[Marxism] Query about Pascua Lama and Barrick Gold

[Anthony Boynton <northbogota@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone: If anyone on this list knows about a
gold mining project in Chile called Pascua Lama I
would appreciate comments and information. I recieved
the email and internet petition below from an old
friend. Normally I do not sign internet petitions of
any sort, and am not promoting this one. On the fact
of it, it sounds like the project is well worth
opposing. For now I am passing on this information,
and asking people on the list for their input. All the
best, Anthony

***

This Email is about asking the Chilean Government not
to authorize the Pascua Lama mining project in order
to protect 3 glaciers. The purity of the water of the
San Felix Valley and the quality of the agricultural
land of the Atacama region and the quality of life of
the Diaguita people is at risk if this project goes
forward.  I ask you to join in
this petiton and pass it along because the world is
big, water is precious, and most of us are old enough
and smart enough to know that what happens to the
water supply in Chile will affect us all eventually.

Water is a basic human right and human rights should
not be for sale
or be exploited for profit.

This is a real project which will go ahead if we don't
unite against it.

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile
runs from 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
sourceof 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.The
world must know what is happening in Chile. The only
place to start changing the world is from here.

We ask you to circulate this message amongst your
friends in the
following way.Please copy this text, paste it into a
new email adding
your signature and send it to everyone in your address
book.  Please,
will the 100th person to receive and sign the
petition, send it to:

noapascualama@xxxxxxxx <mailto:noapascualama@xxxxxxxx>

It will be forwarded to the Chilean Government.

No to Pascua Lama

 Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the
Chilean-Argentine frontier.

We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the
Pascua Lama to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the
purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El
Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the
region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita
people and of the whole population of the region.


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