In anticipation of the new Kos guidelines, please rest assured this is a positive endorsement of Bernie Sanders, for reasons that should be obvious. Someone what a candidate has NOT done in the past, and would NOT do in the future, is crucially significant in judging their qualifications for high office.
"Haiti's Gold Problem" is a brief must-read article, from Global Risk Insights—an internet magazine aimed at the international investment community. It’s not often that neglect of environmental controls and workers’ rights is so extreme that it threatens the interests of investors—but that’s apparently the case in Haiti!
(I was in the course of posting this article before I realized there was a direct Clinton connection. GRI’s editor-in-chief apparently didn’t think it relevant to mention that Majescor board members include Hillary’s brother.)
The investment into Haiti’s gold mines is a gamble. Companies like Newmont were reluctant to take interest further as political violence, crony capitalism and a lack of transparency would counter any progress made. However, the Canadian company Majescor demonstrated that if one can get around the political situation, the potential results will be worth it. The company purchased the rights to explore 450 square km in Haiti and its stock doubled in the single day after it reported high levels of gold in its drill samples. The other present issue at hand is the lack of benefits that gold mining will have on the many Haitians that live in poverty....
Recently, the Haitian government had contacted the World Bank to assist in drafting a new mining law that would put potential investor’s minds at ease. The issue here is that it ignores the environmental damage that mining will cause. This is particularly relevant to those within the agricultural sectors. Moreover, it also fails to address potential human rights violations and the rights of workers....
Local groups such as the Justice in Mining Collective have not been involved in draft law negotiation and have been ignored by the government and the World Bank...as the government tries to entice foreign firms, there is a lack of belief that politicians have the best interests of the poverty-stricken population at heart.
What did the old mining law look like? Well, here’s a relevant section of the 1987 Constitution:
“The right to own property does not extend to the coasts, springs, rivers, water courses, mines and quarries. They are part of the State’s public domain.”
– Haitian 1987 Constitution, Section H, Article 36-5.
For more information, see: US to Rewrite Constitution to Better Serve the One Percent by Ezili Dantò of HLLN and The Free Haiti Movement
And what environmental consequences can be expected from gold mining operations?
...rainwater seeps through a mine or a spoils pile and carries sulfuric acid to nearby streams and groundwater. The sulfuric acid forms when anaerobic bacteria act on the iron sulfide minerals in piles of spoils. This and the huge quantities of water used to process the ore that end up containing more sulfuric acid, mercury, and arsenic end up in the runoff and into streams and groundwater, further killing wildlife and biodiversity. As if the toxic destruction isn’t enough and in addition to all the greenhouse gas emitting that’s involved in mining and transporting these minerals, mining companies that extract gold have been known to claim bankruptcy right after finishing a dig so they leave without cleaning up large amounts of cyanide-laden water holding ponds in their wake. enviropolicyintro.wordpress.com/...
Show me a corporate boss who calls Haiti the “poorest country in the western hemisphere,” and I’ll show you a con artist preparing to fleece Haiti. Likewise, show me a western technocrat who bemoans Haiti’s “dramatic deforestation due to charcoal production” and I’ll show a bio-pirate or vandal preparing to wreck the country’s remaining cloud-forest and mangrove-forest ecosystems. It turns out that the real plan for Haiti’s northeastern region — especially the Caracol Bay area — is one that was hatched by U.S. and Canadian mining corporations, with the U.S. and South Korean sweatshop zone being a side project and distraction. If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth.
In a May 1, 2012 interview with Canada’s Financial Post, Majescor Resources Inc. CEO Dan Hachey was effusive about Michel Martelly’s installment as president because he expects Martelly’s policy of mimicking the Dominican Republic (DR) to be a boon to the mining sector. . . Barrick and Goldcorp have come under strong popular opposition in the DR. In a country where 20 percent of the population lacks access to drinking water, these companies are accused of polluting 2,500 cubic meters of water per hour with the vast quantities of cyanide needed to process 24,000 tons of ore a day by opencast (or open-pit) mining…. These problems are compounded by the damages from the more intense tropical storms due to climate change… Read more at Omega World News
Further info:
Hilary Clinton’s Brother Raising Eyebrows After Landing Rare Gold Mining Permit In Haiti
Hillary Clinton, Haiti Resources, US Thievery: The economic reasons for the US occupation of Haiti
Video Haitians demonstrate outside Clinton office (YouTube account upload ≠ demonstration)
Black Lives Matter from Haiti to the San FranciscoBay—an MLK Day march to protest rigged elections
Chinese gold mining operations in Ghana—a model for deadly resource-looting in Haiti's future?
Ghana Gold Mines Suggest Larger Crisis for China: Export of ‘China model’ will encounter more and stiffer resistance: “As long as the work brings in wealth and high GDP figures for the local government and also lines the local officials’ pockets, then water pollution is no problem. Destroying the land is no problem. Laws and government regulations are no problem—they can easily be solved by bribery.”
The Epoch Times
NOTE: The Global Risk Insights article content makes one wonder if the ‘China model’ tested in Ghana could indeed be the template for US-Canada gold mining ventures in Haiti.
...the Clintons’ doings in Haiti...were truly grotesque, and very much a joint project of the two of them…. As secretary of state, she and her underlings enabled a deeply corrupt election, worked to suppress an increase in the minimum wage (of concern to women garment workers, something you’d think feminists would care about), and seriously botched reconstruction after the 2010 earthquake. USAID, an agency under State Department supervision, built horrid housing and deployed toxic trailers to accommodate the displaced — at the same time the embassy in Port-au-Prince commissioned snazzy housing for its staff. What both Clintons did in Haiti deserves serious scrutiny…
—Doug Henwood
publisher, Left Business Observer
