WE SUPPORT THE CHILEAN COMMUNITIES THAT TODAY ARE MOBILIZED AGAINST THE PASCUA LAMA 
 

From Spain and the United Kingdom, NGO 'VIDAU', again demonstrates its solidarity against the dangerous and anti-democratic mining project Pascua Lama, which tries to impose its mining project without protection for the health of the local communities, without significant benefits for their inhabitants, except for a chosen few.

This mining mega-project has been planned to use open cast mining on the eternal glaciers that provide the water for the region, using in its expoitation process highly contaminating technology such as cyanide and generating arsenic activations throughout the mountain range. For each ounce extracted 20 tonnes of toxic waste are left.

This project is the first of innumerable projects that trans-nationals such as the Canadian company 'Barrick Gold' and Noranda will develop, on the border between Chile and Argentina above a height of 4000 meters with its own laws and means of finance, making it impossible for either of the two countries to claim their stakes.

These mines will appropriate the mineral resources of both countries through an anti-democratic treaty signed by Chile and Argentina, hidden from the citizens, with dubious and imperialistic methods drawn up by the same miners against two undefendable states in preserving their environment and to make use of its non-renewable resources for the good of the population.

The affected communities are found to be badly informed, unprotected from the imposition from the power of money and the corruption of a few powerful politicians, a people made poor with respect to the fear of loss of their work to find a job or to run major risks they are obliged to keep their silence. The Social and environmental organizations start this chain of solidarity.

VIDAU starts from today an information campaign to the communities of Europe hoping that the truth may not be silenced by illegal measures, we summon the sciences, ethical and moral press, the NGOs, Educational establishments, Chileans and citizens of the world to stop this damage to the health and sustainable development of Atacama, Chile and San Juan, Argentina.

For more information, please refer to

http://www.olca.cl.