Anti Gold Mining Conflicts Spreading — 2 May global day of action

Once iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties around the world are sud­den­ly unit­ing and strength­en­ing in their actions to halt transna­tion­al Big Min­ing projects. On May 2, 2007 com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups around the world will unite is strug­gle on the Glob­al Day Of Action Against Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

Anti-Gold Min­ing Con­flicts Spread­ing Through­out the Amer­i­c­as

Glob­al Day of Action Against Bar­rick Gold, May 2, 2007

Big Min­ing Investors Fear Big Loss­es

In almost every Latin Amer­i­can coun­try, transna­tion­al met­als min­ing firms are explor­ing, build­ing and oper­at­ing huge, open-pit gold mines which extract and con­t­a­m­i­nate using tremen­dous amounts of water. These new “mod­ern min­ing” projects leave thou­sand-year lega­cies of acid mine drainage, destruc­tion of ecosys­tems, dis­ease, and region­al cli­mate change. Rich­es in the form of gold, sil­ver and cop­per are export­ed to first world share­hold­ers, leav­ing behind pover­ty, depen­den­cy and pol­lu­tion.

How­ev­er, once-iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties are sud­den­ly unit­ing and strength­en­ing in their actions to halt Big Min­ing projects.

Today there are more than a hun­dred min­ing-relat­ed local con­flicts, in every Latin Amer­i­can coun­try (www.minesandcommunities.org) Campesinos, indige­nous and com­mu­ni­ty groups in vil­lages and cities are fight­ing Big Min­ing inser­tion. In coun­tries such as Peru, Ecuador and Colom­bia, multi­na­tion­al min­ing firms are respond­ing by arm­ing para­mil­i­tary groups to meet com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance with mur­der, threats and vio­lence. In every instance, min­ing firms attempt to “pur­chase” social license with bribes, hand­outs, media cam­paigns and cor­rupt local politi­cians, to sell “sus­tain­able gold min­ing.”

The tremen­dous over con­sump­tion of water resources is the key issue in mod­ern met­als min­ing projects. Big mines change region­al cli­mate pat­terns, dry up ecosys­tems, cause the deser­ti­fi­ca­tion of agri­cul­tur­al lands, com­mu­ni­ties are dried out. Big min­ing projects are being locat­ed pri­mar­i­ly in sen­si­tive riv­er head­wa­ters of vul­ner­a­ble arid regions upon which mil­lions of human and eco­log­i­cal com­mu­ni­ties depend. Big min­ing, through its inten­sive use of ener­gy and destruc­tion of habi­tat, glac­i­ers, aquifers, cli­mate pat­terns and water resources, is a huge fac­tor in glob­al cli­mate change. Appro­pri­ate inter­na­tion­al and nation­al reg­u­la­tion of Big Min­ing projects is almost non-exis­tent.

On May 2, 2007, com­mu­ni­ties around the world affect­ed by Big Min­ing projects are going to car­ry out simul­ta­ne­ous demon­stra­tions against the Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion. Simul­ta­ne­ous actions will be held in Chile, Argenti­na, Peru, Aus­tralia, Cana­da, the Philip­pines, Tan­za­nia, and Europe.

Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion, the world’s largest gold min­ing firm, is spear­head­ing the transna­tion­al met­als min­ing firms inva­sion of Latin Amer­i­ca. In the past few years, com­mu­ni­ty groups strug­gling against projects of Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion on five con­ti­nents began com­mu­ni­cat­ing togeth­er, and this year they have joined togeth­er for the first time to call for this Glob­al Day of Action Against Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

• In Argenti­na, com­mu­ni­ty activists forced Bar­rick Gold to sus­pend oper­a­tions in the province of La Rio­ja, the gov­er­nor oust­ed due to his cor­rupt rela­tions with the min­ing firm, and a state ref­er­en­dum to pro­hib­it open-pit min­ing is to be vot­ed by the pop­u­la­tion.

• Chilean and Argen­tine com­mu­ni­ties are fight­ing tooth and nail against the con­struc­tion of one of the world’s largest gold mines in the heart of a UNESCO World Her­itage Wilder­ness Area, in the del­i­cate glac­i­er peaks of the Andes along the Chile-Argenti­na Bor­der. This is Barrick’s infa­mous Pas­cua-Lama/Ve­ladero project. http://projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm#21

• In Ancash, Peru, fierce com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance has been answered with the mur­ders of pro­tes­tors by para­mil­i­tary and state forces work­ing for the Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

• In Aus­tralia, a series of pow­er­ful direct actions car­ried out by local Abo­rig­i­nal lead­ers, indige­nous and com­mu­ni­ty activists has tied up and cast grave doubts on Bar­rick Gold’s huge Lake Cow­al project.

On May 2, A Glob­al Day of Action Against Bar­rick Gold will be car­ried out. We invite all neigh­bors, activists and ecol­o­gists to join or form the many local-scale actions to be car­ried out simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and autonomous­ly through­out the world, on the five con­ti­nents in which Bar­rick Gold oper­ates.

We hope that through vis­i­ble and spir­it­ed actions, we can join togeth­er to draw atten­tion to the grave threat brought upon our world by these transna­tion­al large-scale open-pit met­als min­ing projects using cyanide. Our world does not need more gold and sil­ver! We must fight to pre­serve this world for our chil­dren and their chil­dren.

We hope to send a mes­sage to Bar­rick Share­hold­ers that their invest­ments are high­ly risky: Through­out the world, com­mu­ni­ties are reject­ing and shall put an end to these shame­ful met­als min­ing oper­a­tions.

For More Infor­ma­tion:

Mines and Com­mu­ni­ties www.minesandcommunities.org
Cor­p­Watch www.corpwatch.org
Latin Amer­i­can Obser­va­to­ry of Min­ing Con­flicts www.conflictosmineros.net
www.noalamina.org (Argenti­na)
www.noalapascualama.org (chile)