Thursday August 19, 2010 at 13:46 EST Petaquilla Minerals, Ltd. (TSX: PTQ) announced that they had signed a prepaid forward gold purchase agreement (“PETAQUILLA SIGNS PREPAID FORWARD GOLD PURCHASE AGREEMENT”) with Deutsche Bank. Subsequent to the announcement a rumor was spread initially by “word of mouth” that one of their tailings and leaching tanks had cracked, this with no other intention than to negatively affect Petaquilla Minerals reputation. The source of the initial rumor is yet unknown, but there are several leads at to whom might have started it.
Friday August 20, 2010 the rumor had spread to a different level, now the source was Ana Perez Facebook wall publishing her first comment at 13:28 (The link requires to be logged in)
Information on Facebook
Parallel to this action a massive email blast campaign took place against Petaquilla Minerals, Ltd., by local Panamanian NGO’s with no other intention than to discredit their reputation and manipulate the media.
A rapid response by the Panamanian authorities led to an inspection of the Molejon operation of Petaquilla Minerals, Ltd., conducted by the Ministry of Commerce (MICI) and the National Environmental Conservancy Agency (ANAM) with the final assessment that neither tailings pond nor any tank had suffered a crack and the mining operation at the Molejon is meeting or exceeding all environmental standards.
The NGO groups quoted “Toribio Valdes” a former politician on his statement that “around 5 or 6 in the afternoon on Thursday August 19, 2010 there was a chemical spill into the rivers and workers had been evacuated to PTQ camp 5 for their safety”, this interview was done by the well-known yellow journalist Elena Valdes. By Panamanian law you can’t sue them for defamation since they are using a 3rd party source.
This time the local newspaper “La Prensa” did publish accurate information when referring to the 95% capacity of the Tailings, this number includes 65% sediments and 30% decant water that is reused in the process, meaning there is still a 35% sediment capacity after the water is reused. The company is also finishing the next stage of tailings that will give them another 12 months capacity.
With this sequence of actions we can clearly sight yellow journalism. Ana Perez is also known as a person without credibility and is always looking for attention after her short “Gossip TV” (“La Cascara” TV Show: Patty La Chica Yeye) career ended years ago. She has been related to different anti government activities like the one in the picture bellow (Ana Perez in the middle), manifesting against the “Law 9 in 1”.
You do your own analysis of who might have started this rumor, and what the true motivation is, but I would think twice on how reliable the source is!
Author: Anonymous
1. Translation of Ana Perez facebook image: “This was expected, our clay soils, the abundance of rain, the enormous amount of rivers, they are the biggest adversaries of such a destructive activity like the metallic mining. If we don’t do something right now Petaquilla will be replicated around the country. MAKE PREASURE TO THE MEDIA SO THEY WONT STOP INFORMING WHATS HAPPENING.”
