"Libre Encuentro" - Jan 23, 2005 (episode #642) - clip 2

James Lambert, Canada's then-ambassador to Guatemala, discusses mining on the Guatemalan TV talk show "Libre Encuentro." Since then, a number of countries in the region have seen growing community-based resistance movements emerge in response to the adverse consequences that Canadian-owned mining ventures have brought to the region -- issues which the ambassador neglected to mention in his elementary praise of the industry.

Notice his reference to Tahltan chief Jerry Asp. What Lambert also neglected to mention, however, was that at the very moment at which he spoke, 35 Tahltan elders between the ages of 55 and 84 had been occupying their band council's office in Telegraph Creek BC, outraged and embarrassed at Asp's public conduct; they asserted that he had been successfully bought out by pro-mining interests and had utterly abandoned traditional values in pursuit of the money and travel that he was being showered with for singing the praises of the extractive industries. As Asp no longer spoke for his people, the elders demanded that he step down as chief.

Less than two weeks earlier, on January 11, 2005, a Guatemalan farmer was shot and killed by state forces while protesting the highway-transport of a large cylinder to be used in constructing a Canadian-owned open-pit gold/silver mine in the western highlands of the country (Goldcorp's Marlin mine). This protest is the incident he refers to towards the end of the clip.

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