Canadian company to explore for gold in Haiti

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Tuesday, 04.28.09
Canadian company to explore for gold in Haiti
Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- A Montreal-based mining company has announced plans to explore the mountains of northeastern Haiti for gold and copper.

Majescor Resources Inc. will explore the site in a partnership with Simact Mining Holding Inc., a Long Island, N.Y.-based consortium of Haitian American investors.

Majescor President Marc-Andre Bernier said Monday the company is encouraged by explorations that Eurasian Minerals Inc. is conducting at a nearby site.

Gold and copper were found in the Caribbean nation decades ago, but Haiti's instability and lack of infrastructure have discouraged investment.

A Barrick Gold Corp. site about 130 miles southeast in the Dominican Republic is estimated to contain 20.4 million ounces of gold.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1021552.html

[magbana]

1. And this is the real reason why UN Peacekeepers (MINUSTAH) are in Haiti . . .

and why the Canadian contingent of MINUSTAH is the one which trains the Haitian National Police. Oh yeah, and why Canada conspired with the US and France in the coup.

[Judi Lynn]

2. I wondered why Canada felt driven to stick in Canada's nose throughout the trauma

of _Bush's violent removal of Aristide. Now I see. It clearly was in their interests.

So they, and the U.S. control the National Police. I remember reading Aristide dissolved the country's marines, if I remember correctly, as the U.S. had always controlled them for many years after the U.S. Marines occupied Haiti at one time.

It seemed crucially important to deny the U.S. that level of control over his own people. Now outsiders found a way to get it right back. Figures.

Now they've got a broken, desperate, starving labor base to help out with all that killer labor they will need as they plunder what's left of Haiti's resources.

You may find this worth pondering, if you didn't already know:

George HW Bush hired as "honorary senior adviser" to Barrick.
Submitted by Anonymous 2004-05-19 17:37:09

In the final days of the first Bush regime, the Interior Department adopted policies that enriched Barrick -- and cost U.S. taxpayers -- "a cool billion or so," according to Palast. In 1995, Barrick hired Bush I as "honorary senior adviser" -- but of course claimed there had been no deal. (When Bush the Younger became president in 2001, one of his first deeds was to dump rules on gold mining waste disposal -- which is likely to cause irreparable environmental harm. One of the biggest beneficiaries is, of course, Barrick.)

Barrick in 1999 acquired another Canadian mining company, Sutton Resources, which was seeking to grab land in Tanzania from small-time prospectors. In his book, Palast reports: "In August 1996, Sutton's bulldozers, backed by military police firing weapons, rolled across the goldfield, smashing down worker housing, crushing their mining equipment. ... About 50 miners were still in their mine shafts, buried alive."

Not good public relations.

Bush left Barrick in 1999 -- it was probably a risky affiliation as his son's campaign ramped up. Replacing Bush was Atlanta's own Andrew Young, who joined another of the city's favorite sons, Vernon Jordan. In an interview, Palast was brutal. "Andy Young is pocketing blood money from African gold." (Young did not return a detailed message asking about his relationship with Barrick.)

McKinney, meanwhile, chaired congressional hearings that had launched a probe of Barrick's activities in the Congo, where the firm was accused of, as Palast says, "stoking the civil war." McKinney was also fighting to protect the life of a whistleblower in the Tanzania episode.

http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=210

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/rateConnection.php?id1=413&id2=128

When I heard of Bush & Barrick it was in the Congo context. It would take a normal human being a thousand years to get as sleazy as someone like _{George H. W. Bush.} My God.