BLOOD STAINED GOLD

Sandro Neiva & Alessandro Silveira Film Direction.

43 min, 38 s. VT documentary

Synopsis: Blood Stained Gold is a vt documentary which approaches socio-environmental consequences from gold mining activities in Paracatu ( Minas Gerais State, in Brazil) as from 1987. The Canadian industrial group initiated its activities in town in 2007 – under the approval of legally constituted environmental agencies – aiming to extend the mining expansion project for an extra 30 year period. The Paracatu inhabitants are left with enormously exposed wounds due to open pit mining activities in the urban site, plus the resulting toxic dust affecting and disintegrating the now visibly ailing traditional land users.

File images and testimonies were originally captured in film and super –VHS permeated throughout the film with mini- VD contemporaneous images and testimonies format.

Testimonies have been taken from some of the people who live in the mining surrounding area and are, for sure, the mostly affected ones by the resulting consequences, plus the testimony of a company CEO, a geologist, a MD PhD and also from the Goias State Criminal Justice State Prosecutor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Interview, Narrative, Script and Assembly  SANDRO NEIVA Photography DirectionALESSANDRO SILVEIRA Art DirectionWALESCKA MARTINS Editing and Finishing DHIEGO SANTANA Old file images and interviews ALESSANDRO SILVEIRA LightingARCANJO DANIEL FONSECA ProductionFÁBIO CASTRO RAMOSARCANJO DANIEL FONSECA TrailerMARCOS COSTA Still PhotographyMOACIR GUERINO SoundA Missa da Terra Sem Males (The Mass for The Land with no Evil ) Concierto de Aranjuez – Adágio (Aranjuez Concert – Adage) Type Of NegativeAmorphisMurro no Olho (A Punch in the Eye)  Additional ImagesThe Corporation –  Marck Achbar documentary film, Jennifer Abbot and Joel Bakan Photos from the Paracatu History Museum and Paracatu Public Archives General DirectionSANDRO NEIVA Sandro Neiva & Alessandro Silveira 2008 – 43 MIN – COLOR  

BLOOD STAINED  GOLD  OFF 01 – Paracatu is located in the NW of Minas Gerais State, 200 kilometers away from Brasília. Portraying majestic colonial baroque estate houses, this 90 thousand inhabitant city was founded over 200 years ago and it was already famous in the XVIII century due to the gold rush cycle. No sooner had the news about Paracatu gold spread around the then province of Minas Gerais, thousands of various social class adventurers and all types of immigrants rushed to the site. For years to come the Paracatu currency had been gold dust. DIOGO SOARES RODRIGUES (Paracatu ex mayor) – Whenever one talks about Paracatu, the memory of gold miners come to our minds. They were then referred to as gold glimpsers, not gold miners.   JOSÉ FERREIRA GOMES (mining company neighbor) – Gold was the substance flowing in Paracatu through the informal gold diggers (the “garimpeiros”). Most of the local population owes its raising to informal gold diggery or to gold derived activities.  DIOGO SOARES RODRIGUES (Paracatu ex mayor) – The Portuguese found out there was gold in Paracatu and the city came from its exploration. Gold diggers came from different areas of the State to specifically mine its gold.  OFF 02 –Exactly as at the time of the dominant Portuguese Crown the gold produced in Paracatu still keeps on flowing to overseas hands. For the Paracatu inhabitants wounded land surface from open pit mining, chemical rejects depot -  where once there were beautiful valleys and unpolluted  creeks and streams   surrounded by attractive mountain skylines -  we now have buried poison, toxic dust and an ailing population. OFF 03 –Portuguese and their allies, the English, in colonial times,  have been replaced by the transnational Canadian KINROSS which runs the Rio Paracatu Mineração, have been  exploring gold in Paracatu since 1987.  To follow:  “Blood Stained Gold” card. A  SANDRO NEIVA & ALESSANDRO SILVEIRA documentary film composition.  DIOGO SOARES RODRIGUES (Paracatu ex mayor) – The news spread on Paracatu having much gold to be mined the Rio Paracatu Mineração S.A. installed itself in town and much gold have they been removing out. Very little, indeed,  remains in Paracatu. NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA (mining company neighbor) – Now RPM installed itself above our heads and damaged everything around. INTERVIEWER – How does it feel to have RPM as a neighbor? RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – It is horrible, an absurd, such an affront, total lack of respect!  They threaten us anyway they manage to do it.  

URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – This company has already destroyed everything. What kind of environment can we have inside a hole? They have devastated all.  They have devastated all, finished all. CARMEN LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – I do not find this right at all! I find it disgusting. I keep looking and find it horrible that they have managed with such an absurd situation as this. So beautiful it used to be around here! People feel sorry, really sorry! The beauties of the river banks are gone and now we have to face them this way!   SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – The main damage can  be inferred  from the water, air and soil. All streams or creeks which had the gold mountains as recharge areas are seriously affected or forever gone.  CHAPTER  “THE WATER” CARMEN LOPES DOS REIS ( mining company neighbor) – IF we had been the ones to perpetrate such an absurd situation INCRA would be after our heads, the Forest Police would too and I don’t know who else would. Now just take a look, what disgusting rubbish! Look closely to this most horrible thing! NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA ( mining company neighbor) – They have eliminated the water springs flow. Waters no longer flow over here. The São Domingos community is short of water, drying out.  LEANDRO FRANCISCO ( mining company neighbor) – I recall as if it were today, as I a child I would bathe at the river waters, jumping or fishing on different water springs. There was a place named the Big Blue where we would all go to bathe. Everybody went.   LEANDRO FRANCISCO ( mining company neighbor) – Today as you come up here what you see is this creek fully taken by sand. No longer the water springs. Our Nature is finishing up.  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Besides those, we also have the Saint Domingos creek and the Saint Anthony creek, practically destroyed by the mining company.   VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – There is over there a tank which tends to overflow into this direction – so at the rainy season they build up taller protection walls so that the water does not overflow over here. The water that there falls, there remains. They have brought in new heavy machinery that can go 1.000 meters deep into the soil to restrain the water there.  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – This creek over here no longer has  flowing waters.  It is finished. It used to experience flooding times. It could reach as far as the mango tree you can see but today it does not reach the fence. For them to carry out with mining procedures they will have to lower it about 100 meters. But as soon this is accomplished the creek shall disappear. They will have to provide for urgent creek transposition. 

 CHAPTER “FAUNA AND FLORA” URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – Neither fauna neither flora, it is over!  VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – There is no more water, nor mangabas, nor pequis, nor gabirobas.(typical local fruits).  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – We used to see around here the mateiros (type of deer), siriemas (long legged cariamas) all around here is gone,  the  soinhos (marmosets)  are gone too. All disappeared.  VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – It used to be full of birds, ducks which looked like geese – like the ones in the pantanal – beautiful specimens. We used to have all around here.

 CHAPTER “FREEDOM” VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – One can no longer advance into their land – they would not accept it. If you get into the adjacent areas to catch a pequi fruit for example, they come after you demanding to see what is into the bag. It is not unusual for their security guards to grab our bags and throw it away, saying it must belong to the mining company. Our freedom to come and go at the countryside is gone.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – We can no longer seed or plant and that used to be our drive: to plant, to wait for the crop and raise our cattle. We shall never again be able to do it.  JOSÉ FERREIRA GOMES (mining company neighbor) – That could have never happened. We spend a lifetime in a place where suddenly all is forbidden – even  to get into there.   VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS – We have lived here for many years. They wanted to prevent us from catching leftover firewood but we were forced to ignore it. As time goes it gets worse. They increase the number of machinery and we keep on standing.

OFF 04 – There will never be enough for them. No corporation in the planet dares neglecting the stockholders interests and their economics fundaments. Profit above all, even over public interest. It is not Nature’s law. It is a very specific law. Whom should they be loyal to?  CHAPTER “MORE LAND, MORE PROFIT” RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) –They want to buy the land from us but they would even reach market price. Some people think they pay a fortune but the do not. 

VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – Their proposal is to buy everything. They always say it.  NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA (mining company neighbor) – They are very powerful people all is left for us is to retreat. Isn´t it? ANDRESSA LOPES (a mining company neighbor) – We could not cope. We could no longer stand the pressure. We went to bed and the very next morning, still dark, there they were surrounding the house. I said “better to sell it to them”.  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Coward practices from the company or their representatives to press people to sell their land for peanuts as they say in Paracatu. That is not acceptable. Within the roots of everything lies the pressure approach, the intimidation methods from the “grand company”.  ANDRESSA LOPES (mining company neighbor) – The area over there today belongs to RPM. VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – If you are willing to sell they will buy all. The problem is:  with this money we can not afford to replace it and we can not raise our children.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – Sure they just want to pay the price they repute as fair. ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (mining company neighbor) – If they came looking for fair business on a deal with us so that we could leave the area – which would be good for us as well. But when they come they just want to know our price. They have never made an offer. They do not want to deal.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – They ought to present us with an honest, clean, fair proposal - from the company to the land occupants. NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA (mining company neighbor) –They have been around for three times. They pressed me to sell. I said “no”. It was not my intention to sell.  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor, showing the mining company’s leaflet depicting the future landscape of the mining site) – The mine was re-habilitated.  The Cava Lake is here, right in my house.  INTERVIEWER – What do you think about this? RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – I take this as an affront. .Could I ever get into town and decide I AM going to build on a land that belongs to you? I certainly can not. And  then what? Well, they tell me IF I do not sell I AM going to deliver it on their terms – anyway they want, because they will get into my land no matter what.  

NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA (mining company neighbor) – If I ever find anyone interested to buy, I sell. I find the area over here too much degraded to live in. RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – Two houses have been left. Everything else they bought. Mrs Nenzinha and Pelé still remain. They know well what is being done to them. When they arrived here they imposed the buying price but Nenzinha and Pele would not sell it cheap. NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA (mining company neighbor) – Though we belong in here, because here we were born and  raised  but there is a time we can no longer put up with it. ANDRESSA LOPES (mining company neighbor) – The money owner orders it all. The poor ones there located, there used to live in go on retreating.

CHAPTER “TRADICIONAL POPULATIONS AND IMMATERIAL HERITAGE”  ROBSON FERREIRA (mining company neighbor) – My grandfather died at 96. He left us 10 years ago. My grandfather was a “careta” (scaring ghost figure portrayed in a dance) then. It was a tradition inherited from his father and from his grandfather. Three centuries ago there was the “caretada” (scaring ghost dancing parade). Today the “ caretada”  is no longer performed. Most people would like to but they do not know how to assemble the costumes anymore, the masks – adapted to a very particular way of dancing.  MARIA CAMPOS DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – They displace everybody. I was born and raised here, next to my parents, my mother and everything and everyone else. MARIA PEREIRA GUIMARÃES (mining company neighbor) – My grandmother was from 1876. Here she was born and raised. Her grandparents and great- grandparents were the owners of the area.  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Hundred year old communities have been disintegrated. People who were used to live in that environment are now being dislodged. Theirs lives and their dreams are also scattered. Where are they supposed to go to?  PAULO SERRANO NEVES (GOIAS State Criminal Prosecutor) – That means to remove from them their right to live, specifically speaking. It is not enough to be alive, eating, sleeping, and working. Their culture counts.  ROBSON FERREIRA (mining company neighbor) – Slavery is back to my people through this company. A new kind of slavery which does not force you to work, does not hit you, it simply prevents you to live as you used to. SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – The right approach would be for this company to re- allocate these communities to healthier sites , to provide them with whatever they used to have before the RPM mining company arrived here.  

