By Bill Hobbs | August 20, 2007 - 01:04 ET
PBS is scheduled to broadcast nationally Tuesday night a biased documentary about a gold-mining project in Romania. The segment of the PBS series Wide Angle, titled "Gold Futures," looks at the ongoing controversy over a proposed gold mine in the village of Rosia Montana and all indications are that it will follow the anti-mine perspective promoted by a variety of European environmentalists who don't live in the village, an effort now backed by leftwing American financier George Soros, whose Soros Foundation-Romania recently opened an office in Rosia to fight the mining project.
(Soros' history of investment in gold-mining companies raises questions about why he has chosen to oppose the Rosia mining project, but that's a subject for another post some day.)
"Gold Futures" portrays the controversy as a David and Goliath battle with the poor residents of Rosia Montana trying to defend themselves against a giant mining corporation.
PBS describes the film this way:
"Gold Futures is a David-and-Goliath story set in a scenic Romanian village in the heart of Transylvania. At stake: Europe's largest deposit of gold ore - and a 2,000-year-old village community that has existed since the ancient Romans found gold in the mountains. Now, as a Canadian company plans the largest open-pit gold mine in Europe, mineral wealth and badly-needed jobs compete with time-honored rural traditions and concerns about poisoning the environment. Set against the backdrop of Rosia Montana's misty forests, Gold Futures captures the unfolding conflict between villagers who welcome the company's buy-out offers and their neighbors who remain fiercely defensive of their way of life and anxious to maintain the stunning landscape of their homeland."
David and Goliath? The truth, however, is much different. The majority of villagers actually support the project, in part because it would provide jobs for a village that, historically, has depended in mining. Additionally, the Canadian mining company would clean up the decades of horrific environmental damage left behind by now-closed state-run mine of Romania's communist era.
Their story is told in the moving and entertaining documentary Mine Your Own Business, a powerful documentary that exposes how powerful environmental activist groups advance their one-sided, highly self-serving agenda at the expense of the well-being of some of the world's poorest people.
The documentary is a powerful counterpoint to a misleading article in the Jan. 3, 2007, New York Times, "Fighting Over Gold in the Land of Dracula," that was little more than a one-sided piece attacking the proposed gold mine in Rosia Montana, where unemployment has run around 70 percent since the old communist-run state-owned mine was closed.
The NYT portrayed the situation as a struggle between a big, bad mining company and a lone person seeking to stop the mine. The truth is far different, as shown in Mine Your Own Business, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer and produced by New Bera Media in association with the Moving Picture Institute.
The NYT article reflected the thinking of left-wing Hollywood elitist cause-celebre environmentalism that runs roughshod over the very real needs of people like the impoverished residents of Rosia Montana - needs such as decent jobs and housing that the mine would bring. The NYT never mentions that a majority of the people of Rosia Montana support the mine or mentions that 60 percent of the property owners affected by the mine have already chosen to sell their property to the mining company. The NYT never mentions the abject poverty that would be alleviated by the development of the mine, and the creation of hundreds of new and desperately needed jobs.
Mine Your Own Business exposes the exaggerations and misleading claims of the foreign environmentalists opposed to the development - and to other mining projects in Madagascar and Chile - and presents the amazing spectacle of some environmentalists asserting that the people in the affected villages don't want prosperity but prefer the simple peasant life where they are poor but happy. On film, however, Rosia villagers speak instead about their desire for development that will bring prosperity and clean up the damage from hundreds of years of environmentally unfriendly mining projects.
"Mine Your Own Business is the first documentary to take a hard look at the environmental movement," says the director, "and what we found was not pretty. Activists believe that people in remote areas are 'poor but happy.' They think that development will spoil their idyllic rural existence. But I've been there, and poverty is neither charming nor quaint, nor is it a lifestyle choice."
I have written more than a dozen posts about or referencing MYOB on my personal blog, billhobbs.com, which you can see here.
PBS ought to show MYOB in addition to "Gold Futures" in order to give viewers a balanced look at the issue. PBS's Wide Angle show is underwitten by the following:
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Bernard and Irene Schwartz, Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation, The Jacob Burns Foundation, Ford Foundation, Josh and Judy Weston, Rosalind P. Walter, and The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.
Gheorghe Lucian, a resident of Rosia Montana, has some more discussion of the PBS documentary on his blog, Report from Rosia.
"Gold Futures" airs nationwide on PBS at 9 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday - check your local listings for station and local air times in your city.
—Bill Hobbs is author of Who Is Fred Thompson, a blog-centric look at the presidential candidate.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Mine Your Own Business to be screened in Modesto
'MINE YOUR OWN BUSINESS': Modesto Junior College's Civic Engagement Project will present a film and panel discussion on mining in Romania and farming in the Central Valley on Thursday. The screening of "Mine Your Own Business," will begin at 7 p.m. in Forum 110, east campus of MJC, 435 College Ave. Organizers said the film uses examples of environmentalists' attempts to close down mines in Europe, Africa, and South America to make the broader claim that environmentalists' actions unwittingly increase poverty and environmental degradation. A panel discussion that will follow will center on environmental activism with respect to the Central Valley. Among the topics discussed will be whether "environmental activism" increases poverty and even environmental degradation in the central valley. Panelists are Brad Barker, president-elect of the Stanislaus County Sierra Club, Michel Etchebarne, first vice president of the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau and Gary A. Patton, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League in Sacramento. Bill Anelli will be the moderator.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
FILM MAKERS RECEIVE STANDING OVATION AT CONFERENCE
Film Makers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer spoke at the annual State Policy Network in Portland, Maine.
Over 350 people packed a lunchtime talk by McAleer and McElhinney where they also saw excerpts from Mine Your Own Business.
Blogger Dreckless was there:
Mine Your Own Business
While attending a conference here in Maine, we screened a movie entitled Mine Your Own Business. Directed by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, it looks at the dark side of environmentalism by traveling to some of the world’s most economically challenged areas and talking to some of the world’s poorest people about how western environmentalists are campaigning to keep them in poverty because they think their way of life is quaint.
Without question, it is the hardest-hitting, most effective expose of the hypocrisy, arrogance, condescension, and selfishness of the environmental movement I have ever viewed.
Some of the footage they obtained of liberals from the World Wildlife Fund and like-minded organizations is shocking in what it reveals about the liberal mind.
The directors shared with us the challenges they faced in so effectively exposing the environmentalists – including a number of death threats which were so serious that the police became involved.
