People and governments across Latin America are rising up against foreign mining companies in a wave of revolt that is generating alarm among investors and their political operatives in the imperialist governments.<\/p>\n
In Haiti, U.S. and Canadian gold mining companies are rubbing their hands over the riches that they believe await them. A recent study\u00a0by Haiti Grassroots Watch<\/a>estimates up to $20 billion, at gold\u2019s current price of $1,600 an ounce, lies in the ground.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s no coincidence that Washington has used its proxy, the Organization of American States (OAS), to illegally install a compliant regime \u2013 that of President Michel Martelly \u2013 whose operative watchword is: \u201cHaiti is open for business.\u201d Washington and Ottawa, which represent most of the international mining firms in the Americas, are adopting an increasingly interventionist response throughout the continent.<\/p>\n Nationalizations grow<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cFrom expropriations in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Argentina to violent opposition in traditionally mining-friendly jurisdictions such as Peru and Chile, the rising political tensions pose a risk to a decade-long bonanza mining companies have enjoyed,\u201d reports the Canadian national daily\u00a0Globe and Mail<\/a>\u00a0on Jul. 11.<\/p>\n The previous day, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced his government would expropriate the Vancouver-based South American Silver Corp. According to the company, its claim in Bolivia\u2019s Mallku Khota region contains one of the world’s largest undeveloped silver, indium, and gallium deposits.<\/p>\n In May, Bolivia nationalized a Spanish-owned electrical generation company. That followed by several weeks a highly-publicized nationalization of a Spanish oil company\u2019s operations in Argentina, the largest oil company in the country. Then in June, the Morales government nationalized the Colquiri tin and zinc mine owned by the Swiss global mining giant Glencore International PLC.<\/p>\n The mine nationalizations were prompted by inter-Bolivian conflicts that the Bolvian government accuses the companies of stoking. Tensions have arisen at mining sites between employees of the operations of large companies, artisanal miners who have a long tradition of working through cooperatives, and local Indigenous residents. The stakes are further fueled by sky-rocketing prices for minerals in international markets.<\/p>\n As well, nationalization of resource industries has been a key demand on the government by social movements in Bolivia, though this demand had apparently not been a large factor in Mallku Khota.<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, the so-called transnational companies\u2026pit brothers, in-laws, cousins, neighbors, brothers from the same\u00a0ayllu\u00a0(community) against one another,\u201d said President Evo Morales about the decision to nationalize South American Silver.<\/p>\n Some Latin American populations are standing up to the mining transnationals without their government\u2019s backing. That\u2019s increasingly the case in Peru. Five people were killed by police during the first week of July at protests against the multi-billion dollar\u00a0Conga gold and copper project<\/a>, which would be the largest mine in Peru\u2019s history if it goes ahead. The project\u2019s owner is the U.S.-based Newmont Mining Group.<\/p>\n Area residents do not want the Conga mine, saying it will damage local water supplies. A string of protests against mining projects have occurred in Peru in recent years.<\/p>\n In Chile, similar concerns over water supply and quality as well as the effects of mining on electrical supply are driving protests. The Council of Canadians released a\u00a0detailed report in March 2012<\/a>\u00a0looking at recent developments and concerns in Chile\u2019s Patagonia region.<\/p>\n \u201cIf social movements in opposition to mining are now part of the landscape, and if mining is creating increasing intense competition for water and energy, the real question now is how, institutionally, politically, and legally Chile will accommodate the citizen voice in mineral development,\u201d wrote the U.S.-based Sustainable Development Strategies Group in a 2010\u00a0study on mining<\/a>\u00a0in the country.<\/p>\n Interventionist responses<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the\u00a0Vancouver Sun, Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast wrote to his Bolivian counterpart on Jul. 11 expressing “deep concern” with reports that Bolivia was preparing to nationalize South American Silver. Fast’s spokesman Rudy Husny said the minister has instructed officials to “intensify their engagement with the Bolivian government to order to protect and defend Canadian interests and seek a productive resolution of this matter.”<\/p>\n The paper reported that Canadian officials were expected to meet with the Bolivian government and with Bolivia’s ambassador to Canada.<\/p>\n President and Chief Executive Officer of the South American Silver Corporation, Greg Johnson, appeared on the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) Radio One\u2019s\u00a0The Current\u00a0on July 12<\/a>\u00a0and argued that his company has been wronged. He reported, with satisfaction, that the Canadian government is pressuring the Bolivian government to reverse its decision.