MARIA CAMPOS DOS SANTOS (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – What do they expect from us? Would they expect us to live under a bridge or something like that?  PAULO SERRANO NEVES (GOIAS State Criminal Prosecutor) – We do not share the practice of  rendering cult to immaterial values, non tangible values)  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Even if it should not be possible to restitute the environment where those people were born, were raised and spent their lives, much could be done to partially restitute environmental health. The mining company had done nothing so far. MARIA CAMPOS DOS SANTOS (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – They have never approached me on buying the land but IF they do I shall not sell it cheap.  MARIA PEREIRA GUIMARÃES (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We are entitled to all this. Double rights, one because we are afro - descendants and second because it had been bought. Legally bought – we have an inventory on that since  1855. PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – The History of Brazil is the history of violence against cultures.  CHAPTER “THE TAILINGS DAM” MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (geologist) – To talk about safe dam in Brazil or Minas Gerais sounds more like a bad taste joke. Simply, because there is not such a thing as a 100% safe dam.  INTERVIEWER – Do you fear this dam could explode some day? ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We fear it all right. They say it is safe, there is no danger but we raise the question: Why should man made construction resist destruction when even nature made things do not? AUGUSTO TEIXEIRA (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – What do I know? But I do not trust man made constructions are meant to be resistant.  MARIA PEREIRA GUIMARÃES (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – One wonders when they insist there is no danger.  AUGUSTO TEIXEIRA (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – I have seen dams which exploded and flooded – and they seemed to be much stronger than this one. MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (geologist) – Even if the mining company C.E.O. placed his family to live just below the dam I would still not accept that the dam is 100% safe. 

SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – It rains over the dam and we know water erosion is quite efficient to destroy what they have built.  ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – When there is flood the thing below cracks down - from up to down. No soon it happens they rush to fix it up.  INTERVIEWER – What do you mean by “cracks down”?

ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – The flooding overflows from one level to another level and then it fails to cope, it cracks…  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – There are grooves throughout the dam.   ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – This grooving comes from water erosion.  MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (geologist) – My family would never live there.  AUGUSTO TEIXEIRA (land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – They say there is no danger. They say so because they are not the ones who live down below. MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (geologist) – I would not advise anyone to live down there, having the dam over their heads. ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We are in the middle of the area of risk. We run all sorts of risks. PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (GOIAS State Criminal Prosecutor) – The Brazilian Lottery mega-prize is one for almost 60 million, but there is a winner.  AUGUSTO TEIXEIRA (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – I put all my money here and for nothing, useless now, for me or my wife .I put an add at the real estate agency but whenever the prospective buyer comes by the business does not materialize. They fear the dam collapse.

PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – If there weren’t risks in the area someone would have bought it all – even if it were sold cheap it would still be good to make some money.   SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – There is a risk of rupture in the dam and that happening it would spill the sludge toward the populations which are downstream the dam and it would contaminate the environment with arsenic and other poisoning substances which are present in the tailings.  PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (GOIAS State Criminal Prosecutor) – This area of risk demands a solution toward people and presently available resources granting their survival away from the scene of risks.   

OFF 05 – Can all products be manufactured on a sustainable way? Not always. Can one extract products from mining activities on a sustainable approach? Hard to believe!

 CHAPTER “TOXIC DUST” RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – Gosh! The dust is an absurd! You get up in the morning, fix all up in the house and soon afterwards it looks like an earthquake went throughout the house.   LEANDRO FRANCISCO (mining company neighbor) – We get dust everyday! The machinery work 24 hours a day. As the tractors carry on with their catching, the resulting dust impregnates into our houses. ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – On rainy days when the wind comes along we get darkened environment all over – so much dust there is.   SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Lack of vegetation expose mined areas as IF there existed a dust plant. toxic dust, poisoning dust – spread all over town.  LEANDRO FRANCISCO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We undergo a great problem with the cowboys. Many of them have come around just to leave in no time because their children are soon affected by the problem. MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (geologist) – The hydro-metallurgy process precipitates arsenic and that is an extremely toxic, poisoning element.  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – A sulphet-rich  ore, which in the presence of air and water changes into an acid soup, quite rich in arsenic and sulfuric acid.  MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (geologist) – Arsenic poses a great danger simply because one does not know what to do about it.   NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA (mining company neighbor) – The combination of rain and wind dirties all around here – it brings along a kind of dust, a white dust. SEBASTIANA PEREIRA DA CRUZ - (mining company neighbor) – A white dust that impregnates all, like salt. It is quite thin but you can see and feel it as you slide your hands on the furniture.  LEANDRO FRANCISCO (mining company neighbor) – The white dust- it falls all over your property. It is not worth cleaning the house because soon afterwards you can literally write over the dust.   NICOLAU ANTÔNIO DE OLIVEIRA FRANCISCO (mining company neighbor) – Wherever it adheres, it kills all!  