Mine Your Own Business asks the hard questions of the environmental movement and exposes it for what it is.
I obtained a DVD of the movie and strongly recommend you do, too. Everyone should see this film.
Over 350 people packed a lunchtime talk by McAleer and McElhinney where they also saw excerpts from Mine Your Own Business.
Blogger Dreckless was there:
Mine Your Own Business
While attending a conference here in Maine, we screened a movie entitled Mine Your Own Business. Directed by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, it looks at the dark side of environmentalism by traveling to some of the world’s most economically challenged areas and talking to some of the world’s poorest people about how western environmentalists are campaigning to keep them in poverty because they think their way of life is quaint.
Without question, it is the hardest-hitting, most effective expose of the hypocrisy, arrogance, condescension, and selfishness of the environmental movement I have ever viewed.
Some of the footage they obtained of liberals from the World Wildlife Fund and like-minded organizations is shocking in what it reveals about the liberal mind.
The directors shared with us the challenges they faced in so effectively exposing the environmentalists – including a number of death threats which were so serious that the police became involved.
Mine Your Own Business asks the hard questions of the environmental movement and exposes it for what it is.
I obtained a DVD of the movie and strongly recommend you do, too. Everyone should see this film.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Standing ovation for Film Maker
Film Maker Ann McElhinney received a standing ovation at a packed Americans For Prosperity summit in Washington DC.
McElhinney was speaking about environmentalism and told of her experiences as a film maker documenting the excesses of the environmental movement.
There was standing room only as over 500 people heard about Mine Your Own Business and the dark side of the environmental movement.
Speaking after most of the Republican Presidential candidates had addressed (and mostly unimpressed) the crowd McElhinney was the only speaker to receive a standing ovation.
"You should run for president," shouted one audience member as Mc Elhinney spoke.
McElhinney was speaking about environmentalism and told of her experiences as a film maker documenting the excesses of the environmental movement.
There was standing room only as over 500 people heard about Mine Your Own Business and the dark side of the environmental movement.
Speaking after most of the Republican Presidential candidates had addressed (and mostly unimpressed) the crowd McElhinney was the only speaker to receive a standing ovation.
"You should run for president," shouted one audience member as Mc Elhinney spoke.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Ann McElhinney to speak at prestigious event in DC
Ann McElhinney director and producer of Mine Your Own Business has been invited to speak at Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s 1,000-Strong “Defending the American Dream Summit” other speakers include US Presidential candidates Sen. John McCain ,Sam Brownback, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. McElhinney will be speaking on Friday, October 5th 4:00 - 5:30 pm in the the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC (East Room)
Friday, September 7, 2007
New York Sun praises Mine Your Own Business
On August 31 Alicia Colon of the New York Sun states:
"...Mine Your Own Business captures how radical environmentalists were suppressing progress in some of the world's poorest areas. An Irish journalist, Phelim McAleer, filmed the piece with honesty and integrity, allowing viewers to form their own opinion.
Find out for yourself. Order a copy of Mine Your Own Business through the website mineyourownbusiness.org
"...Mine Your Own Business captures how radical environmentalists were suppressing progress in some of the world's poorest areas. An Irish journalist, Phelim McAleer, filmed the piece with honesty and integrity, allowing viewers to form their own opinion.
Find out for yourself. Order a copy of Mine Your Own Business through the website mineyourownbusiness.org
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Noted academic praises Mine Your Own Business
The Independent Institute
Commentary
Mine Your Own Business
September 5, 2007
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
WASHINGTON—One would think only a crazy couple would declare war on environmentalists by presenting them on film as snobs, hypocrites and enemies of the poor. Luckily for those of us who think one-sided debates are boring, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney are just crazy enough to question the environmentalists' opposition to mining projects in poor countries in a documentary—“Mine Your Own Business”—that is gaining attention.
McAleer, an Irish journalist who covered Romania for the Financial Times, and McElhinney, his wife and co-producer, look at three mining investments: a gold project by Gabriel Resources in Rosia Montana, in Romania's Transylvania region; Rio Tinto's ilmenite project in Fort Dauphin, in Madagascar; and a vast Andean operation undertaken by Barrick Gold in Chile's Huasco Valley.
In the movie, many of the critics who claim to live in the affected areas are less than honest. One, a Swiss environmentalist who leads the opposition to mining in Romania, actually lives in the sort of town to which many of the impoverished peasants of Rosia Montana want to move.
The activists are adamant that the locals should preserve their “pristine” environment. A Belgian environmentalist says the people of Rosia Montana would rather use carts and horses than pollute the air with cars. “She says this to get noticed,” counters a Romanian peasant who looks totally bewildered.
Half a world away, when confronted with the argument that denying the people of Fort Dauphin a chance to obtain jobs would keep them poor, the leading critic of the ilmenite project and the owner of a luxurious catamaran pontificates to Gheorghe Lucian, an unemployed Romanian traveling with the film's crew: “I could put you with a family here and you can count how many times people smile ... and I can put you with a family that is well-off in New York and London and you can count how many times they smile, and then you can tell me who is rich and who is poor.”
You can imagine what this esoteric interpretation of wealth sounds like to Lucian, the Romanian who graduated from Rosia Montana's Technical College and is desperate to find a job. Two-thirds of his fellow villagers lack running water and use outside bathrooms even in freezing winter. For him, as for the other 700 prospective employees of the mining project back home, the choice is literally “between having a job and leaving.”
The film crew also traveled to the Chilean Andes to find out who was leading the fight against Barrick Gold. It turns out—as one local villager explains—that those who oppose the investment are mainly rich landowners who don't want the peasants working on their lands for a pittance to flock to the mines for twice their current wages.
McAleer tells us that the claim the mining project will displace three glaciers that provide irrigation for local agriculture is false. The glaciers will not be affected and the company will build a reservoir to guarantee that local farmers have a decent supply of water.
Will this industrial progress in Romania, Madagascar or Chile pollute the environment? Well, the alternative is much worse. Communist-era gold mining, which was technologically backward, bureaucratic and unaccountable, turned Rosia Montana's river into disgusting filth. In Madagascar's Fort Dauphin, slash-and-burn agriculture—the sort the rural poor resort to in order to survive—has destroyed the rain forest.
It would be naive to think these mining companies are in it for altruistic motives—they obviously want to make a profit. But the truth—one that Lucian, the unemployed Romanian, discovers as he ventures beyond his country for the first time in his life—is that progress involves hard choices. The wealthy nations of today were themselves “pristine” environments in which people gradually gave up traditional ways of life to improve their living conditions. Who are we to deny the poor of today the chance to do well for themselves when an opportunity arises if they decide to take it?
