Marcel Claude, economist and vice-president of Oceana, an environmental NGO, pointed out:
''Gold mining dumps 79 tons of waste for every 28 grams of gold, and produces 96 percent of the world's arsenic emissions,''
And:
One for you...one thousand for me
Over the proposed 20 year life of the mine, Barrick has offered to compensate Chile with a "whopping" $60 million. The purpose of this relatively paltry sum would be to increase the quality and quantity of water which Pascua Lama would diminish. While offering $60 million to Chile in compensation, Barrick intends to fund its mining operation with $1.5 billion. And based on 6/2/06 market values, Barrick stands to extract over $17 billion worth of gold and silver. The economic injustice is almost incomprehensible.
Let's see that bill of sale...
Even Barrick's acquisition of their mining stake is highly questionable. The Diaguita people of the Huasco Valley filed suit against Barrick in 2001 because it had purchased the gold and silver rich territory from only one member of the entire indigenous community. Legal precedent appears to favor the poor Chilean farmers. Barrick's "purchase" could be invalidated because it failed to get unanimous Huascoaltino approval on the sale of their ancestral lands.
Munk holds the aces...
Despite Chile's recent election of moderate socialist Michelle Bachelet to the presidency and strong popular opposition to Pascua Lama, it is highly unlikely that the Huascoaltinos will prevail.
Political heavyweights like former US President George Bush Sr, Washington power broker Vernon Jordan, and former PM of Canada Brian Mulroney serve as corporate board members or "advisors" to Barrick. Their considerable influence in the political arena gives Barrick a distinct and obvious advantage. Besides, with potent Neocolonial economic policies backing their efforts, multinationals seldom lose when large stakes are on the table.
Barrick chairman and founder Peter Munk, who once appeared on Mother Jones' list of America's "10 Little Piggies", will not rest until his stockholders' pockets are burgeoning with Chilean gold and silver.
Consider this excerpt from an article appearing on the Lawyers' Environmental Action Team Website, Robbing the Poor to Give to the Rich:
"In August 1996 the Tanzanian government authorities in collaboration with a Canadian-owned company called Kahama Mining Corporation Ltd., (KMCL) forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of artisanal miners, peasant farmers, small traders and their families from an area called Bulyanhulu in Shinyanga Region, central-western Tanzania. The removals were the culmination of a two-year struggle pitting the miners and the company over the control of gold deposits at Bulyanhulu. Within days of the operation to remove the miners, serious allegations emerged that over 50 artisanal miners were killed after they were buried alive in mineshafts when the authorities and company officials decided to backfill the shafts. KMCL was then a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sutton Resources, based in Vancouver, Canada."
"In March 1999, Barrick Gold Corporation, another Canadian mining giant acquired the Bulyanhulu deposits through its acquisition of Sutton Resources and its Tanzanian subsidiary""
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