Vultures robbing us of everything leaving nothing but change!!!!

As mentioned in my last article our former finance minister and Prime Minister Shaukat (Shortcut Aziz as he was known in Pakistan) Aziz was nothing less than an economic hit man (EHM). He had many magic tricks up his sleeves but no magic trick is better than stealing someone’s treasures and giving them to someone else. Well he was not a magician but he certainly did authorize the sale of our gold and copper reserves to the largest gold mining and copper mining companies in the world.

There is a place in Baluchistan named RekoDiq, in Chagai district, latitude 28.8125 and Longitude 64.7. RekoDiq has fifth largest reserves of gold and copper in the world. Two large companies were given licenses to explore and extract gold and copper from RekoDiq. One of those companies is Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick is the largest pure gold mining company in the world, with its headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Barrick is currently undertaking mining and exploration projects in Papua New Guinea, the United States, Canada, Australia, Peru, Chile, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, Argentina and Tanzania. Barrick is owned and was founded by Peter Munk. (For interested souls Munk’s history is worth looking into)

The other company is Antofagasta PLC a Chilean business that operates in various sectors of the economy. It is one of the most important conglomerates of Chile with equity participation in Antofagasta Minerals, the railroad from Antofagasta to Bolivia, Aguas Antofagasta in Chile, Tethian in Australia and other investments in different parts from the world. The company is still 65% owned by the Chilean Luksic family.

Now according to the information available from Pakistani, international newspapers and interest groups, RekoDiq have vast reserves of copper and gold deposits. The area is of prime importance to these giant mining companies. Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) is an Australian company that had stake in RekoDiq project. Barrick bought shares of TCC for the
RekoDiq project. RekoDiq contains 12.3 million tons of copper and 20.9 million ounces of gold, and, and the deposits could me more than the current estimates. The copper-gold deposits at RekoDiq are believed to be even bigger than Sarcheshmeh in Iran and Escondida in Chile. The RekoDiq copper deposits which are in the neighborhood of Saindak copper project, is four times larger in copper ore tonnage than Saindak, Balochistan. The most credible international surveys suggest that RekoDiq is one of the biggest undeveloped copper projects in the world with over 11 billion pounds of copper and nine million ounces of gold. According to the current gold and copper prices, 20.9 million ounces of gold is worth$17.34 billion and 12.3 million tons of copper would be worth $86 billion. If there are more deposits than the price goes up.

With this is mind now we come to the real stuff. The real stuff is that without any independent and open bidding the government of Pakistan gave the contracts to these companies. The details were not disclosed to the public or media. Just like Steel Mills was about to be sold to phony company until Chief Justice Choudary intervened and stopped the sale, these reserves of gold and copper were sold to giant corporations for dirt cheap. The details of the contract are very sketchy and not clear. The only thing we know is that Pakistan government will get only 25% of the money. 25% only, 75% will be taken away by these corporations. It’s a heist, a huge plunder of our natural mineral resources. Why did the government of Musharraf and he chief wizard not disclose to the public the deals of these resources? Why was the deal so hidden? What kind of an agreement gives 75% of your resources to a private company? This agreement is worse than the Saudis and other Middle Eastern Countries did with Western Oil companies to extract their oil. Where did this come from? To answer that question we have to realize that we are going through a Shock, an economic, political, social shock. It’s called Shock Doctrine by famous Canadian journalist and author Naomi Klein, in her best-seller, eye opener book “Shock Doctrine”. Here is a quote from her recent article that explains the recent oil contact signed by puppet Iraqi government and oil companies. “According to Iraq's oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign firms will keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 percent for their Iraqi partners”. This is from where 75-25 ratio comes from. Its part and parcel of such agreements that EHM writes.

Now, a brief introduction of so called ‘Baloch nationalist’. Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has got nothing to do with Baloch Nationalist. Late Bughti was a nationalist and he supported Pakistan’s independence but BLA certainly is not working in the interest of Pakistan or Balochistan. BLA is getting money and aid from Afghanistan, India, and British intelligence. Recall in history that Gwadar was not part of Pakistan at the time of independence. This was because during Khan of Kalat had sold Gwadar to ruler of Muscat, Oman. Pakistan had to pay money to Oman to buy back Gwadar from Oman. No wonder that BLA has not uttered a word about RekoDiq. BLA only attacks Pakistan’s government officials, police, army, and projects that effect the entire country.

You think that this is an eye opener well it is but it just gets better. There is an area in Sind it’s called Thar. Thar has the largest deposits of Coal in the entire world. When Shaukat Aziz was finance minister and later PM, American and Chinese companies were interested in starting a coal power plant project that would have generated over 5000MW of electricity. Aziz sidelined the project. The Chinese company was furious and sent review summaries to Presidents office but to no avail. If the project would have been approved back then, there would have been sufficient electricity for the citizens of this country. Now the Federal government in Islamabad is fighting with Sind government over who will own this coal. How much coal is there in Thar area? Thar has around 175 billion tons of coal sufficient enough to cater to all the energy needs of the country for the next three centuries. How much is this coal worth, according to a rough estimate based on current coal prices $1.57 trillion. That’s right trillion with a T. How much electricity can this project produce? 100,000 MW. The current shortfall facing Pakistan is around 6500MW. We are sitting with all this coal and we are importing coal from other countries. Recently Thar coal project conference was organized in U.S to attract investors. Why can’t the conference be held in Pakistan? When will our leaders come on TV and tell the public that Pakistan possess such mineral reserves? Are we again headed for the 25-75% disaster?

Pakistan has all the mineral and natural resources that we need. What we need are leaders who are nationalist and patriotic. We can’t afford leaders who are corrupt scoundrels. Hats off to all our leaders as they are unwilling to talk about these issues. They are too busy fighting each other for the presidential palace. No TV channel is willing to invite some government official and ask them some hard questions. It’s not a surprise, with all this money in the eyes of the investors I am sure they can spend some money to keep some mouths shut.