THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 241, December 24, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MAY YOU FREEZE IN THE DARK: SEASON'S GREETINGS TO A
ROMANIAN MINING TOWN FROM EBENEZER SOROS & FRIENDS
By Paul K. Driessen
IDEOLOGY, CORRUPTION, & TREACHERY IN ROMANIAN POLITICS: THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTALIST & ANTI-MINING
MOVEMENT AT WORK IN ROMANIA -- POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & OTHER RADICAL ACTIVISTS IN LEAGUE WITH
HUNGARIAN REVANCHISTS & CORRUPT ROMANIAN OFFICIALS & FINANCED BY RADICAL LEFTIST GEORGE SOROS'S OPEN
SOCIETY FOUNDATION & INSURANCE MAGNATE RICHARD GOLDMAN'S FAMILY FOUNDATION -- PURSUING A
POLITICAL AGENDA DISGUISED AS AN ENDEAVOR TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT, BUT REALLY INTENDED TO PREVENT
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND ENHANCEMENT OF HUMAN WELFARE IN THE TRANSYLVANIA REGION OF ROMANIA
FULL STORY:
Tucked away in the mountains of western Romania, Rosia Montana has been a mining town for 2000 years. From Roman
times, extracting gold and other metals from these rocks has been a dirty, dangerous business, and life there has never
been easy. Safety, health, and environmental considerations were rarely priorities, and decades of operations under
Communist regimes left mountains of rubble that still leach toxic chemicals into streams.
When the Ceaucescu government collapsed, state-run mines like Rosia’s limped along, posting huge losses and
continuing to ignore their environmental impacts. In 2006, most were finally shut down. Thousands of workers lost their
jobs, villages were plunged into poverty, and families were reduced to surviving on pitiful welfare payments, scavenging
for mushrooms and berries in the forests, and breaking up abandoned concrete facilities with hammers, to recover and sell
their steel reinforcing rods.
Few families own a car. Indoor plumbing is almost unknown. Snowstorms make unpaved roads treacherous, and
malnutrition and ill health are common.
Seeing an opportunity to make money by being socially responsible, Toronto-based Gabriel Resources proposed to reopen
the mines, under modern Western standards and practices. In the process, it would create thousands of direct and
secondary jobs in the village and surrounding areas, clean up the horrific environmental legacy, build modern homes and a
museum, protect and restore ancient churches, and inject US$2.5 billion into the Romanian economy. The region would also
get improved roads, wireless internet service, safe running water, modern schools and clinics, and dozens of new businesses
– all of which would remain long after the mines finally close for good.
Almost immediately, the global anti-mining movement rose up in self-righteous indignation to oppose the project. Financed
by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, San Francisco insurance magnate Richard Goldman’s family foundation and
others, the activists set up a local front group known as Alburnus Maior, brought in organizers and agitators from Belgium
and Switzerland, recruited watermelon celebrities like Vanessa Redgrave (green on the outside; red on the inside), and
launched an intense campaign of lies and vilification to stop the project and keep the area impoverished.
In the perverse tradition of Orwell’s 1984, their noxious campaign was presented to and reported by the media as vital
to ensure environmental protection and corporate ethics, transparency, and accountability.
As Winter, 2007, set in and the Holiday Season approached, the agitators’ efforts appeared to be paying off.
Romanian Environment Minister Atilla Korodi suspended further evaluation of the Rosia Montana environmental study. A
local court annulled the urban planning certificate that the County Council had granted. And Romania’s Parliament was
considering a bill that would outlaw the use of cyanide for processing ore – despite the modern closed-loop system Gabriel
has developed, and a European Union decision specifically allowing cyanide as a preferred alternative to toxic acids once
used in gold mining.
Villagers, legal analysts, and corporate representatives insist that these actions have no basis in fact or law. But, for now,
the project is on hold. Hundreds of workers have been laid off. Thousands of others realize their own prospects for
employment are fading.
The Soros-Goldman Brigade is filled with holiday cheer. It’s just sent Season’s Greetings to some of the poorest people in
all of Europe: May you freeze in the dark.
“They are laughing in our faces, while we are crying. They are happy for our sorrow,” Marinela Bar said bitterly. “The
socalled ecologists care only about themselves, not about the local community, Calin Cioara added. “They only mock
people.”
