage them safely, resulting in slow violence through increasing health and ecological hazards for local communities. This systemic violence is not new, it is a continuation of colonial extraction.

“From the mines that feed militaries,

to the militaries that guard the mines.”

As states and corporations escalate the scramble for “critical minerals,” often under the banner of national security, energy transition, or development in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI), the logic of militarised extraction deepens. It is Indigenous peoples and frontier communities, particularly from the global majority (south), who bear the brunt of this violence: through land dispossession, criminalisation, targeted violence, territories under military occupation or control of paramilitary or organized crime groups, environmental destruction, toxic legacy and war.

This position paper exposes the interlocking nature of militarisation and extractivism, from the mines that feed militaries, to the militaries that guard the mines. Yet, as this system expands, it is often met with fierce resistance. This paper centres the voices and struggles of Earth defenders, and calls for a bold and necessary shift: away from a world built on extraction and domination, toward one rooted in justice, solidarity, and life-sustaining alternatives.

2. Militarisation At The Frontlines Of Mining Resistance

Militarisation at mine sites sees armed forces, militarised police, private security and even organized crime used to suppress resistance and protect corporate interests, especially in Indigenous and rural territories. It enables extractive violence by criminalising, murdering and disappearing Earth Defenders, or using fear and terror to control territories, fostering impunity for human rights abuses, and turning conflict zones into sacrifice zones for mining expansion.

Militarisation in mining is a force overwhelmingly suffered by frontline communities of Indigenous Peoples, the rural poor, and defenders of land and water. As mining corporations scramble for ever-greater extraction-based profits, their gaze turns to communities whose ancestral lands sit atop lucrative deposits of nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium, and other ‘transition minerals’. These communities are not only dispossessed of land, but also subjected to persistent surveillance, threats, and state-sanctioned violence.

A 2023 Global Witness analysis recorded at least 334 violent incidents and protest events—an average of 111 per year—linked to the extraction of transition minerals across the world’s top 19 producing countries, nearly 90% of which occurred in poorer, emerging economies (1). In the Philippines, Global Witness and Kalikasan PNE documented that since the 1990s, Indigenous Filipinos have lost an amount of land equivalent to the size of Timor-Leste to mining, while suffering disproportionate rates of reprisals and violence. The Philippine military was identified as the top perpetrator of killings of Indigenous defenders between 2012 and 2023 (2).

These figures echo across continents. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the southern region of Kolwezi – centre of the cobalt industry – has over decades seen human rights abuses, violence and militarisation, including entire communities evicted by soldiers and police for land grabs by mining companies (3). Zambia is seeing one of the African continent’s most rapid expansions of critical minerals mining, with corruption, environmental contamination and social resistance increasing apace, alongside a surge of unregulated mining and associated armed conflicts (4).

In Indonesia (5), dozens of people have faced criminal prosecution or violence for resisting nickel mining backed by laws designed to favor corporate and state elites. Much of Latin America, from Mexico (6) to Argentina (7), have similarly faced repression, including sometimes deadly crackdowns, as they mobilise for their rights to water and health in the shadow of transnational mining giants. In Argentina’s Jujuy province in June 2023, massive grassroots demonstrations against lithium mining were violently suppressed by police, with 170 injured and 99 arbitrary arrests reported by Amnesty International (8).

Congo and Tigray: Mining War Profiteers

Militarized conflicts in the DRC and Tigray have received little international attention. These situations, while different in many ways, are examples of the mining industry benefitting from and in some cases participating in war and human rights abuses; including demonstrating a pattern of obtaining mining licenses through militarized violence.

The DRC has experienced ongoing theft from colonial powers, and since it gained independence has had multiple major civil wars. It is abundant in minerals, and even at the heights of conflict international mining companies have been active in extracting these minerals. The wealth from this extraction has not stayed in the DRC and has instead continued to enrich colonial and imperial powers. These companies have not only operated in a context where consent is impossible due to destabilization, but have actively participated in massacres and other violations of human rights. Anvil, a Canadian-Australian mining company, provided logistical support in a massacre of 70 people in 2004 (9). More recently Ivanhoe, a Canadian firm, has been accused of violating human rights through forced displacements (10).

In Tigray, despite accusations of genocide and forced starvation, mining companies have been actively exploring for minerals (11). From 2020-2022 Tigray, a region of Ethiopia, experienced one of the most deadly conflicts of the 21st century between itself and Ethiopia, backed by Eritrean troops. As this deadly and unevenly matched war went on, Canadian companies such as SunPeak Metals (whose CEO was accused of using forced labour in Eritrea (12)) explored for gold with the full support of the Canadian government entity Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) (13).

These cases need international solidarity and have not been receiving enough attention outside of Afro-descendant diasporas.

Yet while militarised mining devastates communities and ecosystems, its impacts reach far beyond the immediate violence and dispossession. The entire structure of mining-for-militarization stands in sharp contradiction to “green” and climate-washing narratives pushed by governments and corporations.

Recent analyses reveal that the US military alone is the world’s single largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases, responsible for up to 636 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent since 2010 (14); globally, military activities are estimated to contribute 5.5% of total emissions, with military industries being almost twice as carbon-intensive as civilian sectors (15). Despite this, the UNFCC does not require states to report on military emissions (16), an omission that leaves a deliberate blindspot in global climate governance.

In the end, mining operations often go hand in hand with militarization and bring layered devastation to affected communities and territories. Extraction begins with the exploitation and destruction of land, water, and biodiversity that tear apart traditional commons and undermine food sovereignty and cultural survival. This violence is then compounded by the presence of armed forces and militarised security, who suppress resistance and impose social control through fear, surveillance, and open aggression.

This cycle also accelerates climate disaster, as pollution from mining sites merges with the massive, unregulated carbon emissions generated by militaries, especially those driving wars for resource control. Communities, therefore, face not only dispossession and repression but the mounting impacts of climate change, with both extractive industry and military infrastructure acting as engines of destruction.

Mexico: Extractivism enforced through systemic and organised violence

In Mexico, systemic violence linked to organized crime networks has been expanding across the country. Such violence foments extractivism, facilitating the opening up of sacrifice zones for mining (17), the continued operation of mines and impunity for related harms (18), and ever greater risk for individual defenders and whole communities to defend water, land, and territory (19).

Systemic violence is understood as a range of acts, often associated with organized crime, that have the aim of striking fear in the population to exercise social and territorial control in the interest of diverse business interests. In this context, the violence is systemic because none of this could take place without the macrocriminal networks that enable it, involving licit business and political actors that benefit from such violence and may, in many cases, be those directly responsible. Violent acts such as recruitment of youth, extortion, surveillance, armed patrols, curfews, kidnapping, sexual violations, murder, disappearances, and forced displacement are all expressions of systemic violence.

As such, while such violence is often attributed to one or another cartel, it is important to identify the macro-criminal networks that enable their existence. This goes beyond corporate capture of the state and entails close coordination between institutional actors, businesses and criminal armed groups. While cartels and their business connections are often perceived as external to the state, in macro-criminal networks the state actors, who may be governors, state attorneys or security officials, often play a key role (20).

The strategy of capturing cartel kingpins or focusing on individual acts of violence has only contributed to cartel fragmentation and diversification of their business interests well beyond narcotrafficking, while failing to address the underlying economic and institutional networks. This phenomenon has emerged and deepened as a result of the militarized responses from the Mexican state, particularly since the administration of president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and his War on Drugs (21). Since this time, the annual murder rate has skyrocketed to over 30,000 per year and over 133,000 people have been disappeared, including over 14,000 during the first year of president Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration (22).

While similarly alarming, the numbers of recorded murders and disappearances of defenders do not do justice to the risks and threats that communities in resistance face to defend their rights to land, health, food sovereignty and overall wellbeing when they are increasingly faced with systemic violence. As such, it is not surprising that Mexico is consistently recognized, year after year, as one of the most dangerous places to defend territory and the environment (23), or to practice journalism (24). This context also detrimentally erodes the role of the state in public safety and dissuades many victims and journalists from denouncing crimes, creating what have become known as “zones of silence” (25) and high levels of impunity.

It is therefore troubling to note that militarization across the country has continued to deepen under the last two government administrations, with the military now in charge of federal public security forces, as well as key infrastructure such as ports and airports, and with a central role in megaprojects intended to open up new areas for extractivism and dispossession in the name of investment and development.

3. Minerals for Militarisation: How Resource Wars are Built

Militarisation does not begin on the battlefield, it begins at the mine. The minerals that power modern warfare and state violence (26) are ripped from territories where communities have long resisted colonial conquest and corporate greed. Cobalt for drones, rare earths for missiles and digital war machines, tungsten for bombs, all these minerals and many more, form the foundation of a global war economy (27).

The mining of minerals and metals for weapons manufacturing is driving a new wave of extractivism (28) justified through national security and geopolitical dominance. This is exemplified in the agreement at the 2025 NATO Summit, at the behest of Donald Trump, to increase ‘defence- and security-related spending’ to 5% of the GDP of each NATO-aligned country by 2035 (29).

Mining for weapons manufacturing is also allowed to advance unquestioned via the deliberately misleading terms ‘strategic minerals’ and ‘critical minerals’. Both of these are used interchangeably with a range of definitions and also with ‘transition minerals’.

Transition minerals relate to minerals used for renewable energy technologies, therefore mining for these minerals has been cynically promoted as climate action (30). There is much to say to counter this argument, and we do so in greater detail in our position paper ‘Why We Say No to Mining’, namely that decarbonisation via electrification, while keeping the underlying system untouched, will bring us more of the same – more exploitation, more destruction. This is not to mention the additional issues concerning how renewable energy is used.

Application of the term ‘critical minerals’ goes wider than decarbonisation, with a focus on priorities for the economy as well as the ‘digital transition’. The economy referred to here is extractive capitalism, whose main driving force is profit-making (over and above societal need). The digital transition is also linked to extractive violence, not only in the extraction of the minerals it demands, but also to its role in supporting militarised global economies, with critical minerals powering surveillance of populations, AI-enhanced war technology (31), and weapons systems (32).

