Dear Friends

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2

rivers, fed by 2 glaciers.

Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it.



Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they

Provide the second largest source of income for the area.

Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and

Other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to

destroy the glaciers;- something never conceived of in the history

of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain,

one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick

Gold. The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose

members is George Bush Senior.



The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this

year,2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers

have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers,

they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will

permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for

human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the

extraction process. Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the

multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is.



They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have

been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.

Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get

help from international justice. The world must know what is

happening in Chile. The only place to start changing the world is

from here. We ask you to circulate this message amongst

your friends in the following way.



Please copy this text, paste it into a new email adding your

signature and send it to everyone in your address book. Please,

will the 100th person to receive and sign the petition, send it to

noapascualama@yahoo.ca to be forwarded to the Chilean Government.

No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the

Chilean-Argentine frontier. We ask the Chilean Government not to

authorize the Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3 glaciers,

the purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El Transito,

the quality of the agricultural land of the region of Atacama,

the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the

whole population of the region.

Signature, City, Country

http://tribes.tribe.net/pascua_lama_no