30781: (news) Chamberlain: Gold exploration (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Toronto Star, 21 July 07)


Haiti's future glitters with gold

Impoverished country gets second look due to stabilizing political climate,
high gold price

By Reed Lindsay



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.