‘Strategic minerals’ more directly refer to defence, or war, as Trump is now more accurately calling it (33). In 2017 the US Department of Defence (as it was then known) used 750,000 tonnes of minerals on arms (34), and this is before the current genocide in Gaza and the renewed intensification of military aggression by imperial powers in recent years.

Mining for militarization: Gaza and the multiplication of ecological and social destruction

Mining for militarization inflicts a triple burden: extractive exploitation, violent militarization, and catastrophic climate destruction. Palestine, especially Gaza, starkly exemplifies how minerals feed brutal neocolonial agendas. Between October 2023 and early 2025, Israeli bombardments generated approximately 50 million tonnes of debris and hazardous materials—contaminated with white phosphorus, heavy metals, and asbestos—derived from tens of thousands of bombs and missiles (35). These munitions depend on minerals such as phosphates, heavy metals, and rare earths sourced globally through neocolonial supply chains that fuel Zionist territorial domination through violence.

This militarization has unleashed a genocidal and ecocidal campaign, devastating Gaza’s environment by destroying over two-thirds of its farmland, contaminating groundwater, and annihilating 80% of its tree cover (36). Water and sewage infrastructures have collapsed, causing raw sewage to pollute the Mediterranean and underground aquifers, exacerbating a humanitarian and ecological crisis with toxic legacies lasting generations. The destruction of homes and vital infrastructure intensified the lifelessness imposed on Gaza, deepening the deprivation through military blockade and resource control.

Globally, militaries are major greenhouse gas emitters, contradicting any greenwashing narratives about mining. The Gaza conflict alone generated 420,000 to 652,000 tons of CO₂ within its first 120 days, with reconstruction potentially adding 47 to 60 million tons more (37).

It is clear that militarization driven by mineral extraction imposes not only ecological and social devastation but accelerates climate catastrophe, marking Gaza as a tragic epicenter of minerals-for-militarization fueling neocolonial violence and climate destruction.

Therefore, as demand for these greenwashed minerals surges, governments and corporations continue to justify violent extraction. Behind their ‘big ideas’ lies a deeper truth: resource wars are being built through the exploitation of land, labour, and life. Attempts are being made to exploit the ocean floor and even in outer space on other planets and the moon.

This section unpacks how mineral extraction is fuelling militarisation, how states are reshaping law and policy to secure supply chains, and how Indigenous Peoples and affected communities are resisting being turned into sacrifices or collateral damage in the race for control.

From “Green Metals” to “Critical Minerals”: The Deep Sea Mining industry’s makeover

Deep sea mining (DSM) refers to the proposed industrial extraction of minerals and metals from the ocean floor, typically at depths of 4,000 to 6,000 metres. Targeting areas such as polymetallic nodule fields, seafloor massive sulphides, and cobalt-rich crusts, companies and states claim DSM could supply “critical minerals” like nickel, cobalt, and manganese for renewable technologies and defence industries. However, scientists warn that mining these fragile deep ocean ecosystems, many of which are home to unique and undiscovered species, could cause irreversible biodiversity loss, disrupt carbon sequestration processes, and release toxic plumes that travel vast distances (38).

Pacific peoples are at the frontlines of resistance to DSM, defending their ocean as a source of life, culture, and identity, and leading a powerful regional and international movement, rooted in Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty, that calls for a ban to protect the Pacific for future generations (39).

Over the past decade, the DSM industry has reframed its purpose, shifting from a purported climate solution to a pillar of national security and defence. Initially promoted as essential to supplying “green” metals for renewable technologies, DSM is now increasingly justified through the language of critical minerals, strategic independence, and resource security (40).

This transformation accelerated after U.S. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order in promoting “America’s access to critical minerals” and directing agencies to explore options for exploiting seabed resources beyond the oversight of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) (41).

The move effectively bypassed decades of multilateral negotiation under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), undermining global governance of the seabed and reframing deep ocean resources as matters of national interest rather than the common heritage of humankind (42).

Since then, industry actors such as The Metals Company and pro-DSM governments like the United States have amplified narratives of geostrategic competition, particularly invoking China’s dominance in mineral processing to justify unilateral deep sea extraction (43). As critical minerals are also key inputs in weapons systems, submarines, and drone technologies, DSM’s alignment with the military-industrial agenda has become increasingly visible (44).

The convergence of militarisation and extractivism is clear: the same actors driving global rearmament are seeking to open the deep sea for industrial exploitation.

Key Players And The Narrative of Scarcity And Geopolitical Survival

At the heart of the militarised extractive system are powerful states, corporations and financial institutions working hand in hand to secure the metals and minerals sought for weapons manufacturing and military dominance.

Mineral extraction is fuelling the machinery of war. What is framed as a clean energy solution is in reality powering the backbone of modern militaries: armoured vehicles, missiles, drones, fighter jets, AI weapons, and digital surveillance systems.

The United States, China, Russia, and European Union member states lead the demand, embedding critical minerals like cobalt, lithium, rare earths, tungsten, and titanium into their defence strategies and arms production. These states are supported by alliances such as NATO, AUKUS, and bilateral critical minerals agreements that tie extractive zones mostly in the Global South to geopolitical control in the North.

Another central narrative driving this agenda is the notion of scarcity, a framing that portrays critical minerals as limited, under threat, and a matter of geopolitical survival. This is a dangerous logic: that securing resources by any means, including military power, colonial land grabs, and strategic coercion, is acceptable for the sake of ‘security’. It is also a logic that pushes competition as the only means of securing safety; we argue that we would be much safer in a world where the prevailing logic is cooperation and mutual benefit.

Western governments, particularly the U.S. and E.U., amplify concerns about China’s so-called ‘tight grip’ on rare earths and other strategic resources, using this to justify the rapid expansion of mining in previously off-limits areas like Indigenous territories, deep sea ecosystems, and protected lands. Notably, China’s global rare earth dominance started through the U.S. tightening its environmental regulations in the late 1970s; this led its polluting industries to transfer their hazards and radioactive pollution problems to China. This scarcity discourse serves to normalise extractive expansion, militarisation, and deregulation under the guise of defensive necessity and supply chain resilience.

On the corporate front, mining giants like Rio Tinto, Glencore, and Teck Resources extract the raw materials, while arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Thales convert them into missiles, drones, and surveillance systems.

Financial institutions, including pension funds, private equity firms, and state-backed investors, including the Pentagon and Japan’s JOGMEC (45), grease the wheels, turning wars and geopolitical tensions into profit. These actors do not operate in isolation but as a coordinated force, sustaining a global war economy built on the dispossession of communities and the exploitation of ecosystems.

Sub-Imperial Powers: Australia & Canada

While often positioned as secondary or benevolent actors on the global stage, Australia and Canada play critical sub-imperial roles in the military-industrial project. Both countries are major exporters of the minerals and metals that underpin modern warfare, such as rare earths, tungsten, lithium, copper, alloy steel, aluminium, cobalt, and uranium, and both operate with legal, financial, and diplomatic frameworks that shield their mining industries from accountability and help facilitate their interests.

As key allies of the United States and NATO, Australia and Canada act as stable, politically-aligned sources of raw materials for weapons systems, surveillance infrastructure, and energy-intensive defence technologies. Rather than resisting extractivism, these states actively promote it by offering subsidies, tax breaks, and land access to mining corporations under the guise of economic development and critical minerals security.

Australia and Canada also act as geopolitical amplifiers for the extractive agendas of dominant powers. Through hosting global mining industry conferences like the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada PDAC trade fair and the International Mining and Resources Conference IMARC, and also through their participation in alliances like AUKUS, NORAD, NATO and various critical minerals partnerships, they help enforce and legitimise the global militarisation of mineral supply chains.

Canadian companies, protected by state-backed investment frameworks like Export Development Canada, are among the most aggressive operators in conflict zones from Latin America to Africa. Meanwhile, Australia’s rare earth industry, backed by direct defence funding, exports materials used in weapons reportedly deployed in genocides like Gaza (46, 47). Both countries contribute not only resources but also ideological cover, greenwashing militarised extraction through narratives of “strategic resilience,” “energy transition,” and “national security.” In doing so, they entrench their roles as sub-imperial enablers of global profiteering and ecological harm.

Australia and Canada: Colonialism and Militarism built into critical minerals supply chains

Australia and Canada are both states founded on colonial genocide; and this same logic extends to the government policies and supply chains of their “Critical Minerals” industries today.

The federal governments of both Australia and Canada launched their Critical Minerals Strategy policy frameworks in 2022, each listing 31 minerals and metals deemed strategically important. While promotion of these so-called critical minerals are framed around energy transitions, extraction is also promoted for weapons of war. Thirteen of the minerals on the Australian list are designated as essential for defence related technologies. Mining and militarism are framed as essential to Canadian national security (48), and spending on critical minerals is categorized as defence spending (49). These strategies can be understood as part of growing efforts to ‘onshore’ extraction in both Australia and Canada that often create ‘sacrifice zones’ on Indigenous lands. This onshoring is deemed necessary because of geopolitical instability brought on by war, militarized conflicts, and genocides.

In Australia, the Federal Government prioritises stockpiling in order to bolster national security and increase geopolitical leverage, such as its 2025 proposal for a Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve (50) with a $1.2 billion investment. This aims to secure domestic supply through national offtake agreements. Australia is trying to pivot away from China and towards the U.S., Japan, and Europe in efforts to secure critical minerals supply chains for defence. In 2021, the Australian Government launched the controversial, multi-billion-dollar AUKUS (51) trilateral security arrangement between Australia, the UK and the US. Critical minerals, especially rare earths, are needed for building AUKUS’s planned nuclear submarines and fighter jets, as well as for technologies including AI, cyber, quantum computing, and advanced propulsion (52).