CHAPTER  “CYANIDE” MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (Geologist) – the finishing process uses an extremely toxic substance called cyanide. Cyanide is lethal.  MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (Geologist) – Great part of this used cyanide is put into storage into tanks which are buried and kept underground. We are transferring the cyanide problem to future generations.We are just burring the problem.  LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kinross Director) –  We can be punished! We are the ones environmentally  responsible. Any problem we are the ones to answer for it!  MÁRCIO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS (Geologist) – When such substances are carried by water and precipitates/ infiltrates on the soil by means of acid drainage – which does exist in that área – the contamination can reach many kilometers of distance. OFF 06 – They make it legal for them to create murdering technologies. Profit is what matters, continuous profit – “legal and sustainable” but for the enterprise owner and stockholders at anyone else’s expenses.  CHAPTERS “ILLNESSES” SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD ) – Besides pneumoconiosis, respiratory tract affections, there is evidence that through ingestion , mainly to what concerns children, that through dust, serious illnesses can increase significantly – like cancer, for example. SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Scientific literature corroborates that in the neighborhood of mines such as this operated by the Rio Paracatu Mineração – the incidence of cancer can increase tenfold over normal indexes.  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) –  If you just look at the people who are affected by the proximity you will notice how they suffer from different illnesses , due to this RPM company.  SEBASTIANA PEREIRA DA CRUZ (mining company neighbor) –We used to have a life here before this company came over. We could work, play and run in the fields and there was nothing to feel ill about. After they came,  all changed dramatically. We have to spend on medication what we can and also what we can not afford. SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – This company main and mandatory obligation lies with their stockholders. The local population is the one with all to lose. The community loses its natural patrimony and its cultural patrimony. For the communities and populations is left the socio-environmental, degrading impact.

CHAPTER “THE NOISE” ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – The noise is bothersome. One can not sleep when they are at work.

 MARIA CAMPOS DOS SANTOS (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – The noise exceeds the tolerable. It is too much for one to cope.  ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We have cracks all over our house. Whenever they operate the big tractor it all shakes. The house is full of cracks.  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – I have hired a company to measure the decibels. It was quite loud. . It was measured at mid-night, at 1 o’clock A.M. Then they paid for their own evaluation report. .Question is: would they generate noise when the inspectors are checking out? One knows that this checking has a previously date and time. If you were RPM would you put your noisy machine to work at this day and time?  Well… most likely, no. I have constituted a case against them on the account of noise and dust. Well. All I have to say is that the law-suit does not move on. When they (the company) present a law-suit it seems to move extraordinarily fast. But when the common citizen legally complains – it does not move forward in Court. From the common citizen all is demanded, demanded… over and over…  

CHAPTER “THE GOLD DIGGERS” URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – They have simply dissipated the informal gold diggers class (the “garimpeiros”) in Paracatu. RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – There is a month since they were arresting garimpeiros at the river banks in Paracatu. VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – The Forest Police came in and took away the garimpeiros’ pan and everything else that was part of their job.  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – In reality the forbidden activity should be the one related to mercury, not the gold diggers’ activity (the “garimpo”) itself.

URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – The gold belongs to the people, to the ones who are the land users.  JOSÉ DO CARMO SOBRINHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We have always digged gold around here. There had never been any prohibition.  ROBSON FERREIRA (mining company neighbor) – My grandfather raised 21 children from the work of the gold digging pan (the “bateia”). Inside the São Domingos community. If you dare doing that in the Sao Domingos area today you are to be arrested. .  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – There were people who worked all day long to obtain one gram of gold. They have ended up into the police car. 

VALDIR LOPES DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – We now owe everywhere. We used to prospect gold to purchase the everyday bread for the kids.

