Pascua Lama, Chile, Barrick Gold, glaciers & greed.

[Jigarotta]

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed
by 2 glaciers.

Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it.
Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide
the second largest source of income for the area.

Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other
minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the
glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to
make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and
one for the mine's rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold.
The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members
is George Bush Senior.

The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006.
The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a
temporary stay of execution.

If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of
especially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so
they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the
use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extraction process.

Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not
one will be left with the people whose land it is. They will only be left
with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been
forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.
Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from
international justice.

http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/reststory/bronfmangold.html

Barrick's Barracudas
The following is a brief profile of key members of Barrick's international advisory board and its board of directors:

George Bush:
serves as "Honorary Senior Adviser.''

Brian Mulroney:
prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993. Mulroney became prime minister after backers of the Nicaraguan Contras helped knock out his competitor, Joe Clark. There were no serious investigations of the `Iran-Contra' Canadian connection. Mulroney sacrificed his political career by talking Canadians into accepting Bush's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Though Canadian banks benefitted, 350,000 industrial jobs were lost, and Mulroney became the most hated man in Canada. In the 1993 elections, Canadians voted out all but 2 of his party's 169 members of Parliament.

In 1994, Mulroney's phone calls to the Presidents of Chile and Argentina, and the prime minister of China, helped Barrick move into gold mines in those nations. His "advice'' was rewarded with $1.2 million in stock options and $300,000 in fees. Rev. Sun Myung Moon rewarded Mulroney and Bush for their vouching for him in Ibero-America in November 1996. Mulroney, a board member of Archer Daniels Midland, ran ADM's internal "investigation'' of its price-fixing scandal.

Howard H. Baker, Jr.:
(R-Tenn.) served in the U.S. Senate from 1967 to 1985, and was Reagan's chief of staff during 1987-88. He is on many corporate boards and runs a lobbying firm, which includes Barrick among its clients.

[redqueen]

1. Thanks for posting this.

Sad to know the government of Chile has gone along with this... and banned the ad. I thought Chile was one of the countries that had mostly humane people (non-corporate whores) in government.


edit to ad an article from last year with some background info: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12447

[donsu]

2. wasn't it the Barrick corp. that raped and destroyed Africa?

and don't the religiously insane hold stock in Barrick?

the people of Chile will be sorry.

[Jigarotta]

4. where Barrick goes, death follows.

I did come across some info on Barrick in Africa and how 'coincidentally' when they appear, people tend to die in large numbers.
lost the link, tho, will look.

at the link in the opening post:
(don't know who these hiddenmysteries.com people are, tho. but this doesn't sound too much of a stretch to me)

ut, Barrick, along with the South Africa-based Anglo American Corp., is engaged in a strategic metals grab in Central Africa, which is being abetted by the greatest genocide per capita in modern times.

From April 1993, when Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, on behalf of London, launched the genocide of the Hutu majority in Rwanda, through to the ongoing invasion by the same Museveni-led forces in eastern Zaire, Central Africa and the Horn of Africa have been turned into a killing field. Local, British-sponsored "countergangs'' have been unleashed to depopulate a region that possesses the world's richest strain of precious metal deposits, while a string of Club of the Isles metals cartels, including Barrick, moves in for the kill.

As you will read below, the invasion of eastern Zaire, by the combined armies of Rwanda and Uganda, which began in September 1996, coincided with the Barrick and Anglo American metal grabs in the very same area. The net result of the invasion, and the simultaneous launching of an "internal'' rebellion by longtime British provocateur Laurent Kabila, was the depopulating of a string of camps that were holding Rwandan Hutu refugees. Thousands of those refugees were killed in the fighting between the British-backed invaders and French-supported Hutu guerrillas; at least another quarter of a million refugees were driven into the wilderness, to face death by disease and starvation; and another half a million fled back across the border into Rwanda, to face likely extermination at the hands of the Tutsi.

