Canadian gold-mining company Barrick Gold backed out of a debate on its Pascua Lama project 20 minutes before it was scheduled to begin on Tuesday at the campus of the Adolfo Ibanez University.

The company said it had information that environmentalists planned an assassination of its executive at the debate. But Pascua Llama opponents claimed �unwillingness to debate� is a pattern for the transnational company. 

The Pascua Lama gold mine project would straddle the border with Argentina in Northern Chile�s Huasco Valley in the Atacama region. More than 17 million ounces of gold, as well as silver and copper deposits, sit in Barrick Gold�s proposed mine. 

Construction was supposed to have begun in September 2008, but delays in the tax revenue allocation plan, various sector permits pending in Argentina and resurfacing environmental contamination concerns (ST, May 8 , 2008) pushed construction plans back two years and counting.

If constructed, Pascua Lama would be Chile's second-largest gold source and would produce 600,000 ounces of gold and 23 million ounces of silver a year, as well as smaller quantities of copper. The mine's tax revenues are expected to total US$7 billion (ST, Aug. 28, 2008).

Grassroots resistance to the mine is led by environmentalists and members of the nearby community who claim the mine will destroy mountain glaciers and the community�s drinking water. Opponents also say the government has not monitored the environmental damage already committed in the preliminary construction of the project (ST, May 8 , 2008).

Tuesday�s debate was organized by five business students at Universidad Adolfo Ib��ez (UAI) as part of their entrepreneurship class. Executives of Barrick Gold agreed to debate two representatives from Huasco Valley, Cristina Hoar, a nun from Sierva del Esp�ritu Santo, and Lucio Cuenca, the director of the Latin American Observatory For Environmental Conflicts (OLCA).

The University met the debate conditions demanded by Barrick Gold, including escape access to a side door of the auditorium, special parking separate from the public, and a bodyguard for its executive. Barrick also insisted that the press be barred from attending the event and that Barrick�s representative would speak only after his opponents had spoken. 

Had the debate occurred , it would have been the company�s first public debate about the Pascua Lama project in over a decade. Barrick Gold said it agreed to the debate because �Unlike in the [Universidad de] Chile or USACH [Universidad de Santiago de Chile], this University [UAI] guaranteed us a respectful environment.�

OLCA�s Cuenca said that Barrick�s no-show was a pattern. �It�s irresponsible not to defend your positions in public, but we�re not surprised. They�ve never been willing to debate. This has happened many times before,� he said. 

In absence of Barrick Gold, Cuenca and Hoar presented their side of the debate to the students.

They asserted that preliminary work at Pascua Lama has already destroyed nearly 70 percent of a nearby snow and glacier field and that local water sources have already been contaminated (ST, Jan. 22 , 2009).

Cuenca and Hoar also said 15 workers had been injured in avoidable accidents in the construction of the project since 1992, but the company hadn�t paid any restitution. 

They also alleged other irregularities, including misleading information given to environmental authorities, efforts to buy off community opposition and politicians, and lobbying Congress to prevent regulations and research on the project. 

SOURCES: EL CIUDADANO, GENERACION 80