Yes, moving from the traditional to the modern way of life involves costs. But as one British professor at Kent University says: “People need to be trusted to work these things out for themselves.... Environmentalists feel they have the moral authority to tell them what to do.”
Not all nongovernmental organizations are as elitist and unfair to poor people as the many this film exposes. Not every mining project is as respectful of local choices as the ones depicted in this film. But this documentary speaks volumes about the Manichean vision that many bleeding-heart Americans and Europeans have of the dilemma between tradition and modernity in the developing world.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of “Liberty for Latin America,” is the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute. His e-mail address is AVLlosa(at)independent.org.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
Send email
Alvaro Vargas Llosa is Senior Fellow and Director of The Center on Global Prosperity at The Independent Institute. He is a native of Peru and received his B.S.C. in international history from the London School of Economics. He is widely published and has lectured on world economic and political issues including at the Mont Pelerin Society, Naumann Foundation (Germany), FAES Foundation (Spain), Brazilian Institute of Business Studies, Fundación Libertad (Argentina), CEDICE Foundation (Venezuela), Florida International University, and the Ecuadorian Chamber of Commerce. He is the author of the Independent Institute books The Che Guevara Myth and Liberty for Latin America.
More Support for Mine Your Own Business and telling the truth about Rosia Montana
September 5, 2007
Why Does Soros Want to Keep Some Folks Poor?
Yeah, sometimes instead of writing about Tennessee politics, media or the war I go off and write about a mining project in Romania that has caught my interest. This is my a blog, so you get what I'm interested in, and this story is one of those. It's about a the village of Rosia Montana, Romania, a poverty-stricken place that is seeing its best-ever chance at economic progress and a better life for its people blocked by environmentalists and by one very rich billionaire who doesn't lack for things like indoor plumbing and electricity the way many of the people do in Rosia.
I have come into possession of a copy of a letter that famed billionaire and funder of leftist causes George Soros wrote in mid-April to the CEO of Denver-based Newmont Mining, urging the company to not support a proposed gold mine in the impoverished Romanian village of Rosia Montana - a mine proposed by Gabriel Resources of Toronto, Canada.
Now, why would Soros, write such a letter - and address it to the CEO of Newmont rather than Gabriel Resources?
Newmont owns 19 percent of Gabriel Resources. And Soros owns a significant stake in Newmont. That answers the first question. But you'd think Soros, as a stockholder in Newmont, would want Newmont to profit from Gabriel's Rosia Montana mine project. On the other hand, if Soros only made what for him, dollar-wise, is a rather small investment in Newmont stock in order to have the standing to pressure Newmont to work against Gabriel's project, the question is much more serious:
Why does Soros, famous funder of a variety of leftwing causes both in America and around the world, believe that it is vital the people of Rosia Montana be denied a chance at major economic development
And that brings me to the deeper question of why Soros - who has significant investments in gold-mining and other mining operations - has made opposition to the Rosia Montana project a personal crusade, a question that remains unanswered, in part because the world media has not asked it.
Soros' Open Society Institute, which claims to be working to better the lives of people in places like Rosia Montana, recently opened an outpost in the impoverished village, under the name Soros Foundation Romania, ostensibly to help the locals fight off the mine.
The grand opening was booed by the locals, who desperately want the good jobs and wages that the Gabriel mine would bring to the town, which currently has a 70 percent unemployment rate and historically has made its living from mining.
Did the negative reception for Soros's organization in Rosia Montana make it into any of the world media that have covered the Rosia Story?
No.
Recently, however, Gabriel Resources has begun to fight back against the campaign of lies and deceptions that the Soros Foundation Romania has been using to fight the mine. In late August, Allen Hill, CEO of both Gabriel Resources and the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation subsidiary, released an open letter to Renate Weber, the chairman of the board of the Soros Foundation Romania, exposing a slew of lies and deceptions on the foundation's website about the Rosia mining project.
The lies and distortions pushed by Soros regarding the project have become standard fare in major-media coverage of the Rosia project, which almost always portrays the battle as a David-versus-Goliath story, with the village as the David and Gabriel Resources as Goliath.
The truth that is beginning to emerge is that, yes, this is a David-and-Goliath story, but it is Gabriel Resources that is the David, fighting a multi-headed giant comprised of a series of Soros-funded "environmental groups" and NGOs.
Hill's letter is a shining example of, pardon the pun, the gold standard in pushing back against biased and inaccurate media coverage by attacking the lies and distortions at their source. Here is the letter in its entirety:
Dear Ms Weber,
I write to call to your attention the factual falsehoods on your website concerning the Rosia Montana Project – errors that must in fact be known to your organization, as they differ from the project’s EIA report, which (as is evident from citations on various pages of your website) you claim to have studied and analyzed.
As the false statements are too numerous to list in this letter, suffice it to say by way of example that the “case study†appearing on your website contains 10 errors in just 5 paragraphs.
In Soros Foundation shorthand, the Rosia Montana project is defined by “dynamiting four mountains,†“destroying 958 households†and “demolishing the town.â€
None are true.
Dynamiting four mountains…
Fact: if the reference is to the four proposed mining pits comprising our project, your web-visitors should know that not one of the sites is pristine – indeed, all four sites bear the ravages of past mining, and one is in fact an abandoned crater, heavily polluted by poor mining practice, which our modern mining practices will clean up. Modern “mining for closure†practices – documented in our EIA – will ensure that when the mine is closed, lands will be reclaimed, revegetated and returned to use by man and wildlife. And in the case of Rosia Montana, our mine will in fact leave the area cleaner than we found it.
Destroying 958 households…
Fact: according to World Bank standards, homes are being purchased on a “willing buyer/willing seller†model, at generous prices unavailable in the natural “real estate market†in impoverished rural Romania – which is why 98% of all local residents have had their properties surveyed by the company. 12 of the 16 sub-commune of Rosia Montana are not affected by the project – and for those families who seek to live nearby, a new village Piatra Alba is being built at company expense, the collaboration of a Romanian and Colorado/USA design team that has developed U.S. resort communities.
Demolishing the town…
Fact: Far from demolishing Rosia Montana, all 41 currently-designated historic structures in the village are preserved under our mining plan, whether they are located in the Protected Zone or outside of it. Two churches must be moved under the mine plan; depending on the congregations’ wishes, the churches will either be moved or rebuilt to the congregation’s specifications. Perhaps this is why the Special Rapporteur from the Council of Europe termed our patrimony programme at Rosia Montana “an exemplary model of responsible development.â€
…Although that’s a fact not fit for the posting on the Soros Foundation site.
All of these facts are present in our EIA, whose contents are legally binding on us.
Perhaps you have just copied your case against us from the statements of partner organizations who are opposed to our project, reporting their falsehoods as your own. Indeed, many of the “facts†on your site look to come, cut-and-paste style, directly from statements made by Alburnus Maior and the Hungarian Government.
But we should give credit where credit is due -- and acknowledge falsehoods that appear to be your own organization’s invention.
For instance, your site claims that the Rosia Montana “project violates also the Berlin Convention (10 October 2001), which stipulates the interdiction of the cyanide use in the mining exploitations on the territory of the European Union.â€
Of course the Berlin Convention, as you are doubtlessly aware, has no force of law in the EU. Indeed, cyanide use in gold extraction is legal within the EU (and is currently used in a majority of operating EU gold mines), and is subject to even stronger standards as a result of the EU’s 2006 Mining Waste Directive – with which our project complies from Day One. In fact, at the most recent G-8 gathering in Germany, the G-8 nations made a joint statement explicitly endorsing the International Cyanide Management Code (ICMC) -- promulgated under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Programme, outlines strict Standards of Practice governing cyanide use in mining.
Is the G-8 wrong about cyanide?
Are the heads of the world’s foremost democracies violators of the law?
Is the UN a co-conspirator in the lawless use of cyanide?
Or is it the case that the Soros website simply chooses to mislead its visitors, in hopes that they will remain ignorant of the facts?
The Soros Foundation cannot in good conscience post such false statements on its site if it is sincere in its wish to have an honest and open discussion on projects such as ours.
The volume of such statements on your website suggests not random error but rather a concerted campaign -- a suppression of any and all fact-based evidence recognizing that the Rosia Montana Project conforms to the highest international standards. Beyond your web-based campaign, we also call on you to clarify your role in the leaking of the IGIE Report (the so-called “ad hoc reportâ€) in March 2007, whereby fed negative news stories in Romania on what was in fact a positive report. Finally, given community support for our project and your claimed commitment to accountability, we urge you to explain how your anti-mining stance squares with your mission statement “to promote patterns for the advancement of a society based on freedom, accountability and respect for diversity.â€
Perhaps we are destined to differ. Still, it is the case that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
As a publicly-traded company, Gabriel Resources is required by law as well as the regulatory rules that govern security exchanges to conduct itself in an open and transparent manner. The same cannot be said about your “open society†organization. We urge you to remove the false statements from your website immediately, and desist from misleading the interested public about our project.
Sincerely
Alan Hill
President & CEO
Gabriel Resources & Rosia Montana Gold Corporation
Hill's letter is filled with facts, while Soros' letter to the Newmont Mining CEO is filled with unsubstantiated assertions and misleading spin. Just one example: Soros cites "a recent poll organized by a special committee of the Romanian parliament (that) found 90% of respondents rejecting the project," but fails to inform the Newmont CEO that the "poll" was an unscientific Internet poll that collected many votes from people who didn't live in Rosia but, instead, were associated with organizations opposed to the new mine.
One more: Soros charges that the Rosia project will result in "involuntarily resettling hundreds of people," when the truth is the village only has a few hundred people and most favor the mine - and are selling their property to Gabriel for generous prices that are allowing them to resettle in nice new homes in a new village a few miles away.
No one has been involuntarily moved.
Why is Soros attacking - directly and through surrogate groups he funds - the Rosia gold mine project? Only Soros knows for sure, but there is much speculation. Rosia Montana is located in the region known as Transylvania, which once belonged to Hungary. Soros is Hungarian. Could nationalism - and a desire to keep Rosia down as long as it is part of Romania - play a role?
What about Soros' business interests? Soros is not opposed to mining, as his investments show. He's not even opposed to gold-mining using cyanide leeching, as TownHall.com contributor Paul Driessen explains in a piece I'll excerpt below.
Perhaps Soros aims to block the Rosia project, then ride in as the town's savior, buying up the existing abandoned mines and proposing his own gold mine that would, no doubt, be promised to be even more environmentally friendly than Soros and his allies allege, falsely, that the Gabriel project isn't. The Soros-funded NGOs likely wouldn't bite the hand that feeds them.
Just a thought.
But perhaps not totally off the mark.
Driessen, senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death, speculated on Soros' possible financial motives for organizationg opposition to the Rosia mine, in an excellent column at TownHall.com last week:
Driessen:
The radical NGOs simply hate mining, don’t live in the village, have no compassion for these families, and are under no legal obligation to be honest, transparent or accountable for the consequences of their actions. As one foreign activist said in an email:
"Why should any NGO come forward with alternative projects? That is not the job of civil society. We are not a humanitarian organization, but a militant environmental NGO. If the whole community is in favor of the project, we simply put it on the list of our enemies."
They will spend millions to stop development, but not one cent on poor people or the environment. They destroy thousands of jobs, but create no new ones. When someone asked the Alburnus Maior president where his money comes from, he said "It’s not your business!"
George Soros and his Soros Foundation Romania appear to be the principal money behind this campaign. Not only is this support anti-poor, anti-environment and anti-Romania. It's also hypocritical, because Soros has made millions from mining operations that use cyanide – and a silver mine that relocated an entire village. But stopping Gabriel and other Western corporations could certainly benefit his political agenda and provide opportunities to profit from fluctuations in metals prices caused by restrictions on mining in the face of surging demand to meet the needs of new technologies and developing economies.
It also promotes Hungary's desire to assert influence over lands that once were part of its empire, or at least prevent those regions from becoming economic competitors. That desire may explain why its government issued a press release condemning the project, almost immediately after it had submitted 122 questions about the project, but before it had received a single answer.
Twenty-one Romanian NGOs visited Rosia Montana and met with the people and company. Eighteen of them changed their minds and now support the project. The radical activists refuse to have any dialogue.
Read Driessen's whole column.
Meanwhile, I'll take this as one more chance to urge you to see the documentary Mine Your Own Business, which reveals just how disconnected from reality - and from the needs of the people of Rosia Montana - are the various environmentalist organizations and NGOs fighting the Rosia project.
Why Does Soros Want to Keep Some Folks Poor?
