THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 161, August 31, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
KEEPIMG ROMANIA IMPOVERISHED:
Anti-Mining Campaign Will Perpetuate
Unemployment & Environmental Degradation
By Paul K. Driessen
OPERATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT IN ROMANIA: POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISM VERSUS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, GROWTH, & PROSPERITY IN CENTRAL EUROPE -- A REVEALING
INDICTMENT OF THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTALIST & ANTI-MINING ACTIVIST MOVEMENT, THE FACELESS & FAMOUS
PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE MOVEMENT OR WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES TO FINANCE & ORCHESTRATE IT, & THE
DEVASTING CONSEQUENCES THEIR ANTI-DEVELOPMENT CAMPAIGNS ARE HAVING ON POOR WORKERS, FAMILIES &
COMMUNITIES, AS WELL AS ON THE ENVIRONMENT
FULL STORY:
For decades, Nazi and Communist regimes ruled Romania, kept her people impoverished and exploited her resources,
tearing vast mineral wealth from her mountains, with little regard for worker safety, people’s health or the environment.
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, Romania eagerly embraced a more hopeful future and embarked on a course to join
the European Union.
Life has improved for many, especially in cities like Bucharest. But Romania remains one of the European Unions’s
poorest nations, and valleys that once echoed with the shouts of workers and roar of heavy equipment are now silent.
Over 300,000 miners are jobless. Their villages have descended into squalor, misery, and despondency that have no
historic parallel.
Rosia Montana is one such place. This Transylvanian town hosts a massive open-pit mine, enormous waste dumps and,
beneath them, hundreds of tunnels. The legacy of 2000 years of mining, the most damaging of which occurred under
Nicolae Ceausescu, the tunnels leach toxic chemicals into local streams that now are red-orange from cadmium and
contain 110 times the EU’s legal limit of zinc, 64 times its iron limit, and three times the limit for arsenic, the most
dangerous chemical on the United States government’s toxic substances list.
Homes and buildings are crumbling, two-thirds of them lack indoor toilets and running water, and 70% of the workers are
unemployed. Families survive on wild berries, subsistence farming in rocky, acidic soil, welfare, and often less than US$2
a day. Few own a car. Frigid Winters are warmed only by wood stoves. Malnutrition and ill health are constant problems.
The dentist serves as the area’s only doctor.
Unlike most former mining towns, however, Rosia has one last chance. Gabriel Resources wants to reopen the mine, to
tease out nearly 2,000 tons of gold and silver that the antiquated methods of bygone eras could not extract.
In the process, the Canadian company would spend millions to erase the horrific environmental legacy, restore the land to
forests, pastures and grasslands, and leave the alpine waters sparkling. All at no cost to the Romanian government, which
cannot afford to clean up the mess itself.
Gabriel Resources would also create high-paying jobs, revitalize the community, protect and restore Rosia’s most valuable
churches and buildings in a special historic zone, build a modern village with homes in traditional Romanian styles, save
Roman and other archeological treasures in a museum, and provide precious metals for jewelry, computers, and other
marvels. (The company has already spent over US$200 million; its US$10-million expenditure thus far on archeology is 40
times the Romanian Culture Ministry’s annual budget between 1990 and 2003.)
Over a 29-year period, the project would create 1,200 construction jobs, more than 600 mining jobs, and 6,000 indirect jobs
in service sectors. It would inject US$2.5 billion into the local and Romanian economy, and leave Rosia Montana with a
modern infrastructure: roads, electricity, internet, safe running water, a new school and clinic, and dozens of new
businesses that will sustain a strong economy long after the mine is gone. Of course, other ore bodies might be discovered,
prolonging the area’s mining economy for decades.
The museum, clean environment, and new hotels and restaurants will attract tourists who have never before had a reason to
visit this cold, polluted, inhospitable region.
No wonder the mayor strongly supports the new mine and was re-elected with over 80% of the vote. If the project moves
forward, miracles will happen. If it dies, the land and water will remain polluted, because Romania cannot afford to clean it up.
More young people will leave, the elderly will be abandoned, and investors will think twice about coming to Romania.
But none of this matters to the international anti-mining movement. Almost the moment the plan was announced, foreign
NGOs (non-governmental organizations) launched a local opposition group (Alburnus Maior) and well-financed campaign to
stop the project, using techniques they had refined in countless actions across North and South America, Asia, and Africa.
