Bob Belenky
80 Lyme Road, apt 105
Hanover, NH 03755-1229
603 678-4155 or 802 428-4141
BOBThanks for sending me the Global Research article http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17287 by F. William Engdahl. It does much to confirm my suggestion that there is a golden underbelly to the Aristede ouster by coup supported by the United States government.The articles that I sent you below show that there are already licensed exploration sites in Haiti in the area that Engdahl shows in the map for geological exploration that is included with his article.In case you did not get a chance to read the Eurasian Minerals, Inc (a Canadian companyweb site) report of the leased properties, you should note that they coincide with the geological exploration sites of the Engdahl essay.It is another example of what the real practices of democracy are as compared to the concept, the ideology of democracy.Regards,Bill
From: williamccarlotti@msn.com
To: robertbelenky@mac.com; belenky-family@googlegroups.com; greenwood.david2@gmail.com; uhaynesjr@yahoo.com
Subject: THE GOLDEN UNDERBELLY OF HAITI
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:54:24 -0500
I hate to be crass by suggesting that the Bill Clinton and George W Bush selection by Obama to direct the United States invasion and occupation of Haiti has anything to do with the deposits of gold and Iridium found in Haiti or that the United States support of the coup that ousted Aristede has a golden underbelly, but I thought that it might be worth mentioning. BILLHaiti's future glitters with gold
Impoverished country gets second look due to stabilizing political climate, high gold price
LA MIEL, Haiti–Keith Laskowski bounds up the freshly-cut dirt road like a child at an amusement park. He stops at a patch of reddish rock, whacks at it with his miner's pick and slips a chunk into his pocket.
"This road exposure's great," he says, then laughs almost giddily.
For 27 years, Laskowski has been searching for gold, from Mongolia to the Amazon. Now, the geologist says, he may have hit pay dirt in the hills above the town of La Miel in northeastern Haiti.
But Laskowski's optimism belies a minefield of potential problems awaiting his Vancouver-based company, Eurasian Minerals. Although Canadian mining companies weather stormy political climates around the world, they have largely stayed clear of crisis-torn Haiti.
Now, with the price of gold doubling in the last five years and a newly elected government establishing a degree of stability, geologists are scouring the hilltops of Haiti, the region's poorest country.
"These are the best results I've ever seen," says Laskowski. "I don't think there's a question of whether there's a good deposit here. It's a question of whether we can develop it here in Haiti."
In late May, Eurasian Minerals announced the gold content found in several trenches cut into the hillsides here, driving its stock price up 40 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Laskowski says the company hopes to find billions of dollars worth of gold in the hills above La Miel, which is just a few kilometres from the border with the Dominican Republic.
This would be no small news for Haiti, where industrial production is meagre and agriculture is mainly subsistence. Haiti has never had a modern gold or silver mine; its only copper mine closed 35 years ago.
"It's been frustrating. But now we've got every reason to believe that in the coming years, there will finally be mineral exploitation in Haiti," says Dieuseul Anglade, a geologist who heads the Haitian government's bureau of mining.
A United Nations study in the 1970s indicated Haiti could be littered with gold and copper deposits. But political violence and recurring coups have kept investors away.
"Haiti's logical," says Alex Turkeltaub, managing director of Frontier Strategy Group, a consulting firm that advises mining companies. "The assumption of most mining executives is that its proximity to the United States and its relatively small size mean that they will have a lot of leverage as large players in a small economy, and that the Americans will always be there to protect against complete disaster."
Turkeltaub predicts "a stampede into Haiti" if the existence of large gold deposits can be proved.
Another Canadian-backed company recently resumed prospecting in Haiti after abandoning its claims a decade ago. Steve Lachapelle – a Quebec lawyer who is now chair of the board of the company, called St. Genevieve Haiti – says employees were threatened at gunpoint by partisans of ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The president at the time, René Préval, once an ally of Aristide, was elected for a second term last year, but Lachapelle says he has renewed confidence in the Haitian leader.
"Haitians are realizing that they no longer have a choice," says Lachapelle. "With all the problems the country has had, they realize that they have to play the game with investors or things are going to keep getting worse."
Laskowski says his biggest concerns in Haiti are venal officials and angry local residents. Haiti was recently ranked the world's most corrupt country by Transparency International, although Préval is widely seen as honest.
Formed in 1993, Transparency is a global network whose 90 chapters fight political corruption. Most of its funding comes from government development agency budgets and foundations.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Haiti, the last stop in a week-long tour of South America and the Caribbean. After Afghanistan, Haiti is Canada's second-largest foreign commitment – about $100 million a year until 2011.
Discontent is already brewing in La Miel and surrounding countryside.
The sudden appearance last year of Laskowski and his team of Haitian geologists sparked lofty expectations among the local families that the company would bring much-needed development to the area. So far, Eurasian's small-scale exploration work has resulted in only a few temporary jobs.
"They need to sit down with everyone together to let us know what decision they've made for the area. If they don't do this, we're not going to let them exploit us as they wish," says Suzanne Louis, a community leader and wife of a farmer.
Louis and other residents of La Miel say they are unaware of the environmental catastrophes and social upheaval sometimes associated with gold mining in other poor countries.
Laskowski has asked the locals to be patient. In the best of scenarios, he says, it will take from four to six years before any actual mining could begin. By that time, Haiti will have a new government and gold will likely be selling at a different price.
The geology of Haiti is prospective exploration terrain for epithermal gold-silver as well as copper-gold porphyry deposits, and consists of preserved remnants of a Cretaceous island arc assemblage situated along the northern margin of the Caribbean Plate. This geologic environment hosts numerousgold and copper occurrences in Haiti, as well as the Pueblo Viejo deposit inthe adjacent Dominican Republic. Pueblo Viejo has 215 million tons of proven and probable reserves containing 20.4 million ounces of gold, 117.3 million ounces of silver, and 423.5 million pounds of copper as of year-end 2007 reporting (www.barrick.com). However, even though Haiti's mineral potential is similar to that found in the Dominican Republic, it has remained under-explored.
The recognition of Haiti's exploration potential, coupled with an improving business climate, resulted in EMX's establishment of an exploration program in early 2006 and the acquisition of the La Miel and La Mine goldproperties. The Treuil copper property was acquired in 2007. EMX's exploration successes on these properties led to the establishment in 2008 of a Joint Venture and Regional Strategic Alliance (the "Agreement") with Newmont Ventures Limited ("Newmont") for exploration in the Republic ofHaiti. The Agreement includes a private placement, a joint venture on the La Miel gold project, and a regional strategic exploration alliance that covers northern Haiti.
EMX's programs in Haiti gained further momentum later 2008, with the acquisition of the 27 additional exploration licenses, including the historic Meme copper-gold mine. This property package,in combination with EMX's previous license awards, gives the Company a commanding land position along 130 kilometers of strike length in an emerging new gold belt. EMX's exploration land holdings now total 281,858 hectares, and cover approximately half of the Massif du Nord metallogenic belt inHaiti.
EMX, and exploration alliance partner Newmont, are aggressively exploring the Company's extensive property portfolio in what is gaining recognition as one of the world's premier, early stage goldexploration terrains.
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