Recently, a friend of mine surprised me with the following mail, containing information which I knew nothing about and that, frankly, appears to me distinctly more serious than any minor disagreement in Pumalín. What is at stake here is the water resources of our country combined with the natural resources coming from agriculture and, even worse, combined with the natural human resources. As usual, they take us for imbeciles and I don’t think it would be a bad thing to get down to work and exert our influence to keep situations like the following from taking place or at least expose it to public debate so they will not be able to continue getting away with silence. This is the case with the PROYECTO PASCUA-LAMA...

In Chile, they are going to destroy a glacier in order to exploit gold.

The context is the following:

Chile is a country that possesses great reserves of fresh water, divided up on rivers, lakes and glaciers. As everyone knows, water is a precious possession, a natural resource that might well be the cause for great wars in the future.

In the third region of our country, there is a place called “Valle de San Félix" (the Saint Felix Valley). This is a commune where there is no unemployment. It is inhabited by farmers who provide the region with the second most important source of wealth (as a region). This place is watered by two big rivers which get their water from glaciers in the close by mountain range. They give the purest water in all of Chile.

The problems started when someone discovered under these glaciers the “TREASURE OF AMERICA”, consisting of TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in gold, silver and many other minerals.

In order to extract these metals, it will be necessary to break, to destroy these glaciers (something that has never previously been done in the world!) and to make two enormous holes the size of Chuquicamata (translator’s note: that is, each one as big as a whole mountain): one will be to extract the minerals, the other one to dump the waste (mining industries do not practice recycling).

The name of this project is 'Pascua Lama'. It will be put into practice by a multinational company of which Bush the elder is one of the shareholders.

Our government has already approved the project and set the beginning of the work at some time during next year (2006), only because the farmers have succeeded in postponing it so far.

What is our great concern here is the fact that by destroying the glacier, they will also destroy this precious reserve of fresh water, as they attack the rivers that water the region and they will contaminate all the water for the population of the whole area around the site. In the future the water will only be appropriate for watering and will become unclean for consumption by humans and even by animals. What is more, THE VERY LAST GRAM OF GOLD WILL GO TO THE GRINGA (= FOREIGNERS). NONE OF IT WILL STAY HERE IN OUR COUNTRY. But we will be the ones who will have to live with the polluted water and all the dirt and the diseases that come with it.

These people have been fighting for a long time for their land, which is their only livelihood. But they have not even had the right to express themselves on TV because of an order from the Department of the Interior. Their only hope to put the breaks to this project is to make it known to the largest possible number of people in order to get it submitted to the International Courts of Justice.

I know that this might perhaps not seem important to you personally, but I am asking you, if possible, to transfer it to your friends.

THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW THAT THIS IS HAPPENING IN CHILE.

IN ORDER TO CHANGE THE WORLD, WE HAVE TO BEGIN AT HOME.
Ignacio González Gruenberg

http://www.atinachile.cl/drupal/index.php?q=node/1235