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Press Release: Open letter to UNDP-Romania
Rosia Montana - 11.03.2007 19:24
(Canadian mining company wishes to destroy 1800 years old town Rosia Montana to open a cyanide open-pit gold mine. Government is complicit. United Nations Development Program wants a piece of the cake.)
H.E. Soknan Han Jung
UN Coordinator Romania/ UNDP Representative Romania
UNDP Romania 'Making things happen'
UN House
Primaverii 48 A
Bucharest
Fax: +4 021 201-7828
10 March 2007
Open Letter
H.E. Soknan Han Jung
UN Coordinator Romania/ UNDP Representative Romania
It is with great concern that we have taken note of your press release1 regarding
UNDP Romania's involvement at Rosia Montana. Amongst others the communiqu*
mentions that UNDP is involved in a Local Agenda 21 (LA21) process which is
currently underway and on behalf of several local authorities from the area impacted
by Gabriel's Rosia Montana gold mine proposal. It also mentions that UNDP is \a
neutral transparent international organization respected for its integrity that does not
interfere or seek to influence the decisions of sovereign governments.' In light of
this we would like to make the following observations:
Whilst to our knowledge none of the relevant town halls to date posted
announcements informing the population about an LA21 initiative we have reasons
to believe that your involvement at Rosia Montana is first and foremost linked to
Gabriel Resources who in return wishes to involve UNDP as a partner to favourably
influence the decision making process for its opencast cyanide leach gold mine
proposal.
In June 2006 a UNDP mission including you visited Rosia Montana.
Representatives of Alburnus Maior were informed by your office that the UNDP
mission aims to investigate alternative development solutions in the event that the
Rosia Montana gold mine proposal does not receive environmental approval. This
has proven to be at least insincere given that at the occasion of an UNDP-Gabriel
Resources meeting at the UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre in February 2007 Mr.
Zoran Stevanovic UNDP's Bratislava communication specialist gave us a
completely different perspective. According to Mr Stevanovic this meeting was
organized for Gabriel to 'pitch their deal'2 * a deal involving UNDP conditioned by
the favorable environmental approval for Gabriel's mine. Given that the 'deal' is
rumored to carry a pledge of $20 million from the part of Gabriel Resources we
believe that UNDP Romania first and foremost wishes to enter a business
partnership with this divisive mining company.
As a consequence we also believe your statement regarding the \ongoing LA 21
process' in the Rosia Montana area to be insincere. The LA21 process is an open
and transparent process; involving stake-holders at all levels. UNDP Romania never
informed Alburnus Maior about this process or involved it in this process nor were
we given access to the various reports produced by your office as a result of your
research at Rosia Montana. Importantly whilst Greenpeace and Alburnus Maior
officially requested these reports3 we were not given access to these.4
We are therefore asking you to remove the name of the NGO Alburnus Maior from
any statements you have made or wish to make in the future on the Rosia Montana
subject.
Whilst Alburnus Maior would welcome a LA21 initiative it is incompatible with
Gabriel's gold mine proposal and as such Gabriel can never be regarded as a
legitimate actor in such process.
We understand the accurate message of your above mentioned press release thus to
be that UNDP wishes to use LA21 as a maneuver to have a mandate to enter a
business partnership with Gabriel Resources in the amount of $20 million and we
consider this to be an abuse of UNDP's role in Romania.
Yours sincerely
Eugen David
President
Alburnus Maior
1  http://www.rosiamontana.ro/UNDP_action/UNDP%20Role%20-%20Update%20-%20Press%20Release.7%20March%202007EN.pdf
2 http://www.rosiamontana.ro/UNDP_action/Transcript%20of%20Bratislava%20UNDP%20conv_engl.pdf
3 http://www.rosiamontana.ro/UNDP_action/Final%20Letter%20to%20UNDP_engl.pdf
4 http://www.rosiamontana.ro/UNDP_action/Greenpeace%20response.pdf
http://www.rosiamontana.ro
http://www.rosiamontana.org
 E-Mail: rosia_montana@gmx.net  Website: http://www.rosiamontana.org
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