Yeah, sometimes instead of writing about Tennessee politics, media or the war I go off and write about a mining project in Romania that has caught my interest. This is my a blog, so you get what I'm interested in, and this story is one of those. It's about a the village of Rosia Montana, Romania, a poverty-stricken place that is seeing its best-ever chance at economic progress and a better life for its people blocked by environmentalists and by one very rich billionaire who doesn't lack for things like indoor plumbing and electricity the way many of the people do in Rosia.
I have come into possession of a copy of a letter that famed billionaire and funder of leftist causes George Soros wrote in mid-April to the CEO of Denver-based Newmont Mining, urging the company to not support a proposed gold mine in the impoverished Romanian village of Rosia Montana - a mine proposed by Gabriel Resources of Toronto, Canada.
Now, why would Soros, write such a letter - and address it to the CEO of Newmont rather than Gabriel Resources?
Newmont owns 19 percent of Gabriel Resources. And Soros owns a significant stake in Newmont. That answers the first question. But you'd think Soros, as a stockholder in Newmont, would want Newmont to profit from Gabriel's Rosia Montana mine project. On the other hand, if Soros only made what for him, dollar-wise, is a rather small investment in Newmont stock in order to have the standing to pressure Newmont to work against Gabriel's project, the question is much more serious:
Why does Soros, famous funder of a variety of leftwing causes both in America and around the world, believe that it is vital the people of Rosia Montana be denied a chance at major economic development
And that brings me to the deeper question of why Soros - who has significant investments in gold-mining and other mining operations - has made opposition to the Rosia Montana project a personal crusade, a question that remains unanswered, in part because the world media has not asked it.
Soros' Open Society Institute, which claims to be working to better the lives of people in places like Rosia Montana, recently opened an outpost in the impoverished village, under the name Soros Foundation Romania, ostensibly to help the locals fight off the mine.
The grand opening was booed by the locals, who desperately want the good jobs and wages that the Gabriel mine would bring to the town, which currently has a 70 percent unemployment rate and historically has made its living from mining.
Did the negative reception for Soros's organization in Rosia Montana make it into any of the world media that have covered the Rosia Story?
No.
Recently, however, Gabriel Resources has begun to fight back against the campaign of lies and deceptions that the Soros Foundation Romania has been using to fight the mine. In late August, Allen Hill, CEO of both Gabriel Resources and the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation subsidiary, released an open letter to Renate Weber, the chairman of the board of the Soros Foundation Romania, exposing a slew of lies and deceptions on the foundation's website about the Rosia mining project.
The lies and distortions pushed by Soros regarding the project have become standard fare in major-media coverage of the Rosia project, which almost always portrays the battle as a David-versus-Goliath story, with the village as the David and Gabriel Resources as Goliath.
The truth that is beginning to emerge is that, yes, this is a David-and-Goliath story, but it is Gabriel Resources that is the David, fighting a multi-headed giant comprised of a series of Soros-funded "environmental groups" and NGOs.
Hill's letter is a shining example of, pardon the pun, the gold standard in pushing back against biased and inaccurate media coverage by attacking the lies and distortions at their source. Here is the letter in its entirety:
Dear Ms Weber,
I write to call to your attention the factual falsehoods on your website concerning the Rosia Montana Project – errors that must in fact be known to your organization, as they differ from the project’s EIA report, which (as is evident from citations on various pages of your website) you claim to have studied and analyzed.
As the false statements are too numerous to list in this letter, suffice it to say by way of example that the “case study†appearing on your website contains 10 errors in just 5 paragraphs.
In Soros Foundation shorthand, the Rosia Montana project is defined by “dynamiting four mountains,†“destroying 958 households†and “demolishing the town.â€
None are true.
Dynamiting four mountains…
Fact: if the reference is to the four proposed mining pits comprising our project, your web-visitors should know that not one of the sites is pristine – indeed, all four sites bear the ravages of past mining, and one is in fact an abandoned crater, heavily polluted by poor mining practice, which our modern mining practices will clean up. Modern “mining for closure†practices – documented in our EIA – will ensure that when the mine is closed, lands will be reclaimed, revegetated and returned to use by man and wildlife. And in the case of Rosia Montana, our mine will in fact leave the area cleaner than we found it.
Destroying 958 households…
Fact: according to World Bank standards, homes are being purchased on a “willing buyer/willing seller†model, at generous prices unavailable in the natural “real estate market†in impoverished rural Romania – which is why 98% of all local residents have had their properties surveyed by the company. 12 of the 16 sub-commune of Rosia Montana are not affected by the project – and for those families who seek to live nearby, a new village Piatra Alba is being built at company expense, the collaboration of a Romanian and Colorado/USA design team that has developed U.S. resort communities.
Demolishing the town…
Fact: Far from demolishing Rosia Montana, all 41 currently-designated historic structures in the village are preserved under our mining plan, whether they are located in the Protected Zone or outside of it. Two churches must be moved under the mine plan; depending on the congregations’ wishes, the churches will either be moved or rebuilt to the congregation’s specifications. Perhaps this is why the Special Rapporteur from the Council of Europe termed our patrimony programme at Rosia Montana “an exemplary model of responsible development.â€
…Although that’s a fact not fit for the posting on the Soros Foundation site.
All of these facts are present in our EIA, whose contents are legally binding on us.
Perhaps you have just copied your case against us from the statements of partner organizations who are opposed to our project, reporting their falsehoods as your own. Indeed, many of the “facts†on your site look to come, cut-and-paste style, directly from statements made by Alburnus Maior and the Hungarian Government.
But we should give credit where credit is due -- and acknowledge falsehoods that appear to be your own organization’s invention.
For instance, your site claims that the Rosia Montana “project violates also the Berlin Convention (10 October 2001), which stipulates the interdiction of the cyanide use in the mining exploitations on the territory of the European Union.â€
Of course the Berlin Convention, as you are doubtlessly aware, has no force of law in the EU. Indeed, cyanide use in gold extraction is legal within the EU (and is currently used in a majority of operating EU gold mines), and is subject to even stronger standards as a result of the EU’s 2006 Mining Waste Directive – with which our project complies from Day One. In fact, at the most recent G-8 gathering in Germany, the G-8 nations made a joint statement explicitly endorsing the International Cyanide Management Code (ICMC) -- promulgated under the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Programme, outlines strict Standards of Practice governing cyanide use in mining.
Is the G-8 wrong about cyanide?
Are the heads of the world’s foremost democracies violators of the law?
Is the UN a co-conspirator in the lawless use of cyanide?
Or is it the case that the Soros website simply chooses to mislead its visitors, in hopes that they will remain ignorant of the facts?
The Soros Foundation cannot in good conscience post such false statements on its site if it is sincere in its wish to have an honest and open discussion on projects such as ours.
The volume of such statements on your website suggests not random error but rather a concerted campaign -- a suppression of any and all fact-based evidence recognizing that the Rosia Montana Project conforms to the highest international standards. Beyond your web-based campaign, we also call on you to clarify your role in the leaking of the IGIE Report (the so-called “ad hoc reportâ€) in March 2007, whereby fed negative news stories in Romania on what was in fact a positive report. Finally, given community support for our project and your claimed commitment to accountability, we urge you to explain how your anti-mining stance squares with your mission statement “to promote patterns for the advancement of a society based on freedom, accountability and respect for diversity.â€
Perhaps we are destined to differ. Still, it is the case that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
As a publicly-traded company, Gabriel Resources is required by law as well as the regulatory rules that govern security exchanges to conduct itself in an open and transparent manner. The same cannot be said about your “open society†organization. We urge you to remove the false statements from your website immediately, and desist from misleading the interested public about our project.
Sincerely
Alan Hill
President & CEO
Gabriel Resources & Rosia Montana Gold Corporation
Hill's letter is filled with facts, while Soros' letter to the Newmont Mining CEO is filled with unsubstantiated assertions and misleading spin. Just one example: Soros cites "a recent poll organized by a special committee of the Romanian parliament (that) found 90% of respondents rejecting the project," but fails to inform the Newmont CEO that the "poll" was an unscientific Internet poll that collected many votes from people who didn't live in Rosia but, instead, were associated with organizations opposed to the new mine.
One more: Soros charges that the Rosia project will result in "involuntarily resettling hundreds of people," when the truth is the village only has a few hundred people and most favor the mine - and are selling their property to Gabriel for generous prices that are allowing them to resettle in nice new homes in a new village a few miles away.
No one has been involuntarily moved.
Why is Soros attacking - directly and through surrogate groups he funds - the Rosia gold mine project? Only Soros knows for sure, but there is much speculation. Rosia Montana is located in the region known as Transylvania, which once belonged to Hungary. Soros is Hungarian. Could nationalism - and a desire to keep Rosia down as long as it is part of Romania - play a role?
What about Soros' business interests? Soros is not opposed to mining, as his investments show. He's not even opposed to gold-mining using cyanide leeching, as TownHall.com contributor Paul Driessen explains in a piece I'll excerpt below.
Perhaps Soros aims to block the Rosia project, then ride in as the town's savior, buying up the existing abandoned mines and proposing his own gold mine that would, no doubt, be promised to be even more environmentally friendly than Soros and his allies allege, falsely, that the Gabriel project isn't. The Soros-funded NGOs likely wouldn't bite the hand that feeds them.
Just a thought.
But perhaps not totally off the mark.
Driessen, senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death, speculated on Soros' possible financial motives for organizationg opposition to the Rosia mine, in an excellent column at TownHall.com last week:
Driessen:
The radical NGOs simply hate mining, don’t live in the village, have no compassion for these families, and are under no legal obligation to be honest, transparent or accountable for the consequences of their actions. As one foreign activist said in an email:
"Why should any NGO come forward with alternative projects? That is not the job of civil society. We are not a humanitarian organization, but a militant environmental NGO. If the whole community is in favor of the project, we simply put it on the list of our enemies."
They will spend millions to stop development, but not one cent on poor people or the environment. They destroy thousands of jobs, but create no new ones. When someone asked the Alburnus Maior president where his money comes from, he said "It’s not your business!"
George Soros and his Soros Foundation Romania appear to be the principal money behind this campaign. Not only is this support anti-poor, anti-environment and anti-Romania. It's also hypocritical, because Soros has made millions from mining operations that use cyanide – and a silver mine that relocated an entire village. But stopping Gabriel and other Western corporations could certainly benefit his political agenda and provide opportunities to profit from fluctuations in metals prices caused by restrictions on mining in the face of surging demand to meet the needs of new technologies and developing economies.
It also promotes Hungary's desire to assert influence over lands that once were part of its empire, or at least prevent those regions from becoming economic competitors. That desire may explain why its government issued a press release condemning the project, almost immediately after it had submitted 122 questions about the project, but before it had received a single answer.
Twenty-one Romanian NGOs visited Rosia Montana and met with the people and company. Eighteen of them changed their minds and now support the project. The radical activists refuse to have any dialogue.
Read Driessen's whole column.
Meanwhile, I'll take this as one more chance to urge you to see the documentary Mine Your Own Business, which reveals just how disconnected from reality - and from the needs of the people of Rosia Montana - are the various environmentalist organizations and NGOs fighting the Rosia project.
Charleston screens MYOB
Manic Miners
Sick of Sicko? Fuming at Fahrenheit 9/11? For those who like their political filmmaking a little more right of center, help is at hand.
The Bastiat Society is a local organization aiming to "promote that the free market is the most productive, most humane, and most moral form of large-scale social organization." It's hosting the S.C. premiere of Mine Your Own Business, a 2006 documentary that claims to be the first to explore the dark side of the green scene.
Filmmaker Phelim McAleer is worried about environmentalists' "pernicious effects... on the poorest people in some of the poorest countries in the world." The former Financial Times correspondent looks at the impact eco-friendliness can have on miners, who stand to lose their livelihoods thanks to anti-mining campaigns coordinated by foreign environmentalists.
The Bastiat Society is named after 19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat who once said, "The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended."
The one-off screening of McAleer's skillful attack on tree-huggers takes place at the American Theater, 446 King St. on Wed. Sept. 5 at 5 p.m. Tickets won't cost a red cent. —Nick Smith
Sick of Sicko? Fuming at Fahrenheit 9/11? For those who like their political filmmaking a little more right of center, help is at hand.
The Bastiat Society is a local organization aiming to "promote that the free market is the most productive, most humane, and most moral form of large-scale social organization." It's hosting the S.C. premiere of Mine Your Own Business, a 2006 documentary that claims to be the first to explore the dark side of the green scene.
Filmmaker Phelim McAleer is worried about environmentalists' "pernicious effects... on the poorest people in some of the poorest countries in the world." The former Financial Times correspondent looks at the impact eco-friendliness can have on miners, who stand to lose their livelihoods thanks to anti-mining campaigns coordinated by foreign environmentalists.
