Putting environmental protestors on trial in Argentina

typical tactics of a mining company... the esquel mine is owned by u.s.-based, canadian-owned meridian gold...

Residents of Esquel, a city in the southern Argentine province of Chubut, who have been opposing a proposed open pit gold mine for five years, have been sued by the company promoting the project for leaking its strategy to change the community's mind about the mine.

[...]

The provincial government of Chubut granted a gold mining concession to El Desquite in 2002. The ore was to be mined by the open cast method, only six kilometres from Esquel, a city of 40,000, and cyanide leaching was to be used to purify the gold.

[...]

in 2005, the Esquel Residents' Assembly held a press conference and released recordings of a meeting of El Desquite shareholders, members of the board, and consultants, which took place in Buenos Aires in September 2003, six months after the referendum.

The meeting was held behind closed doors in a hotel in central Buenos Aires, and company representatives and their public relations consultants discussed strategies to change the unfavourable attitudes towards the mine in Esquel, by contracting respected residents to be opinion leaders, capable of persuading hardliners.

Other suggestions were providing "social benefits" for residents, and holding meetings, interviews and sending reports to national and provincial political leaders, in order to secure their public support for the project.

To win round the residents, El Desquite advisers recommended coopting prestigious non-governmental organisations such as the Wildlife Foundation (FVSA), Citizen Power (Poder Ciudadano) and the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), in order to counterbalance the voices of opposing organisations "like Greenpeace."

"It would be important for developing our strategy to contract them for certain activities," said a consultant who suggested contacting FARN, headed by "a man of prestige, constitutional lawyer Daniel Sabsay," according to the recording of the meeting that was released by Esquel residents and was never denied by the company.

[...]

Using the courts to stop social action "is a new way of discouraging protest and teaching demonstrators a lesson," sociologist Maristella Svampa told IPS.

"Putting protesters on trial is a practice that began with the state, and now it's a recourse used by multinational corporations too," she added.

it could just as well be the u.s...

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