<\/p>\n The CBC host of the program sounded like a public relations spokesperson for the company. In an accompanying interview, he hectored Bolivia\u2019s ambassador to the U.S., asking if South American Silver would be compensated. He also took offense at Evo Morales\u2019 statements accusing foreign mining companies of \u201clooting\u201d Latin America\u2019s wealth for generations.<\/p>\n Evidently, the radio host has not read\u00a0The Open Veins of Latin America,\u00a0Eduardo Galeano\u2019s classic history of the continent. Galeano describes how Latin America became \u201ca huge mine.\u201d The book details the unbelievable human toll and suffering and the environmental destruction perpetrated over the centuries starting with Spanish conquistadors until today\u2019s European and North American mining companies.<\/p>\n “The metals taken from the new colonial dominions not only stimulated Europe’s economic development; one may say that they made it possible,” Galeano writes. The book is appropriately sub-titled, “Five centuries of the pillage of a continent.”<\/p>\n The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada estimates there are 20 Canadian mining companies operating in Bolivia.<\/p>\n A recent\u00a0series of articles<\/a>\u00a0translated into French and published by the Belgium-based Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) examines the role of the British-Australia aluminum mining giant Rio-Tinto in the parliamentary coup d\u2019etat against Paraguay\u2019s President Fernando Lugo on Jun. 22.<\/p>\n The company had been lobbying heavily for a long-term agreement for cheap electricity prices as an incentive for it to establish aluminum smelting operations. Paraguay shares several very large hydro-electric dams with Brazil and Argentina. It has substantial installed electrical generation capacity, approximately equal to 5% of all of Canada\u2019s. In 2007, Rio Tinto acquired the Canadian-owned Alcan and its large aluminum operations in Quebec and British Columbia.<\/p>\n The coup has returned to power Paraguay\u2019s traditional economic elite, who, not coincidentally, are amenable to making a long-term deal with Rio Tinto. Among the few countries to recognize Paraguay\u2019s coup government is Canada, which, with the U.S., was also quick to recognize the Honduras coup d\u2019etat in June 2009.<\/p>\n In the weeks ahead, Washington and Ottawa will inevitably heighten sharpen their rhetoric against the Morales government as they contemplate how to further intervene in Bolivia.<\/p>\n Haiti\u2019s situation<\/strong><\/p>\n In February 2004, Washington and Ottawa worked with Paris to carry out a coup d\u2019etat against the elected and socially progressive government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. As Wikileaked diplomatic cables released last year by\u00a0Ha\u00efti Libert\u00e9\u00a0showed, those three governments worked hard to\u00a0keep Aristide in exile<\/a>\u00a0in South Africa for seven long years.<\/p>\n During his triumphant return to Haiti on Mar. 18, 2011, Aristide gave a speech to the nation at the airport. \u201cTo honor [Haiti\u2019s founding father] Jean-Jacques Dessalines, we come to bring you our little bit of help,\u201d Aristide said in his metaphor-laden Krey\u00f2l. \u201cWith the little ball of education centered in the court of dignity, we will kick exclusion off the field and this way, the new generation will begin to benefit from the wealth that slumbers deep within Haiti: gold, copper, uranium, bauxite, silver…<\/p>\n \u201cThe calcium carbonate to be found in Mirago\u00e2ne is valued at more than U.S. $23 billion.\u00a0 The petroleum reserves are no doubt larger than estimated.\u201d<\/p>\n This thinly-veiled nationalist message is precisely why U.S. and Canadian governments backed Aristide\u2019s ouster and maintain the ensuing UN military occupation of Haiti to this day. In his place, Washington and Ottawa have placed Martelly\u2019s \u201cOpen for business\u201d regime.<\/p>\n Newmont Mining is partnered with the Canadian Eurasian Minerals in seeking to open gold mining operations in Haiti\u2019s three northern departments. The Haiti Grassroots Watch study, \u201cGold rush in Haiti: Who will get rich<\/a>?,\u201d published in May, examines how Haitian law has already been circumvented by the gold-mining companies as they forge ahead with exploration. HGW Co-Director Jane Regan spoke to\u00a0\u00a0Democracy Now on June 1<\/a>\u00a0about the study. Among its findings are:<\/p>\n \u25cf Haiti\u2019s former Minister of the Economy and Finances is now a paid consultant for Newmont. The UN military occupation of Haiti is what the imperialists hope will ensure that Haiti\u2019s mineral wealth can again be plundered like in the days of the conquistadors.<\/p>\n
\n\u25cf Two Haitian ministers recently signed a \u201cMemorandum of Understanding\u201d with Newmont and Eurasian that says \u2013 in violation of Haitian law \u2013 the companies can begin drilling at one of their exploration sites. Haitian legislation states no drilling can occur without a mining convention.
\n\u25cf Nobody appears to be telling the communities in Haiti\u2019s north what is going on, and what deals have been made behind closed doors.
\n\u25cf Haiti has the lowest mining royalties (production taxes) in the hemisphere.<\/p>\n