The Bastiat Society is named after 19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat who once said, "The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended."
The one-off screening of McAleer's skillful attack on tree-huggers takes place at the American Theater, 446 King St. on Wed. Sept. 5 at 5 p.m. Tickets won't cost a red cent. —Nick Smith
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Mine Your Own Business featured on prestigious Wall Street Journal editorial page
JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
Make Up Your Own Mine
An impoverished town strikes gold. George Soros and foreign environmentalists say, leave it in the ground.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The recent tragedy in Utah has brightened the spotlight on mining, already under assault by environmental and anti-globalization activists world-wide. These activists have produced several documentaries, and the anti-mining campaign has attracted the attention of billionaire George Soros and actress Vanessa Redgrave--and enough charges of greed or hypocrisy to fill a mine shaft.
Tonight, PBS will air "Gold Futures," a film by Hungary's Tibor Kocsis. The film focuses on residents in Romania's Rosia Montana, a rural Transylvanian town, who are divided over the benefits of a proposed gold mine. It also features Gabriel Resources, the Canadian mining company trying to convince them to relocate so it can dig for a huge gold deposit estimated at 14.6 million ounces, worth almost $10 billion. PBS describes the film as a "David-and-Goliath story."
While the film gives time to supporters and opponents of the mine, it leaves unsaid that half of the villagers voicing opposition have now either sold their homes or will not have to move, because they live in a protected area where the village's historic structures and churches will be preserved. Viewers who see pristine shots of the Rosia valley won't realize the hills hide a huge, abandoned communist-era mine, leaking toxic heavy metals into local streams--or that while the modern mining project will level four hills to create an open pit, it will also clean up the old mess at no cost to the Romanian treasury.
The other side to the controversy is told in a new film that will never be shown on PBS, but is nonetheless rattling the environmental community. "Mine Your Own Business" is a documentary by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. They conclude that the biggest threat to the people of Rosia Montana "comes from upper-class Western environmentalism that seeks to keep them poor and unable to clean up the horrific pollution caused by Ceausescu's mining."
Mr. McAleer, a former Financial Times journalist who has followed the mine battle for seven years, says he "found that everything the environmentalists were saying about the project was misleading, exaggerated or quite simply false." He produced his film on a shoestring $230,000 budget largely provided by Gabriel Resources, but says he was given complete editorial control.
The Gabriel funding caused environmental groups to label the film "propaganda" and demand the National Geographic Society cancel plans to rent its Washington, D.C., theater to the free-market Moving Picture Institute for a screening. The Institute notes opponents rarely challenge the film's facts. As for Mr. Kocsis's documentary, his Flora Film corporate Web site lists as its partners Greenpeace, the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and the George Soros-backed Energy Club of Hungary, all of which oppose the Romanian project on either environmental or nationalistic grounds (Transylvania used to be part of Hungary).
High-profile mine opponents such as Ms. Redgrave (who hasn't visited Rosia Montana), have declared undying opposition to the project: "Our planet is dying and we have no right to destroy an ecosystem." In April, Mr. Soros, the chairman of the Open Society Institute and a large funder of groups opposing Rosia Montana, wrote to Wayne Murdy, then CEO of Newmont Mining, the Denver company that owns 19% of Gabriel Resources. He urged him not to invest in "a dubious project such as Rosia Montana," citing "the social costs involved in involuntarily resettling hundreds of people" and "the potential for disastrous environmental impact." Mr. Soros did not respond to an interview request.
Opponents of the mine claim that Rosia Montana residents agree with their stance. "Local opposition to the mine is strong and organized" says a statement signed by 80 environmental groups in January. In his letter, Mr. Soros cites a recent poll organized by some members of Romania's parliament that "found 90% of respondents rejecting the project." But the poll turns out to be an unscientific Internet survey, and one of the environmental groups Mr. Soros funds urged people outside Romania to participate in it. What is clear: Two-thirds of Rosia Montana's people have accepted Gabriel's voluntary offer to buy their homes at above market rates. Most will move four miles away to a less polluted area.
On the other side, Rosia Montana Mayor Virgil Narita supports the mine because it will create 700 permanent local jobs. He was re-elected with 80% of the vote this year. And in late 2004, the Council of Europe sent Eddie O'Hara, a British Labour Party member of the European Parliament, to Rosia Montana to file an official report. Opposition to the mine, he said, was "substantial," but it was "very much fueled by outside bodies, presumably well-meaning but possibly counterproductively. It seems in part at least exaggerated." Mr. O'Hara concluded the opposition "do not take account of modern mining techniques and in fact the Rosia Montana project will help to clear up existing pollution." He also warned that not allowing the mine "would remove any chance of local development for some time."
And there's the rub. Rosia Montana needs a cleanup and development. Three-quarters of its 600 families lack indoor toilets, unemployment tops 70% and the only truly viable crop is potatoes. In "Mine Your Own Business," Andrei Jurca, the local dentist, tells Mr. McAleer "we don't need foreign advocates. We are smart enough to take our own fate in our own hands." Other villagers note that concerns about Gabriel's use of cyanide in gold mining are misplaced. Seven out of nine existing gold mines in European Union countries use cyanide and the allowable limits in Rosia Montana will be lower than all of them.
Perhaps local unemployed miner Gheorghe Lucian says it best: "People have no food to eat. . . . I know what I need--a job." Mr. Soros's Romanian Open Society Foundation is touting "alternative economic activities such as organic agriculture and eco-tourism," unrealistic at best. Stefania Simon, legal counsel for the anti-mine group Alburnus Maior, has no answer for Mr. Lucian. "Unemployment is a problem, but it will not be solved by mining," she told Britain's Guardian newspaper. Noting that Gabriel has only a 17-year lease to mine, she says, "This is a solution for the short term." But right now, even non-permanent jobs and any cleanup of the existing pollution looks like a good deal to people like Mr. Lucian.
"Mine Your Own Business" also contains interviews with leading environmentalists opposing other mining projects who display smug indifference to bettering the lives of poor people. In Madagascar, Mr. McAleer finds Mark Fenn, country director for the World Wide Fund for Nature, who argues that the poor are just as happy as the rich because they smile more and that if Madagascar locals (who now earn $100 a month) get more money "they'll buy cases of beer, invite their friends, they'll throw a party . . . three, four days the money's gone." He then shows off his new $35,000 catamaran.