[redqueen]

3. More recent article from the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,,1766535,00.html?gusrc=rss


Blog with lots more info: http://jnblog.typepad.com/provocations/2006/05/heres_an_exampl.html

from a Barrick press release linked from that blog:

"At the Pascua-Lama project in Chile/Argentina, approval of the environmental impact assessment was received during the quarter from the Chilean environmental regulatory authorities. Approval of the environmental impact assessment by Argentine regulatory authorities is targeted for mid-year 2006."

...might be too late...

[leesa]

5. This is some scary stuff. Nice price of gold they've whipped up too

These people would do ANYTHING for money.

[dysfunctional press]

6. Poppy helps Barrick strike gold in Nevada...

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=207&row=4

Some of the loot for the Republican effort in the 1997-2000 election cycles came from an outfit called Barrick Corporation. The sum, while over $100,000, is comparatively small change for the GOP, yet it seemed quite a gesture for a corporation based in Canada. Technically, the funds came from those associated with the Canadian’s U.S. unit, Barrick Gold Strike.



They could well afford it. In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush-era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could “perfect its patent” on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $ 10,000. Eureka!



Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada’s Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so.

[Jigarotta]

7. so corporate borders are free and wild...

to pillage and go job hunting anywhere on the planet they like, take anything they want whether above, below or on surface.

But poor immigrants from other countries have to respect that invisible dotted line on our globe or they become 'felons'.

fuck that noise.

[seemslikeadream]

8. The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney

http://www.alternet.org/story/16172

The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney
Did I mention to you that (ex-)Congresswoman McKinney is black? And not just any kind of black. She’s the uppity kind of black.

What I mean by uppity is this:

After George Bush Senior left the White House, he became an advisor and lobbyist for a Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. Hey, a guy’s got to work. But there were a couple of questions about Barrick, to say the least. For example, was Barrick’s Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter.

You’ve guessed: Cynthia McKinney.

That was covered in the . . . well, it wasn’t covered at all in the U.S. press.

McKinney contacted me at the BBC. She asked if I’d heard of Barrick. Indeed, I had. Top human rights investigators had evidence that a mine that Barrick bought in 1999 had, in clearing their Tanzanian properties three years earlier, bulldozed mine shafts . . . burying about 50 miners alive.

I certainly knew Barrick: They’d sued the Guardian for daring to run a story I’d written about the allegations of the killings. Barrick never sued an American paper for daring to run the story, because no American paper dared.

The primary source for my story, an internationally famous lawyer named Tundu Lissu, was charged by the Tanzanian police with sedition, and arrested, for calling for an investigation. McKinney has been trying to save his life with an international campaign aimed at Barrick.

That was another of her mistakes.
more




http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/kabila1.htm
Another big player in the eastern Congo is Barrick Gold Corp.

headquartered in Canada. It is the world's second-largest gold producer after Anglo-American of South Africa.

The industrial enterprises that set up American Mineral Fields are interested in the contract for the construction of the orbital platform around the world that is destined to replace the Russian station MIR.

This project is part of the $60 billion so-called National Missile Defense system that George W. Bush, Sec. Of Defense Rumsfeld, Sec. of State Colin Powell, and Vice President Cheney are pushing so vigorously. Building the spacer station will require many of the rare metals found in eastern Congo.

Barrick was able in 1996 to get the Mobutu regime's Gold Office of Kilomoto, a government monopoly, to transfer mining rights over almost all its 82,000 square kilometers of land to Barrick. The land is estimated to have 100 tons of gold in reserve.

George Bush Sr. sat on the board if directors of Barrick.

http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/7_01/...

Cynthia McKinney made the mistake of pissing off the Bushes after the 1992 election:
After George Bush Senior left the White House, he became an advisor and lobbist for Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. But there were a couple of questions about Barrick, to say the least. For example, was Barrick's Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter.


"The despot, the moment he sits on the throne and puts the inherited crown on his head, sees himself transforming from a man into god, then looks again and realises the depth of his weakness... a despot is never more than a traitor and a coward who needs a gang to help and protect him." Abdul- Rahman Al-Kawakibi, in The Nature of Despotism

"They are tearing up the very fabric of the sacred heartland.


That is our sacred heartland. It is the heartland of the Wiradjuri people. We are not going to give up," said Alan Oshlak speaking on behalf of Neville Williams, a representative of the Mooka Traditional Owners Council which is within the Wiradjuri Nation.

