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Protesters disrupt mining convention

By Peter Edwards | The Star.com

Tibetan students unfurled a large banner reading: HDI: Stop Mining Tibet, in front of Hunter Dickinson (HDI)’s exhibition booth on 1 March 2009 in Toronto, Canada. Two students also lay motionless on the floor, staging a mock die-in to protest the company’s involvement in a mine operation in Tibet. Tenzin Tsundue (19) and Tenzin Soepa (19) are holding the banner; Urgen Sangye (19) and Tenzin Youdon (18) are lying on the floor. SFT handout/Canada

It was peaceful, loud and attention-grabbing.

Seven pro-Tibetan activists posed as delegates to a downtown mining convention yesterday morning, then unfurled a red, six-metre banner that read “HDI — Stop Mining Tibet.”

Some chanted “Tibet is our land” and “Stop mining in Tibet,” while two others lay motionless on the floor under the banner, in what they called a “mock die-in” to protest Canadian mining in Tibet.

The protest, which lasted about 10 minutes, took place at a booth run by Hunter Dickinson/Continental Minerals, a Canadian venture into gold and copper mining at the Xietongmen Project in Tibet.

Protesters recorded it with a still and video camera and quickly posted images on the Internet.

Ron Thiessen, chair of Continental Minerals, a partner in the Hunter Dickinson (HDI) project, said in an interview that he respects the rights of protesters to voice their views.

“We respect everyone’s right to make statements,” Thiessen said.

Thiessen said any future project by his firm would be safely run and up to Canadian standards.

“We’re not mining yet (in Tibet),” Thiessen said. “We hope to be.”

The protest comes amid reports that China has flooded Tibet with tens of thousands of troops in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the failed 10 March 1959, uprising against Chinese military rule.

Protesters say Tibetans are unable to freely consent to mining operations and that mining projects in Tibet threaten to bring an influx of ethnic Han Chinese workers into the region, which they fear would displace Tibetan nomads and ruin their traditional way of life.

“Hopefully we get the message out, not just to the company, but to the investors as well,” said Bhutila Karpoche, 24, of Toronto, one of seven protesters who were ejected from the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

She and the other protesters each paid the $50 fee to gain entry to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s mining investment show.

“It’s unconscionable for a Canadian company to be operating inside Tibet when Tibetans are facing a brutal military clampdown and the most repressive conditions in three decades,” said Kunga Tsering, president of the Canadian-Tibetan Joint Action Committee, in a prepared statement.

Copyright © 2009 Toronto Star

Published in The Star.com