I've said it before and I'll say it again: strip the events of 3 weeks ago down and you have this - amid the rhetoric and posturing, the SOLE purpose was seizure of innumerable elite/crony-held, dormant properties so THEY can push ahead and get them developed under a PROGRESSIVE mining model!

I'm not entirely convinced that was the reason. Sure, it sounds good - elite cronies - mustn't have those sort of people holding mining concessions - but who gets to say who is and isn't a crony, hmmm?

I'm not arguing there wasn't corruption in the former regime, but it seems to me that anyone who had the good sense to secure a mining concession (but isn't part of the current regime) is being tarred with that brush. We raised a hue and cry about our property rights, but what about theirs? Where's the due process in all of this? I don't see it.

If I were an explorer looking at this situation, I'd be very nervous about what the future might hold if I obtained my concessions from the current govt., given that a subsequent govt. might very well decide to give that property back to its "rightful" owners. So where does that leave you as an explorer, especially if you have a million ounces drilled up?

I keep coming back to this theme, and I know it's not popular, but it needs to be said. Everything we've seen so far seems purposefully designed to stop mining in its tracks, and muddying up the question of land title is a very good way to do that.

This idea people have that all Correa has to do is knock some heads together and Acosta and his gang will just slink back into the jungle is naive in the extreme. This is a very dedicated group of people we're dealing with here. They have more tricks up their sleeve, you can count on it. We may be OK as far as getting our claims settled and our project moving ahead, but I suspect we'll be one of the few.

The end game is not far off though. Dedicated or not, the Greens are ruining Ecuador's economy. It's far worse than the govt. is reporting - they are monkeying with the numbers the same way the Fed monkies with CPI. All it will take to push things over the edge is a drop in oil prices, which I believe is coming. Revenue is already way down - you watch the effect if oil goes back to 80 or 90 bucks.

ebear