In addition to producing the metals required for modern warfare, Canadian mining companies are implicated in a wide range of egregious human rights abuses and environmental harm. Simultaneous to ‘onshoring’ efforts, Canadian companies continue to profit from militarized violence in Tigray (53), the DRC (54), and more. Canadian companies have been involved in forced evictions in Tanzania (55), assassinations and sexual violence in Guatemala (56), militarization and criminalization of land defenders in Ecuador (57), and the use of private security forces and mercenaries to impose and advance Canadian mining projects abroad in Papua New Guinea and Peru (58).

Australian critical minerals feed directly into the manufacturing of weapons used by Israel for its genocide in Gaza. Australia exports specialised parts for F-35 fighter jets which are supplied to Israel via US based supplier Lockheed Martin (59). These include bomb release mechanisms (where Australia is the only manufacturer globally) and titanium structural components (titanium is a critical mineral produced in Australia) (60). F-35 jets also require about 420 kg of rare earth metals (61), of which Australia is becoming an increasingly important supplier to the US. Canada was exposed for sending arms to Israel even while claiming it was upholding a weapons embargo (62); though there is a lack of transparency on where the materials for the weapons came from, it is very possible that these weapons were built with mined materials supplied by Canadian companies.

In Australia, Aboriginal (63) and rural communities (64, 65), face rapidly increasing environmental and social injustices due to the expansion of critical minerals extraction. 57.8% of critical minerals projects in Australia are found in areas where Indigenous peoples have legal rights to negotiate, including Native Title claims. In Canada, resistance to exploration and extraction within Canada is often met with militarized violence or criminalization, especially when occurring on Indigenous lands.

Canadian and Australian mining has, from the start, benefited from genocidal violence, and in its current form is using the guise of the climate crisis to continue profiting at all costs while feeding the military industrial complex and relying on it.

Lynas Rare Earths: Militarised Extractivism in Action

Lynas Rare Earths Ltd, an Australian mining company, exemplifies the entanglement of militarism and extractivism justified under the banners of strategic security and the energy transition. Founded by Nick Curtis, the son of an Australian diplomat, Lynas was initially pitched as a key supplier of “critical minerals” independent of China. But as US-China trade tensions escalated, the company’s positioning shifted and its strategic importance became increasingly framed through a geopolitical and militarised lens, particularly given the role of heavy rare earths in advanced weapons systems and military technologies.

Lynas is bankrolled by the U.S. Department of Defense (66) and the Japanese and Australian governments, and is marketed as a “clean” and secure alternative to Chinese rare earth dominance. But this narrative obscures deeper realities of colonial extraction, toxic legacies, and community resistance.

With its Mt Weld rare earth mine located in Western Australia, Lynas’ processing facility in Kuantan, Malaysia, has faced mass opposition since 2011 (67). With no social licence to operate and in violation of environmental and planning protections, the plant has become a sacrifice zone, storing close to two million tonnes of radioactive waste in a monsoon-prone peat swamp (68). Its own consultants have deemed the storage facility safe for just 20 years, despite waste remaining hazardous for millennia or in perpetuity.

Beyond environmental degradation, Lynas has also deployed damaging narratives to sanitise its image, including the promotion of its plant as a “women-affirmative” workplace, showing Muslim women operating in hazardous environments despite clear risks posed by radiation and chemical exposure to reproductive and foetal health. Meanwhile, it continues to portray rare earth mining as “critical” and “green,” sparking a wave of speculative rare earth fever across Malaysia, despite the known and irreversible harms.

Lynas’ expansion into the United States has been directly funded by the Pentagon, solidifying its role in militarised supply chains (69). But militarisation isn’t only global, it’s also local. In Malaysia, deregulatory policies have enabled Lynas to operate with impunity: safety standards are far below international norms, long-term oversight removed, and corporate tax exemptions granted. The Malaysian government has prioritised foreign military-linked interests over local safety, justice, and sovereignty.

Despite this, community resistance has been ongoing and visionary. Starting in 2011 when the project was first revealed in a New York Times article (70), opposition has continued to challenge Lynas’ greenwashing, lack of transparency, environmental violations and no social licence to operate (71). In 2025, a court case will test its failure to follow legal planning processes for its proposed permanent radioactive waste dump.

Lynas represents a global pattern of militarised extractivism, where “critical minerals” serve as a pretext for ecological violence, deregulation, and geopolitical control. It reflects how militarism and mining reinforce one another, while frontline communities are left to face the consequences, and lead the resistance.

4. Intersections of Community Resistance and Global Profiteering of War

Across the globe, Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities are rising up in resistance to an extractive system that is not only destroying lands, waters, and ways of life, but is increasingly backed by militarised force and justified by geopolitical agendas.

While communities say no to mining in defence of life, transnational corporations and state actors profit from the violent extraction of minerals destined for weapons, surveillance technologies, and militarised “green” transitions.

From the deep sea to desert plains, from West Papua to Palestine, this section exposes the sharp contrast between those defending territory and life, and those amassing power and wealth through the militarisation of the extractive frontier. These are not isolated struggles, but interconnected fronts in a global system of profiteering that thrives on dispossession and conflict.

West Papua and Myanmar: Self-Determination and Mining Resistance

The struggle for self-determination and liberation from extractive militarization is vibrant in West Papua and Myanmar, where indigenous and oppressed peoples resist neocolonial resource exploitation.

In West Papua, the ongoing Indonesian occupation has violently suppressed the Indigenous population’s desire for independence since the 1960s. The Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM), formed in 1970, emerged as armed resistance against Indonesian military control and the environmental destruction caused by multinational mining corporations, most notably the US- and UK-owned Freeport gold and copper mine.

This massive open-pit mine has devastated sacred lands, poisoned rivers and displaced Indigenous communities, fueling a war for land and resources. Despite brutal military repressions that involve assassinations, mass arrests, and cultural erasure, West Papuans continue their liberation struggle through both armed resistance and cultural revitalization bolstered by unified political fronts like the United Liberation Movement for West Papua.

Similarly, in Myanmar, ethnic minority groups such as the Karen, Kachin, and Shan have waged prolonged battles for self-determination against state and corporate forces extracting timber, minerals, and jade. The military junta’s violent campaigns to control resource-rich areas devastate local ecologies and fuel endless cycles of displacement, militarization, and environmental degradation. Resistance movements here intertwine anti-colonial aspirations with environmental justice, emphasizing that mining and militarization operate hand in hand to entrench authoritarian control and economic exploitation.

These struggles expose how the militarization of extraction and mining are tools of neocolonial domination, violently suppressing Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination and national liberation movements. The extraction-driven militarism not only destroys environments but perpetuates political violence and systemic oppression. Minerals and weapons sustain regimes that deny peoples’ sovereignty over their land and resources that peoples are resisting.

Guatemala: Militarization and the Escobal Silver Mine on Xinka Territory

The Escobal Mine is a large underground silver mine in southeastern Guatemala, which has been suspended since June 2017 by the Peaceful Resistance of Santa Rosa, Jalapa and Jutiapa and successive court decisions for discrimination and failure to consult with the Xinka Indigenous people. For around fifteen years, Xinka Indigenous and farming communities have opposed the project over concerns about water contamination and depletion in the largely agricultural region, as well as social, cultural, and spiritual impacts, and lack of respect for their self-determination (72). The mine was originally put into operation in 2014 by Tahoe Resources, which was bought up by Vancouver-based Pan American Silver in 2019.

Operations at the Escobal mine from 2014 to 2017 was made possible thanks to a militarized security strategy that suppressed local opposition and labeled it a threat to national security (73). In the years leading up to the opening of the mine, communities suffered violent repression by private security, police and military, as well as a campaign to defame and criminalize community leaders. Nearly 100 people were criminalized for their participation in peaceful protests.

Several members of the resistance, including 16-year-old Topacio Reynoso, were murdered during this time. In one incident, Tahoe private security opened fire on peaceful protesters in April 2013, seriously injuring six people. The victims sued the company in British Columbia civil court, achieving a landmark settlement in 2019 in which Pan American Silver took responsibility for the shooting and human rights violations (74). The settlement, however, did not dampen community opposition to the mine.

Since June 2017, residents from Santa Rosa, Jalapa, and Jutiapa, the three departments surrounding the mine, have maintained a 24-hour resistance camp to demonstrate ongoing opposition to the mine. The camp also aims to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court decision in July 2017 ordering the project’s suspension for lack of prior consultation and discrimination.

Acts of harassment, threats, attacks, and defamation against Xinka leaders and community members have continued throughout the consultation process, which began in late 2018. Targeted intimidation and surveillance of Xinka Parliament leaders increased in the final months of 2024, so much so that the former President of the Xinka Parliament and his family were forced to flee Guatemala and are living outside of the country (75).

On May 8, 2025, after seven years of a consultation process, the Xinka announced their decision on the reopening of the mine: No (76). As the formal consultation process winds to a close, they are now fighting to have their decision respected.

North of Ireland: The Sperrins Resist

In the Sperrin Mountains, Canadian company Dalradian Gold (now owned by US-based Orion Finance) has submitted the largest ever planning application in the North of Ireland for a gold mine. The plans for the proposed project include an underground gold mine at Curraghinalt, a processing plant and a 17-storey high tailings facility on Crockanboy Hill, less than one kilometre from the village of Greencastle.

This project is being imposed on a local population who has already seen decades of recent conflict and centuries of colonisation. To facilitate British colonial occupation, the Irish population was driven from the fertile lowlands into the rocky highlands – in this case, the Sperrins. During the 30-year conflict arising from the violent repression of a peaceful civil rights movement, this area was also heavily militarised by the British army, as it was seen as an area of strong resistance to continued British rule in the North of Ireland. The ‘peace process’ from the turn of the century came in the form of a neoliberal ‘Open for Business’ model, desperate to seek foreign investment. The main target, in terms of extractive projects, was the Sperrins.

However, the local population has rallied around this new threat and have been running a very successful campaign (77) to stop the mine for over a decade. The population has occupied an area within the proposed project site since February 2018.

In response to this resistance, the communities have faced selective policing (78), constant surveillance (79), infiltration, intimidation and death threats (80), labelled as ‘dissidents’ (opposed to the peace process). They have also been heavily criminalised with a number of environmental defenders being dragged through court proceedings lasting years.

In addition to the militarisation against defenders, this mine also has links with the military industrial complex. Documents submitted for the ongoing public inquiry into the proposed gold mine list gold, copper and tellurium (despite tellurium not appearing in their planning application). All three elements are used in the manufacture of the F-35 fighter jet. Invest NI have already given £19.66 million pounds (81) of public money to the companies manufacturing parts for these jets, which have been used by Israel in their genocide in Gaza. In 2014, Invest NI also gave £326,000 (82) of public money to Dalradian, as well as tens of thousands (83) in rate exemptions. Militarism and extractivism are both key priorities for the government in the North of Ireland.

Ecuador: Rights of Nature Versus Extractivism and Neoliberalism

In November 2021, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court created a national and international legal precedent by upholding the constitutional rights of nature for Los Cedros, a mega-biodiverse cloud forest. The ruling permanently banned mining in the reserve. The campaign to save Los Cedros lasted over three years. Led from the grassroots, it spread outwards to the international level, drawing in a diverse team of conservation groups, legal experts, scientists, artists, and activists. The story of this powerful campaign is told in a Yes to Life No to Mining emblematic case study (84).

Despite the historic precedent embodied by the forest’s win, its impact in Ecuador has been stifled by a series of government administrations which have become increasingly neoliberal in their political vision. Since 2008, the Ecuadorian Government has pursued an agenda to replace its former oil industry with mining. The so-called National Mining Plan involves the administration of thousands of exploration licenses mostly awarded to companies without public consultation, and the development of several large-scale mining projects in the pipeline, all of which are owned by Canadian or Australian transnational companies (85).

Since 2024, the government of President Daniel Noboa has been associated with a growing number of alleged human rights abuses (86), violations of civil rights, and attacks on the Constitution as it moves to suppress Indigenous and environmental organisations, especially those opposing mining expansions. Militarisation has been a key feature of state-led tactics, with the disappearances of 43 people and several deaths linked to the military since 2023 (87). From September to October 2025, an Indigenous-led uprising arose against the Noboa government’s increasingly autocratic behaviour. During this national strike, Ecuadorian human rights organisations tallied hundreds of human rights violations committed by state and military forces, including the assassination by police of a protester on the street (88).

The Noboa government also called for a referendum on November 16, 2025 to vote on four proposals, most significantly to build a US military base in the Galápagos Islands, and also to change Ecuador’s constitution, with the “Rights of Nature” articles singled out for altering or removal in order to streamline mining development. There were a majority of “No” votes for all four proposals – a win for people power and the environment, which was celebrated nationally at the grassroots level, and internationally. However the extractive government agenda and its threats to human rights and biodiversity continues to be pushed forwards, with conflict and militarisation continuing at mining hotspots throughout the country.

This is the context in which the world’s most progressive constitutional framework is being tested: a direct confrontation between an Indigenous-led vision of the “Sumak Kawsay” or “good living”, and an extractive vision of billionaire-backed violence, neoliberal hegemony, and the global military-industrial complex. The question of which vision will prevail depends largely upon the struggles of Ecuador’s people and the extent to which solidarity can be built to support them.

5. Demilitarised and Non-Extractive Futures

To imagine a world beyond militarised extractivism, we must begin by redefining what it means to be secure. For too long, security has been weaponised, defined by governments and corporations as the right to control land, borders, and resources through force. In this logic, minerals are “critical,” extraction is inevitable, and resistance is a threat.

For communities on the frontlines of mining and militarisation, security means something entirely different. It means sovereignty and self determination over land and water, the ability to live without surveillance or violence, to grow food, to raise children without fear, to speak and organise freely, and to heal from generations of harm. Real security is rooted in mutual care, ecological balance, social justice, and the collective right to say no to destructive activities.

Demilitarisation is not just about removing weapons, it is about transforming the systems that produce them. It is a process of healing: from colonial conquest, from war economies, and from extractive logics that see nature and communities as expendable.

This vision is not held by YLNM alone. It is shared by allied movements fighting for climate justice, abolition, anti-colonial liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, and feminist economies.

We stand with those dismantling prisons and borders, challenging fossil-fuel fascism, resisting settler colonialism, and building new systems of care, governance, and ecological stewardship.

Our struggles are interconnected and so are our futures. A demilitarised and non-extractive world is not a dream. It is already being practiced, protected, and made possible by communities who refuse to be sacrificed, and who insist that another way is not only necessary, but already underway.

6. Calls to Action & Solidarity Demands

To confront the deepening entanglement of militarisation and extractivism, and to move toward a truly just and life-sustaining future, systemic change is not only necessary, it is urgent.

