Gold Mine in Argentina: Fight for a Sustainable Future

[Burnsys]

Gold mine in Argentina

There is a gold and silver mine in esquel (a poor town of argentina) which must be exploited at open air. Also there is a multinational corporation from USA who is interested in exploiting it, promisin work for 300 workers.

A group of esquel residents worried about ecology (Becouse gold has to be separated from the rock with cyanide and silver with arsenic) decided to organize themselfs to impede the instalation of the mine, with peaceful marchs and protest they achieved that the government run a plebiscite, yes to the mine, No to the mine. The multinational corporation started to give food, shoes, and a lot of gifts to the people of esquel in exchange to vote Yes to the mine.. When the vote has been made: a total of 75% went to vote (more than the people who voted in any election) 85% voted for NO to the mine... Now the organizators of the manifestations against the mine received death threats from armed people.

Then the people of esquel started to ask question about what interests has they touched..
They found that:

1: The multinational corporations has presented a plan of work with the pretension to extract 2.500.000.000 dolars of gold in 10 years (only in gold, not silver)
2: Also there is a law aproved by carlos menem (Us favorite argentine president, and most corrupt one) which says that the government can't exploit the wealth from the soil if it is not done by private corporations, and they will be charged with 2% the value of the extracted metal .This would leave the state (so us the people) with 50.000.000 dolars in 10 years
3: there is another national law which says that to favor the exports the state should pay 5% of the exported products to the corporations that export.

So, the multinational corporation will export 2.500.000.000 dolars of argentininan gold and the state has to pay them 125.000.000 dolars with money from taxes that pay teaches, carpenters, minus 50.000.000 that the multinational has to pay the state...

Yes. we have to pay a multinational corporation 75.000.000 dolars so they can take 2.500.000.000 dolars in gold, and leave our soil contamined with cyanide and arsenic.

I love capitalism!

 

[Andy]

Fantastic isn't it, isn't there any argentine corporations that can extract the gold?

 

[Burnsys]

Fantastic isn't it, isn't there any argentine corporations that can extract the gold?

i don't think so. I never heard of any, and i can't find anything in google. All our biggest national industries and corporations gone bankrupt or where buyed by foreings in the 70' (under the military dictatorship) and in the 90' under carlos menem goverment.

 

[alexandra]

So, the multinational corporation will export 2.500.000.000 dolars of argentininan gold and the state has to pay them 125.000.000 dolars with money from taxes that pay teaches, carpenters, minus 50.000.000 that the multinational has to pay the state...

Yes. we have to pay a multinational corporation 75.000.000 dolars so they can take 2.500.000.000 dolars in gold, and leave our soil contamined with cyanide and arsenic.

I love capitalism!

And the Argentinian example is just one of many. Here's a similar article about how 'great' capitalism is:

Spurred by Illness, Indonesians Lash Out at US Mining Giant
Jane Perlez and Evelyn Rusli
New York Times
September 8, 2004

First the fish began to disappear. Then villagers began developing strange rashes and bumps. Finally in January, Masna Stirman, aided by a $1.50 wet nurse, gave birth to a tiny, shriveled girl with small lumps and wrinkled skin.

"The nurse said: 'Ma'am, the baby has deformities,' " Mrs. Stirman, 39, recalled in an interview. Unable to get any meaningful medical help in this remote fishing village of about 300 people, she watched as her fourth child suffered for months and then died in July.

The infant's death came after years of complaints by local fishermen about waste dumped in the ocean by the owner of a nearby gold mine, the Newmont Mining Corporation, the world's biggest gold producer, based in Denver. It also kicked up a political brawl pitting Indonesia's feisty environmental groups against the American mining giant, which has been trailed by allegations of pollution on four continents. The fight has aroused intense interest in mining circles and among environmental groups for the fresh concerns it raises about how rich multinational companies - especially those that extract resources like coal, copper and gold as well as oil and natural gas - conduct themselves in poor nations.

For Newmont, the battle is only the latest round of troubles as the company, concerned by the more stringent rules for mining permits in the United States, seeks greater growth from operations overseas, where environmental groups and, increasingly, government officials charge that it employs practices not tolerated at home.

More: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/tncs/2004/0908newmont.htm

I have bolded part of the last quoted sentence to point out that, contrary some people's claims on other threads that "capitalism is the only system to worries about the environment", the opposite is in fact the case: capitalism is a system that is focused on profit; the greed for profit destroys the environment.