“We have no words to express our disappointment. The company was our only chance for development. We are hopeless
now,” Daniel Pacurar said softly, echoing the despondency that has crept into the valley, despite Gabriel’s determination
to continue seeking the needed permits and move forward.
“We’ll spend the holidays together at the community center,” Miorita Botariu said. “We’ll sing carols and laugh together,
maybe for the last time. With the project, we could have been a happy, united community. Now we will lose our friends,
our neighbors, our relatives, because everyone will try to live a better life – somewhere else.”
Rosia Montanans are tough, resolute, and used to hardship. But this Christmas seems different. “We will prepare for the
holidays in sadness, because of what will happen after the holidays,” Augustin and Georgeta Cioara said, staring out their
window. “We don’t know what we will do.”
“The cold is killing us,” Mircea Silaghi shivered. “There is no public transportation. Our wood stoves barely keep us from
freezing. We are living only a little better than in the Middle Ages.”
Sometimes, the snow gets so deep, and the roads so impassable, Tamira Danciu says, “that you cannot go anywhere.
When the wind blows hard, the electricity goes down.” The anti-mining activists often say “Rosia Montana is beautiful,
like in fairy tales. It might be for people who just visit for a few days, and then go back to civilization,” she continued. But
they don’t visit the polluted mine sites, they don’t use water from the polluted streams, they don’t have to endure the
deprivation and bitter winters.
“Right now we have about 1000 lei ($400) a month for ourselves and four children,” Sorinela Croitoru said softly. “But what
will we do for Easter? By then the jobs will be gone, the money will be gone. We are desperate.”
The villagers are in this terrible situation “because of the Hungarians and our Romanian leaders,” Mrs. Botariu said angrily.
“They took everything away from us. They took away our hope.”
Soros, Korodi, and Romanian Senator Peter Eckstein-Kovacs (co-author of the no-cyanide bill) are all Hungarian by
ethnicity and apparently by allegiance. A busload of anti-project Hungarian activists told villagers last Summer that they
view this Romanian section of Transylvania as part of Hungary.
Those attitudes appear to be driving much of their opposition: if they cannot rule it their way, if Gabriel went to Romanian
leaders for permits, if the mining revenues flow to Bucharest instead of to Budapest (or George Soros), they would rather
see the region broken and destitute, than let the project proceed.
No matter how they spin it, the opposition is clearly not motivated by concerns about ethics, the environment, or people.
Others blame themselves, for not battling furiously enough against these unscrupulous, well-funded eco-imperialists. “We
didn’t fight hard enough to keep this project here,” suggested Dr. Andrei Jurca, the village’s dentist (and physician). He
feels it is intolerable for Rosia Montana to remain “under the thumb” of a minister who is becoming “an environmental
dictator.” When the government held public debates in Bucharest to discuss the project, he noted, the villagers “were not
even allowed to speak.”
The local people – the true stakeholders, the ones who need jobs and will be most affected by any decisions – were not
allowed to speak. That is incredible, outrageous, at odds with the most fundamental tenets of constitutional democracy,
ethics, environmental justice, transparency, and accountability.
“This project is the area’s only chance for development,” Ilie Botariu emphasized. “The Alburnus Maior people helped us
with a big nothing. They didn’t offer jobs and didn’t provide any benefits. And, when they are done protesting against this
investment, they will pack their bags and leave, to fight another project. That is all they do.”
Added Sebastian Hanesh: “We cannot wish them anything but the holiday ‘happiness’ they have given us. Today we are
miners. Tomorrow we will be mushroom pickers, because of Alburnus and Soros. The members of Parliament should resign,
because they do not represent us and don’t fight for our rights.”
Romania has 300,000 unemployed miners. It can hardly afford to shut down this industry with ill-advised bans on modern
mining technologies – or tell prospective investors they are not welcome.
The country’s government needs to encourage investment – and start representing people who simply want jobs and a
chance to get their families and communities back into the economic mainstream. It also needs to hold ministers, legislators
and unaccountable nonprofit multinational activist corporations to the same standards of honesty, decency, transparency,
and accountability that they demand of for-profit corporations.
European Union, United Nations, United States, and Canadian officials must likewise insist on basic ethical standards for
these activist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). And civil rights groups and social responsibility advocates need to
insist that they do so.
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. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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