A just transition cannot be built on the same foundations of colonial violence, resource extraction, and militarised control that have long defined the fossil fuel era. The path forward must not become a new frontier of exploitation disguised as progress and development. A just transition must mean a transition away from extractivism, not an acceleration of it under a different guise.

We demand an end to the violent and militarised expansion of mining under the banners of “security,” “critical minerals,””energy transition” and “digital transformation.” As affirmed in YLNM’s Statement of Principles we reject all forms of extractivism – green or otherwise – that treat the Earth as limitless, that commodify nature, and that sacrifice communities and ecosystems.

We call for:

An immediate halt to the militarisation of mine sites, supply chains, and territories. Communities must not be criminalised, surveilled, or subjected to violence for defending their lands and waters. States must demilitarise extractive zones and uphold the rights of all Earth defenders.
Self-determination for Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities. Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) must be respected not as a box-ticking exercise, but as an expression of sovereignty and self determination. Communities have the right to say NO, and to define their own visions of life beyond mining.
Stronger regulations and international agreements. These need to hold corporations and states accountable for environmental and human rights abuses across the entire supply chain. This includes full transparency of mineral deals, corporate contracts, and military-industrial links.
The protection and amplification of post-extractive alternatives. Alternatives already exist and are being built by communities across the world. Mineral-rich territories must not be reduced to zones of extraction for the benefit of wealthier nations. Instead, they must be supported to nurture locally-rooted, ecologically-just economies that restore rather than destroy.
A dismantling of the systems of global profiteering. This includes financial institutions, military alliances, and transnational trade and investment frameworks, that enable and legitimise extractivism through violence, neocolonial imposition and impunity.

We call on all those committed to a just world beyond extractivism to stand in active solidarity with communities resisting militarised extraction – from the mines that feed militaries, to the militaries that guard the mines. This includes amplifying their voices, taking action in solidarity with their defense of rights, and building power together to expose and dismantle the structures that underpin this violent system.

The future we need cannot be mined or militarised into existence. It must be cultivated through solidarity, care, and resistance.

We stand for life.

We say yes to demilitarised futures rooted in justice and care.

Endnotes

1. Global Witness, Critical mineral mines tied to 111 violent incidents and protests on average a year, 2023. Available at: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/natural-resource-governance/critical-mineral-mines-tied-111-violent-incidents-and-protests-average-year/

2. Global Witness, How the militarisation of mining threatens Indigenous defenders in the Philippines, 2024. Available at: https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-and-environmental-defenders/how-the-militarisation-of-mining-threatens-indigenous-defenders-in-the-philippines/

3. Amnesty International, DRC: Powering change or business as usual? 2023. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AFR62/7009/2023/en/

4. Transparency International Australia, The race to exploit critical minerals amidst governance concerns in Zambia, 2023, available at: https://transparency.org.au/the-race-to-exploit-critical-minerals-in-zambia/

5. https://yestolifenotomining.org/latest-news/resistance-to-the-dirty-face-of-the-green-transition/

6. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/mexico-land-defenders-criminalized-right-to-protest/

7. https://miningwatch.ca/blog/2025/5/14/open-letter-100-international-organizations-call-argentinian-authorities-end

8. Amnesty International, Argentina: Two years after brutal repression in Jujuy, Amnesty International report exposes impunity, 2025. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/05/argentina-two-years-after-brutal-repression-in-jujuy-impunity/

9. EJ Atlas, “Kilwa Mine”. Available at: https://ejatlas.org/print/kilwa-mine

10. https://amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/canadian-mining-firm-human-rights-violations-drc/

11. https://miningwatch.ca/news/2021/10/4/canadian-miners-pursue-prospects-war-torn-tigray

12. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/settlement-amnesty-scc-africa-mine-nevsun-1.5774910

13. https://breachmedia.ca/leaked-report-accuses-canada-of-covering-for-mining-companies-in-war-torn-ethiopia/

14. Newsweek, World’s Biggest Polluter is in the US, Study Finds, 2025. Available at: https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-us-military-pollution-carbon-emissions-2094434

15. Nature Communications, Rising military spending jeopardizes climate targets, 2025. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59877-x

16. https://ceobs.org/new-data-reveals-the-military-emissions-gap-is-growing-wider/#:~:text=Introduction,C%20pathways%2C%20accelerating%20dangerous%20warming

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18. See the examples of mines in Michoacán and Jalisco described in The Fair Steel Coalition, The Real Cost of Steel, 2024. Available at: https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-real-cost-of-steel-report.pdf

19. For example, see examples of Canadian-owned mines in Guerrero described in JCAP, The “Canada Brand”: Violence and Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America, 2015. Available at: https://justice-project.org/the-canada-brand-violence-and-canadian-mining-companies-in-latin-america/

20. Revista Hispana para el Análisis de Redes Sociales, Las estructuras políticas en las redes de macrocriminalidad en Veracruz (México), 2019. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/redes.948

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