Rosia Montana is situated in an area that covers the biggest deposit of gold in Europe, being the oldest mining

settlement certified through documents and known since the age of the Romans. The area has been exploited since the age of Traian until the present days. The name, Rosia ( translated as Reddish) Montana, was born due to the color of the flowing waters polluted by the millennial mining activities that took place there. Until 2006, the gold and silver deposits from Rosia Montana were exploited by the Romanian state through the National Campaign of Gold, Copper and Iron with the help of the firm called Minvest S.A. . The exploitation was depending financially, until it was shut down, on grants from the state and generated annually losses of more than 3 million euros. This was the main reason why the action was stopped. Thus, the unemployment rate got up to 90% in that area and the lack of work places and income, forced people to leave Rosia Montana. The lack of funds prevented the campaign to respect the schedule chart of debts, therefore obliging the company that supplied electrical energy to interrupt their source and all the mining activities were stopped. What happened next? The project Rosia Montana Gabriel Resources came into life and bought 60% of the properties. The project refers to a deep mining exploitation with cyanide of the area, which puts in danger life overall. It opens the door to the biggest ecological disaster in Eastern Europe. So what will be destroyed? 5 mountains, a worldwide unique national patrimony, 10 churches, 12 cemeteries, 958 houses. Moreover, the people who do not want to move out are threatened with expropriation. The project, initiated by the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation Campaign, has to be analyzed with objectivity by competent specialists through the risks and benefits report. The conclusions of such an analysis, as provided in the theory and practice of management, have to be made known to the authorities who have to approve and supervise the accomplishment of the project in order to make a decision on the basis of that information. The main argument in favor of the project is that RMGC would give people a place to work in a disadvantaged area and would improve the peoples level of life due to the presence of new jobs etc.. Accepting the idea that any huge investment in the area is beneficial and necessary, the risks involved have to be analyzed and the pluses have to be weighted without preconceived ideas and see if they are justifiable by the foreseeable consequences and collateral negative effects. The facts are the following: the mining exploitation with cyanide will be the biggest in Europe; 500 grams of cyanide will be used to obtain one gram of gold. A part of the substance will get into an open lake, thus creating a new place with a high degree of potential ecological accidents. The lake will be 10 times bigger than the ones from Baia Mare where an ecological catastrophic took place in 2000 due to the use of cyanide to exploit gold. The Tisa and Lapus rivers were filled with 100 tons of poisonous substances and thus affecting 1200 tons of fish in an area of 500 km and contaminating the drinkable water sources for 2.4 million of citizens. Due to that accident, the Romanian state had to pay to Hungary a compensation of 120 million of

Euros for polluting Tisa. It takes only 0.03 mg of cyanide per one liter of water to kill fish. At a concentration bigger than 3 mg per liter, the river dies. RMGC will throw in the lake approximately 50mg per liter. A glass of water with cyanide is sufficient to kill a child as the lethal dose for humans is just 1 mg of that substance per kilogram of body weight. About 2000 people will be affected by the project. The local group called Alburnus Maior, the name of Rosia Montana in the past, which represents more than 300 families from Rosia Montana opposes the forced displacement of the people, the exploitation with cyanide and the annihilation of an important archaeological and historical monument. The group started a campaign through which they demand a regional referendum concerning the project. In the EU, such a project would be possible only with the agreement of the people while involuntary displacement would be possible only for public interest like to build railways or roads, but not for personal concern. In an interview, Margot Wallstroem, European commissioner for the environment, confirmed that a public consultation through which the community as a whole decides and also analyzing the impact on the environment, would be of a high degree importance. At this point, there are two other major campaigns that have been fighting for some years now against the RMGC project with the goal to shut down the project. On one hand, there is Salvati Rosia Montana (Save Rosia Montana) which raises signatures in different petitions from people on certain websites in order to prevent the Minister of Culture and the Minister of Environment from Romania to give their approval. The campaign tells the truth about all the negative effects that RMGC hides or lies about. The campaign has also turned into nonviolent protests all over the country. You can view my photos from the most recent one from ClujNapoca here. Unfortunately, although the volunteers are not violent, the police usually are. As in the case from Cluj where people were standing in front of the door from the building that was occupied and from where the police took out one by one every activist, when the policemen saw they could not get out, they started pushing people around and getting the volunteers out by lifting them up. However, the activists did not fight back with violence. They stand still. From my point of view, the benefits of these actions are obvious: the impact on the people and event transmitted by the mass-media; the awareness raised by the peoples stance and the distribution of fliers where the truth is told. At the same time, the protest from Cluj-Napoca took place illegally as the students occupied the building without asking for permission. This fact could point out a negative stance from the mass-media which might portray the activists in a destructive way. The biggest cost was a fine for unlawfully occupying the building. However, although the volunteers were arrested, they were set free after a few days. On the other hand, there is the MindBomb Campaign that relates the pollution of the environment in Romania with the corruption of the state, local administrations and nonetheless, of the individual, which erodes the Romanian society from the inside. In one action from 2009, 12.000 posters were glued on different walls on the night of 19th of March in the cities of Romania, including Rosia Montana. Through the campaign, the activists were protesting against the mining exploiting project with cyanide from Rosia Montana and against the publicity that

Gabriel Resources, the owner of RMGC, was making about the extremely damaging project for Romania. If I were asked to write a plan for the next phase, I would recommend a massive protest in each city at the same time, marches all over and especially in Bucharest. I would advise to protest in front of the Palace of Parliament with tents and everything, sort of like occupy Wall Street. Of course, these actions should be the next step after an intensive publicity on the Internet and if possible announcements on television, radio, written press and through fliers. What I would recommend to stop doing is to not go against the law like the case in Cluj-Napoca where the activists occupied a building without approval. From my stance, an intense action against something harmful without anyone saying you did something illegal is the best way to do it. Mass-media from Romania mostly and also from other countries, transmitted the evolution of the campaigns against Rosia Montana and is in constant contact with all that relates to the subject. I believe that the outside media should get more involved and get the case of Rosia Montana known all over so that people know what is going on, even help to prevent an ecological disaster. The news about Rosia Montana affected the people. Different churches have stated their opposition to the project, political organizations like the European Federation of Green Parties and the NGO Greenpeace have also opposed and also the Hungarian Minister of Environment announced that the government is against the project. If I had the opportunity, I would demand all the employers in the mass-media environment to be fair and accurate and abide by the code of the journalist and the ethics that come with it so that the truth would be told and no propaganda would be displayed anywhere. The intoxication with propaganda for the campaign on the television and in written press is made to cover the Romanians eyes, the image of RMGC- a campaign that got stuck in the brutal colonialism age, whose cynical policy of profit will destroy Rosia Montana from the face of the Earth, will relocate people and erase the history of that place. For the first time in Romania, the public opinion and certain public institutions have come together against a damaging business for all of us, demonstrating that Romania is not the paradise of crooks. After years and years, activists are still struggling to fight and their actions are seen in the mass-media. Their progress is obvious on the Internet and in the multitude of stances people take in the present. Nowadays, RMCGs request to transform Rosia Montana into a mining place once more is pending and waiting for an answer.