That actually is an interesting thought. It is not green that they want - it's the greenback!! What a surprise. Now we are talking.
So all these scare tactics are really a matter of squeeze play and they want a bigger cut from the of the "loot" out of this. Unfortunately they may have scare the investors too much and they may not come. Who would do the digging for them? Likely Barrick, they are unscrupulous enough to handle these kind of situations.
Let's mark that up as a possiblity of why a "seeming sane leader" would do something so illogical.