Oshlack said the drilling rigs on the site were breaking up the ground and destroying a number of rare stone artifacts - including stone hammers and axes - scattered across the site. According to Oshlack, these artifacts lay in a registered site about 500 meters by 100 metrers where three proposed drilling sites had been pegged out by Homestake.

ABORIGINAL LANDOWNERS FIGHT OFF BARRICKHOMESTAKE AND GOLD MINING

Aboriginal landowners and enviromentalists in New South Wales, Australia are battling Canadian mining giant BarrickHomestake to prevent exploratory drilling for gold near Lake Cowal. The Mooka Traditional Owners Council filed a lawsuit this month after an Australian court dismissed an injuction that would restrain the subsidiary company, Homestake Australia Limited, from drilling.

Barrick Gold acquired Homestake, the former parent company of HAL, in June 2001. The company plans to mine 2.7 million ounces of gold from 76 million tons of ore, creating a 1 kilometer-long by 8255 meters wide and 325 meters deep open pit on Lake Cowal.

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html
War is Golden for the Bush Administration

And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

Thus every step toward war fills Bush pockets quite literally with gold. That's the way they operate, these liars and thieves in thousand-dollar suits, these secretive fronts who profit from war, fear, blood and greasy palms. They arm the "monsters," they disarm the monsters, making money both ways. Then they drape themselves with Bible and flag, like smug pimps promenading to church, singing "Glory Hallelujah" while the whole world burns.
more

Barrick and Crown's parent Kinross own a couple of joint ventures

Nevada Star Res Corp
http://www.ewg.org/mining/owners/overview.php?cust_id=-575783

Round Mtn Gold Corp
http://www.ewg.org/mining/owners/overview.php?cust_id=-584644

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2003/11/17/daily38.html

Follow the money (Carlisle Group and Carlisle Holdings are the same company):

.....

* * Kinross Gold (NYSE:KGC/TSX:K) – Kinross put up a good second quarter, announcing earnings of $6.6 million, versus a loss for the same time last year of $7.7 million. The firm reported production of over 22,000 ounces of gold at its Kettle River Mine near Curlew, Washington, but said the $243 an ounce cash cost of production was higher than expected. It also reported strong drilling results there.

KGC says its acquisition of Crown Resources is still under SEC review and the transaction should close this quarter. Included in the deal is Crown’s Buckhorn Mountain gold deposit in north central Washington -- about 40 miles from Kinross’ mill at Kettle River. Kinross plans to develop an underground mine at Buckhorn Mountain, which is a high-grade gold skarn reported to have almost a million ounces of total proven and probable reserves. During last year’s gold rise, KGC traded a good ways above $9.00. It’s trading lately on the Big Board at a bit over $ 6.00.

http://www.pennaluna.com/prospector.htm

and here is what Transnational.org shows which is part of the Carlisle Group, is it not:

Mining: Apex Silver Mines Ltd., Azco Mining Inc., Cambior, Inc., Campbell Resources Inc., Crown Resources Corp, Hecla Mining Co, Meridian Gold Inc., Metallica Resources Inc., Newmont Mining Corp., Pan American Silver Corp., Phelps Dodge Corp., Ryerson Tull Inc.,

http://www.transnationale.org/pays/mexp.htm

http://www.scom.com/aboutus.asp

[Jigarotta]

9. thank you. I had forgotten about that.

thank you for reminding me again what a precious gem Cynthia McKinney is.

on edit
shouldn't have said that. Barrick will be mining her now.

[Jigarotta]

10. a kick for Cynthia and the kinds of people she wrastles with.

[SpiralHawk]

11. k and r

greed and stupidity -- the hallmark of repulican neocons

[Jigarotta]

12. kick for what borders mean for some.

[Jigarotta]

13. take note. amongst the million other notes.

reminds me of 'Amadeus', the movie.
Too many notes, said his jealous opponent.

absolutely wonderful movie to bring it on to us.
Be genius in whatever little small way we have, but be willing to fart in the general direction of establishment. That was the true genius.