ACCRA, 28 January 2009 (IRIN) - Farmer John Osei Kamkam paces the hallway of Ghana's Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, waiting his turn to file a complaint. He is one of an estimated 10,000 small-scale farmers who say their land was destroyed after Newmont, one of the world's leading gold mining companies – headquartered in the United States – cleared 3,000 hectares of land to begin digging for gold in 2006. Operating a surface gold mine involves clearing a large tract of land – often hundreds of square kilometres in size. Civil society and human rights groups in Ghana say that Newmont’s mining operations have stripped local communities of land and water resources.