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When Stock Exchanges Fuel Human Rights ViolationsCarlos Zorrilla

Recently, Toronto-based Pinetree Capital bought a few million shares of Copper Mesa MiningCorporation, making it the largest share owner of a failing company currently embroiled in a lawsuit.

The takeover raised the price of its penny stock upwards to between three and five cents.

Copper Mesa, however, got a lot more than what it bargained for.

Copper Mesa, until last year, was the owner of a couple of mining concessions in the Intag region of Ecuador. But the company ran into a strong, organized opposition from communities, localgovernment and, eventually even the national government, which eventually stripped Copper Mesaof its concessions in the country. The company then had to shed itself of its mining projects in theUS to pay off debts, leaving it as empty handed as when it was first aborted.

Needless to say, Copper Mesa's directors and a select number of employees and shareholders havenever been the worse for the disaster they created, which happens to be an established norm in theworld of Canadian stock exchange business. The Bre-X case is one which comes to mind. Bre-Xwas the Canadian company that fleeced thousands of investors of billions of dollars all based on anon-existent gold mine in Indonesia.

Copper Mesa, based in Vancouver, is infamous for other reasons, in addition to wasting millions of dollars on a mining project that has gone nowhere. Its notoriety mostly comes from using theequivalent of paramilitaries in the Junn community to forcefully trying to gain access to itsconcessions (which they never were able to access even to explore). Interestingly enough, theshootout took place almost exactly three years ago to the day that Pinetree took over the shipwreck called Copper Mesa. The assault against the community of Junin failed completely, but the graphicimages and video of ex-military thugs dressed as security personnel shooting at defenselesscampesinos went round the world, and is featured on several full-length documentaries about Intag'ssuccessful resistance to mining.

In the rich and varied annals of corporate abuse and stupidity, and in record time, this has become aclassic.

The paramilitary assault, which unfolded early in December 2006, was one of the actions by thecompany that served to ground a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the Toronto Stock Exchange andtwo of the company's director, as well as the company itself. The lawsuit was presented in Canada in

March of 2009 by three of Junin's residents. Toronto-based Murray Klippensteins is the plaintiffs'lawyer.

It's challenging to see what Pinetree sees in this company, unless it's a classic case in back scratching. What would compel Pinetree to gain control of a company with no mining concessions,or anything of value for that matter, but with also such a tainted human right srecord firmly attachedto it while facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit? This is on top of losses now approaching fortymillion dollars in four years, with debts big enough to make it impossible to refloat this shipwreck.There is no way a company such as Pinetree would not have known that these are just some of about 17 other major obstacles that Copper Mesa faces in developing mining projects in Ecuador.

The Lawsuit

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What makes it more likely that a Canadian mining company is involved in human rights violationrather than a US, British or Australian corporation (even though there are no lack of abuses by these)can be attributed to the lax, or practically non-existent- regulation by the Canadian authorities of itscorporations, and the ease of listing in the Canadian stock exchanges. Right now there is a bill

pending in Parliament, the C-300 Bill, which seeks to create a minimum set of mandatory regulationsaimed at preventing some of the abuses here described. Canadian civil society has tried for years tohave the Parliament pass such a bill, and for years the powerful extractive industry lobby hasdefeated it. Because of this stronghold on the Harper government, some analyst think this bill alsohas no chance whatsoever of passing, at least until there a change of government.

In light of what can only be called gross irresponsibility on the part of Canada's Executive andLegislative branches to institute effective legal measures to stop the human rights and otherviolations being committed by Canadian companies overseas, the lawsuit seeks to bring about theurgently-needed change through the courts.

The lawsuit will also hopefully force the issue by bringing it to the forefront of legal and publicopinion. It is an issue that- incredibly- is little known about within Canada. And it's an issue thatevery Canadian should know is closely tied in with the powerful lobby of the country's extractiveindustries, which for years has stopped cold measures to try to regulate it, or to tax it as it should be.Implying, at the very least, massive corruption and a lethal weakness in its democratic process. It isthe same corruption that makes it feasible for Northern Alberta's oil sands to be exploited, causingirreparable damage to the land and water, and people. It is the same system, in short, that makes itpossible for Canadian mining companies to fund mayhem and get away with murder.

PUBLISHED December 2009. Upside Down Magazinehttp://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2268-canada-ecuador-when-stock-exchanges-fuel-human-rights-violations

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