Mr. McAleer tells me such encounters should wake up people "who, like myself, unquestionably believed environmentalists were a force for good in the world." He still considers himself a liberal but, "it's sad that my fellow left-wingers and environmentalists who often come from the most developed countries are now so opposed to development."
Make Up Your Own Mine
An impoverished town strikes gold. George Soros and foreign environmentalists say, leave it in the ground.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 12:01 a.m.
The recent tragedy in Utah has brightened the spotlight on mining, already under assault by environmental and anti-globalization activists world-wide. These activists have produced several documentaries, and the anti-mining campaign has attracted the attention of billionaire George Soros and actress Vanessa Redgrave--and enough charges of greed or hypocrisy to fill a mine shaft.
Tonight, PBS will air "Gold Futures," a film by Hungary's Tibor Kocsis. The film focuses on residents in Romania's Rosia Montana, a rural Transylvanian town, who are divided over the benefits of a proposed gold mine. It also features Gabriel Resources, the Canadian mining company trying to convince them to relocate so it can dig for a huge gold deposit estimated at 14.6 million ounces, worth almost $10 billion. PBS describes the film as a "David-and-Goliath story."
While the film gives time to supporters and opponents of the mine, it leaves unsaid that half of the villagers voicing opposition have now either sold their homes or will not have to move, because they live in a protected area where the village's historic structures and churches will be preserved. Viewers who see pristine shots of the Rosia valley won't realize the hills hide a huge, abandoned communist-era mine, leaking toxic heavy metals into local streams--or that while the modern mining project will level four hills to create an open pit, it will also clean up the old mess at no cost to the Romanian treasury.
The other side to the controversy is told in a new film that will never be shown on PBS, but is nonetheless rattling the environmental community. "Mine Your Own Business" is a documentary by Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. They conclude that the biggest threat to the people of Rosia Montana "comes from upper-class Western environmentalism that seeks to keep them poor and unable to clean up the horrific pollution caused by Ceausescu's mining."
Mr. McAleer, a former Financial Times journalist who has followed the mine battle for seven years, says he "found that everything the environmentalists were saying about the project was misleading, exaggerated or quite simply false." He produced his film on a shoestring $230,000 budget largely provided by Gabriel Resources, but says he was given complete editorial control.
The Gabriel funding caused environmental groups to label the film "propaganda" and demand the National Geographic Society cancel plans to rent its Washington, D.C., theater to the free-market Moving Picture Institute for a screening. The Institute notes opponents rarely challenge the film's facts. As for Mr. Kocsis's documentary, his Flora Film corporate Web site lists as its partners Greenpeace, the Hungarian Ministry of Environment and the George Soros-backed Energy Club of Hungary, all of which oppose the Romanian project on either environmental or nationalistic grounds (Transylvania used to be part of Hungary).
High-profile mine opponents such as Ms. Redgrave (who hasn't visited Rosia Montana), have declared undying opposition to the project: "Our planet is dying and we have no right to destroy an ecosystem." In April, Mr. Soros, the chairman of the Open Society Institute and a large funder of groups opposing Rosia Montana, wrote to Wayne Murdy, then CEO of Newmont Mining, the Denver company that owns 19% of Gabriel Resources. He urged him not to invest in "a dubious project such as Rosia Montana," citing "the social costs involved in involuntarily resettling hundreds of people" and "the potential for disastrous environmental impact." Mr. Soros did not respond to an interview request.
Opponents of the mine claim that Rosia Montana residents agree with their stance. "Local opposition to the mine is strong and organized" says a statement signed by 80 environmental groups in January. In his letter, Mr. Soros cites a recent poll organized by some members of Romania's parliament that "found 90% of respondents rejecting the project." But the poll turns out to be an unscientific Internet survey, and one of the environmental groups Mr. Soros funds urged people outside Romania to participate in it. What is clear: Two-thirds of Rosia Montana's people have accepted Gabriel's voluntary offer to buy their homes at above market rates. Most will move four miles away to a less polluted area.
On the other side, Rosia Montana Mayor Virgil Narita supports the mine because it will create 700 permanent local jobs. He was re-elected with 80% of the vote this year. And in late 2004, the Council of Europe sent Eddie O'Hara, a British Labour Party member of the European Parliament, to Rosia Montana to file an official report. Opposition to the mine, he said, was "substantial," but it was "very much fueled by outside bodies, presumably well-meaning but possibly counterproductively. It seems in part at least exaggerated." Mr. O'Hara concluded the opposition "do not take account of modern mining techniques and in fact the Rosia Montana project will help to clear up existing pollution." He also warned that not allowing the mine "would remove any chance of local development for some time."
And there's the rub. Rosia Montana needs a cleanup and development. Three-quarters of its 600 families lack indoor toilets, unemployment tops 70% and the only truly viable crop is potatoes. In "Mine Your Own Business," Andrei Jurca, the local dentist, tells Mr. McAleer "we don't need foreign advocates. We are smart enough to take our own fate in our own hands." Other villagers note that concerns about Gabriel's use of cyanide in gold mining are misplaced. Seven out of nine existing gold mines in European Union countries use cyanide and the allowable limits in Rosia Montana will be lower than all of them.
Perhaps local unemployed miner Gheorghe Lucian says it best: "People have no food to eat. . . . I know what I need--a job." Mr. Soros's Romanian Open Society Foundation is touting "alternative economic activities such as organic agriculture and eco-tourism," unrealistic at best. Stefania Simon, legal counsel for the anti-mine group Alburnus Maior, has no answer for Mr. Lucian. "Unemployment is a problem, but it will not be solved by mining," she told Britain's Guardian newspaper. Noting that Gabriel has only a 17-year lease to mine, she says, "This is a solution for the short term." But right now, even non-permanent jobs and any cleanup of the existing pollution looks like a good deal to people like Mr. Lucian.
"Mine Your Own Business" also contains interviews with leading environmentalists opposing other mining projects who display smug indifference to bettering the lives of poor people. In Madagascar, Mr. McAleer finds Mark Fenn, country director for the World Wide Fund for Nature, who argues that the poor are just as happy as the rich because they smile more and that if Madagascar locals (who now earn $100 a month) get more money "they'll buy cases of beer, invite their friends, they'll throw a party . . . three, four days the money's gone." He then shows off his new $35,000 catamaran.
Mr. McAleer tells me such encounters should wake up people "who, like myself, unquestionably believed environmentalists were a force for good in the world." He still considers himself a liberal but, "it's sad that my fellow left-wingers and environmentalists who often come from the most developed countries are now so opposed to development."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)