 CHAPTER “THE JOBS”

MANOEL MARTINS (mining company neighbor) – They seduce the people of Parcatu by offering jobs. However, inside the RPM company the job opportunities are just for lower and intermediate levels. The leading positions are for the ones out of town.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – Is the company generating Jobs??? Well it might be but do you know who for? For Piauí state. It is far from here. It is disrespect to the Minas Gerais state. They also generate jobs, besides Piaui, to Baia state workers cheap labor.  MANOEL MARTINS (mining company neighbor) – They damage our environment and forward the profit to Canada and overseas. INTERVIEWER – Is there any gold originated in Paracatu at the local market?  JOÃO ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA (goldsmith) – No! Not here. It can not happen here. Here we have the RPM company that explores the local gold but they would not sell it to us. In the seventies and eighties it was easy to obtain gold because the mining activities were democratic. One could easily acquire gold to work.  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Suddenly all of the economy of a small city is moved around to grant the success of a single company. Isn´t that true? JOÃO ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA (goldsmith) – Look, in my opinion something should be done for us to be able to use the gold we have here – our gold. SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – Though, individually this company can generate many jobs – the municipality has diversified activities to grant its self- sufficiency. There was self- sufficiency long before the Rio Paracatu Mineração came by.   JOÃO ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA (goldsmith) – They prevent us from working in our profession. They prevent us from doing anything in our own profession. It is not just me. There are many of us in the same situation.  INTERVIEWER – How many professionals in this category are there? JOÃO ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA (goldsmith) – We can talk about a minimum of twenty.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – Then… all that was left was the “big gold diggery” (the “big garimpo”, the “garimpão”). The big gold diggery is there.

 CHAPTER “THE EXPANSION PROJECT III” OFF 07 – (mining company neighbor) – The Kinross-RPM  Expansion Project III accounts for more than 15 tons of gold production/ year. The expectation is for more than 30 years of exploration, thus more than 450 thousand kilograms of the precious metal. We are talking about more than half of total of gold that left Minas Gerais at the times of Brazil colony. SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – We now face a very serious risk – the three major water springs, the main ones to form the Saint Rita Creek-  to be completely destroyed by a second tailings dam – a dam to have 11 kilometers of extension. The existing dam already has around 1,000 hectares of surface and the other one is to be bigger than this. URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – What about the flood? “ If you do not cooperate you are going to be flooded “ – they put it this way. SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – The Rico Creek is the main one to go through the city of Paracatu. The RPM Expansion Project will destroy this important water spring. We were courting the preparations for the Rico Creek wake ceremony but we know realize that through Rio Paracatu Mineração Expansion Project we are to prepare the definite burial of the Rico Creek.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – All here is to be flooded.  SERGIO ULHOA DANI (MD, PhD) – There is a serious problem as to have re- composition of this mined area – subject to be kept degraded for various generations to come.  

CHAPTER “INVASIONS AT THE SLAG DEPOT “

URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – This used to be the access. It was natural that people would continue to come by the slag depot area. LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kiross Director) – we no longer use the terminology “garimpeiro” (gold digger) – unfair for what we have today. We use the term  “invaders”.

SEBASTIANA PEREIRA DA CRUZ (mining company neighbor) – People would arrive at the area to collect some scrap they would no longer have use for.  URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – When we talk about scrap we mean leftovers, rejects, like scraped food. Whatever becomes  leftover, is a reject. LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kinross Director) – We no longer refer to the small “garimpeiro” who would come by to catch a few grams of our gold for their own maintenance. That no longer apllies. The situation is serious. The guys get in here with guns. It is concentrated on criminals. Mind you, if we say we are going to let people

come by and take it over, in one week the situation in Paracatu is to become monstrous. Our great objective, our great target is to de-motivate people to come around. SEBASTIANA PEREIRA DA CRUZ (mining company neighbor) – They prohibited people access. If they got into the area the security guards would run after them, with their unrestrained dogs after them. All of this happening right above our heads.

CHAPTER “THE DEATHS” URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – They have entered the farm several times – shooting at the “garimpeiros”.  RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – IF you belong to the mountains as a land occupant you know well about the ones they shot dead. URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – There were rotten, wounded guys exposing their leg bones. I have taken some to the hospital. They have shot many people around here. One died.  GOLD DIGGERS PROTEST AT THE  PARACATU CITY HALL IN 1988. They are removing something that belong to us. That is wealth of Paracatu. We did not have the needed means to explore it and then they came in with everything. URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – Countless times I had asked the security guards not to shoot adding that one day they would kill someone over there. RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – The authorities deal with two different weights and measurements. They prohibit us but they let free the mining company destroying everything about.  LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kinross Director) – We use our own security forces, police action and Public Ministry actions. We have hired a company specialized which is specialized on dogs security support. They carry a badge, like the ones used by the Shock Police Brigade. Our orientation to our guards lies on the following: administer it but do not retreat. If you retreat, if you let they in, say goodbye.  OFF 08 – On the evening of June 27, 1998 the Paracatu Born citizens : Luis Oliveira Lopes, José Oliveira Lopes and Evandro Oliveira Lopes – known as the “Canela brothers ” – reached the  RPM/Kinross depot to use leftover mined gold. The first one was shot dead and the second one was paralyzed and died two years later due to the shooting complications.  Evandro was shot too, but managed to survive the tragedy.  EVANDRO OLIVEIRA LOPES (brother of the deceased “garimpeiro”) – He said there had been a telephone call to warn about the presence of the Canela brothers in the area. An ambush was then prepared – they were at the road waiting for us. They waited for us to enter the area. But it so happened that we saw them and we knew then we could not work. There were security guards everywhere. That is when my brother said “let’s us go

back”. We were leaving. We had not caught anything. Suddenly, on our way out, we were shot. We had not caught anything. We heard them saying “It is the Canela brothers. Let´s kill them now”.  ANA LOPES DE MORAES (mother of dead “garimpeiros”) – They decided one day they would get in there. They went but it did not work out the way they planned. They had not even touched the slag. Before they had arrived there they received the shooting and that was it. I was left without them, struggling to raise their children.   MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – I was left with 5 small, suffering kids. Since then I have been struggling to live my life alone.  LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kinross director) – Not to retreat! The only arm I have today is “do not retreat”.  EVANDRO OLIVEIRA LOPES (dead “garimpeiro” brother) – I remember coming to get my brother and my uncontrolled arm sliding down. INTERVIEWER – How many times have you been shot? EVANDRO OLIVEIRA LOPES (dead “garimpeiro” brother) – I was hit by a single shot. My arm is wrongly bent. This nerve here was reached and this finger too. I can not use them to lift any weight.                                                       MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – My brother-in-law was killed. EVANDRO OLIVEIRA LOPES (dead “garimpeiro” brother) – The other one was shot in the leg. He became an invalid. He remained on a wheelchair until he died.  “GARIMPEIROS” PROTEST AT THE PARACATU CITY HALL IN 1988 –They are taking away what belongs to us and on the top of it they kill us. Just as they have killed the brother of my brother-in-law. They did not have to do that. Did they?  INTERVIEWER – Did you take the case to Court? ANA LOPES DE MORAES (mother of dead “garimpeiros”) – I did not. I was told there was no way I would have a legal support.  MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – A lawyer told me my husband acted unlawfully. I had then searched for one of these City Hall lawyers. He told me then that my husband acted wrongly (as an outlaw).

INTERVIEWER – Have you ever gotten any compensation money? ANA LOPES DE MORAES (mother of dead “garimpeiros”) – Never. I have never got anything.

MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – No. Nobody ever came to me to give any help. I took care of everything by myself. I had to manage with his funeral. Would you believe I did not get even a pension. Wherever I went all doors closed to me.

 ANA LOPES DE MORAES (mother of dead “garimpeiros”) – I feel sorry, deeply sorry. The sadness and the agony of not having my sons, their children being left orphans for me to look after them. They are with me. That is how I feel.  MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – They did not deserve being killed as they were. I even thought they could have been arrested but not killed. They could have arrested them and incarcerated them.  LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kinross director) – We do not have means to do it. We are seven, eight guards in all – for thirty invaders. If that happens it will happen again what had already happened – there shall be deaths.  MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – I thought the company representatives had to come to me. They never did. Ten years have since passed. They will not do it. Do you know what I get for a living? Sixty-six reais from the Family Support government plan.

CHAPTER “MORE DEATHS”  ERIS RIBEIRO PEREIRA (dead “garimpeiro” cousin) – There were five of us. We went there together. We were working and then the company group arrived next to the palisades trying to ambush us and shooting. One of us, a cousin of mine was left behind as we ran. He was caught and hardly hit before he was shot. They shot him on his back and killed him. The shot could have hit me on my back if it were on a straight but I quickly jumped over the palisades and the shot hit my foot. The legal suit that followed on granted the killer just one year on a part-time imprisonment. There is a legal suit on me. I am waiting to see what is going to happen.  LUIS ALBERTO ALVES (RPM/Kinross director) – All adopted measures were intimidating ones – we meant to calm the situation down. OFF 09 – HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? Why can not a billionaire be happy on being half a billionaire? Would it not be good for his company to make CLEAN Money?  CHAPTER   “THE AUTORITHIES” URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – They are maliciously gambling. The local authorities take no action.  MANOEL MARTINS (mining company neighbor) – The legally constituted entities simply close their eyes. “GARIMPEIROS” PROTEST AT THE PARACATU CITY HALL IN 1988. “But that does not depend on me “ 

MANOEL MARTINS (mining company neighbor) – It seems... well it is more than just “seems”, they have been urged to keep their mouths shut. It is the only explanation. JOÃO ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA (goldsmith) – Paracatu reminds us of a colony from the times the Portuguese first came in. People from nowhere would come by and take away what they pleased. They leave nothing behind for us here. MARCIANO DA CRUZ DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – It is like that here! Outsiders come in, manage a life of their own and then go away. Where are the mayors? The bossing people, where are they?  I wonder if they are not sharing partners!  “GARIMPEIROS” PROTEST AT THE PARACATU CITY HALL IN 1988. – This is what I call the coward Paracatu. Why can we not change all this situation in here?

Mayor – I know the Legal Right and Reason are all yours. RÔNIA MARIANO (mining company neighbor) – They do not care about the people. They care about their pockets. Most unfortunately this is the picture of national politics, true to Paractu too. PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – It is enough the gold taken away from Paracatu and from the rest of Brazil when we had no applicable law.  ANÍSIO JOSÉ DE CARVALHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – The City Hall has no interest to find out anything. It is interested on getting their share, whatever they already earning.  MARCIANO DA CRUZ DOS REIS (mining company neighbor) – We are kept with our fingers to suck. The outsiders come in, sweep the profits and we are left with our fingers to suck. PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – Development needs led the country to be given away for peanuts. We are talking about the law being interpreted by a red tape expert. Suddenly we are left with a third level boss (sic) at a given official department, one who is  decreeing on how the Constitution should be interpreted on a particular issue.   MÁRCIA LOPES OLIVEIRA (“garimpeiro” widow) – Authorities act coldly. All act alike and nobody did anything. Everybody kept their mouths shut because all of them fear RPM, because RPM has got the money we do not have. You can go as far as to the top of the ladder and you get a “NO”, they tell you RPM has got the money. Then everybody keeps their mouths shut, say nothing and retreat.

 EPILOG  “FUTURE GENERATIONS” LEANDRO FRANCISCO (mining company neighbor) – I have no idea whatever can become of my children and grand –children, the generations to come.

 URUBATAN DOS SANTOS (mining company neighbor) – It is for the young people of this generation to take some action NOW!  PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – We run the risk of being hated by this generation. JOSÉ DO CARMO SOBRINHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – They are going to point their fingers to us, to the older generation.  PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – Our descendants before dying from the total scarcity of resources we left them, might as well spit at our coffins.  JOSÉ DO CARMO SOBRINHO (a land user who lives next to the tailings dam) – We are the ones to be blamed for giving it all away to the outsiders. RONIA MARIANO (a mining company land user) – It is the Power of Money. Have you heard about this Power?  PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – Truth is: we are preventing our children, our young to participate at the construction of their own future. The people have the legal right to have this mining company to answer in an absolutely clear way, to tranquilize everybody, that nobody has been contaminated. They have to corroborate that there is no soil or environment irradiated contamination, that there is no risk of the dam cracking down... they have to say it over and over.  PAULO MAURICIO SERRANO NEVES (Goiás State Criminal Prosecutor) – You, gentlemen who are part of the mining company: beware that you are on Brazilian territory and there is left citizenship here. There are Brazilians to defend Brazil.