The region is idyllic, they say, perfect for farming and tourism. The people love their quaint homes and prefer horse-drawn
carts over automobiles. Gabriel would uproot families, destroy Rosia’s churches and landmarks, and pollute the pristine
environment. The people don’t want these temporary jobs. They’d rather pick mushrooms and carve wood figurines.
These and other absurd lies are chronicled in the documentary film Mine Your Own Business. Residents can hardly
imagine anyone would believe them. But websites, awards from celebrities and like-minded pressure groups, and a constant
flow of spurious allegations have generated opposition all over Europe. A recent PBS television pseudo-documentary
(funded by Greenpeace) is carrying their anti-mining battle to U.S. audiences.
The latest fabrication attacks the proposed use of cyanide to recover the precious metals. The NGOs claim the method is
dangerous and used only in destitute Third World countries. They have persuaded Romanian legislators to introduce laws
banning the chemical, and, thus, scuttling the project and future mining prospects.
Actually, cyanide is produced by bacteria and fungi, and found in almonds, coffee and other foods. Over 400 modern mines
in the U.S.A., the European Union, Canada, Australia, and many other nations use it to extract gold and silver. Because it
degrades quickly and naturally, and does not involve acids or heavy metals, it is safer for workers and the environment than
alternative methods. Indeed, it is far less toxic than automobile exhaust or the arsenic and other chemicals that now foul
Rosia Montana’s water.
Gabriel Resources, the only EU-licensed company to sign the International Cyanide Management Code, plans to use it in a
state-of-the-art system that will safely recycle the chemical repeatedly and send nearly cyanide-free water into a lined waste
facility. The system is designed so that even major storms will not release dangerous chemicals into the environment – a
huge difference from the risky, antiquated system that caused the Baia Mare overflow.
The radical environmentalist 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
environmentalist 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 environmentalist NGO. If the whole
community is in favor of the project, we simply put it on the list
of our enemies.”
The radical environmentalists and anti-mining activists 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 environmentalist activists refuse to have any dialogue.
Draped in gold, actress Vanessa Redgrave used a Cluj-Napoca film festival to proclaim her opposition to the mine. When the
people of Rosia Montana wrote her a letter – asking “Where will be go? How will we live?” – she responded with stony,
callous silence.
Wealthy San Francisco insurance magnate Richard Goldman gave Swiss-British Stephanie Roth US$125,000 for leading the
project’s opposition. He has also given nearly US$1-million to radical anti-insecticide groups that help perpetuate malaria,
misery, and childhood death in Africa.
But what possible reason can the Royal Society, Catholic Church, news media, and Royal Family of Romania have for
opposing this project? Why do they want to ensure that thousands of their own people remain unemployed, living in
squalid homes, and sentenced to suffer in one of Romania’s most polluted areas? Why do they want to give George Soros
and Hungary veto power over Romania’s mining industry and thousands of jobs and families?
Would Princess Margareta or any of the journalists, Church leaders, or Society elites want to live even one Winter in this
“paradise” they want to “save”? Do they hate mining with enough passion to give up its benefits: their fine homes, jewelry,
computers, cars and jet travel, none of which are possible without mining? Will Redgrave, Roth, Soros, Goldman and other
project opponents do likewise? Will the anti-cyanide legislators?
Rather than aligning with the foreign militants, Romanian legislators, journalists, celebrities and citizens should visit the
village, strip mines, streams and waste heaps, and speak with the people of Rosia Montana and Gabriel Resources. If there
is a need for legislation, it is for laws that compel anti-development NGOs – and those that bankroll them – to abide by
basic rules for honesty, transparency, and accountability that every decent organization should be happy to follow.
Most important, they should let the people of Rosia Montana decide their own future, without pressure from foreign
environmentalist activists. If that future includes this mining project, it will give Rosia and the entire nation an opportunity
to rehabilitate this ecological disaster, preserve the best of their cultural heritage, and become healthy, modern, and
prosperous.
Together, these actions would help ensure that a half-century of oppression by totalitarians is not followed by oppression
at the hands of unaccountable eco-imperialists.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Europe, European States, & Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. In addition, he is author of Responsible
Progress in the Andes, a report on anti-mining campaigns in Peru and other countries, and his new book, Freezing in the
Dark, which reveals how radical environmentalist pressure groups raise money and promote policies that restrict energy and
economic development, and hurt poor families. Contact Information -- Email: pdriessen@cox.net ** Telephone: (703) 698-6171.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity