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[Lone Clone]

I ave been following the issue of mercury contamination by artisanal miners for many years, which is why I support the stronger regulation of mining across Latin America. BTW, It's much worse in eastern Peru; I really ope the new President follows through on is promises to clean it up.

There are three ways to deal with artisanal miners; try to ban them, which is rarely successful and just pushes them to other areas, often more dangerous; hire them on as employees with proper wages and working conditions; or help them out by teaching them better techniques plus offer them processing of their ore.

Gran Colombia has chosen the third option with a twist; fire the employees who used to work for you and replace them with artisanal miners, and then treat them like garbage while denying you are doing so.

Here is a link I saved, but I have also read a number of other pieces which go into more detail.

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/12/17/death-extortion-stalk-workers-at-canadian-mine-in-colombia.html

The First Commandment of mining in Latin America is to get the locals on your side; that is always one of the first factors I take into account when choosing where to invest my dollars. That is just one of the reasons I would never touch Gran Colombia. Another is that management has repeatedly proven themselves to be liars.

Here's another example. One of my best ever Latin American investments was Rio Mining; great deposits, great management, and great relations with the locals. Unfortunately they were bought out by Tahoe, which may be even worse than Gran Colombia, so I did not hold my shares through the buyout. Look at what has since happened to Tahoe, who hired a security force that shot and killed protesting locals right out the front gate to the mine. Now the mine is shut down and THO's share price has been destroyed.

There are many good places to put your money; why place it with a company with terrible management that seems to go out of its way to antagonize the locals?

LC