Mongolian protest endsMongolian protest ends; government to investigate agreement with Cdn company
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia (AP) - Some 200 demonstrators have ended their protests over alleged government corruption and the mishandling of mineral wealth in Mongolia after the country's leaders agreed to investigate agreements signed with foreign mining companies.
They were demanding that the government resign if it could not obtain favourable terms for Canadian mining company Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (TSX:IVN - news) concession to mine huge copper and gold deposits in the southern Gobi region.
The activists, including 10 people on hunger strike, had been camped in a central square in the capital Ulan Bator for two weeks when their demonstration ended late Sunday.
The demonstrators gave up their protests after Prime Minister Mieagombo Enkhbold and his cabinet ministers agreed to investigate agreements signed with foreign mining companies under previous administrations.
The government will also look into mining licensing issues and work together to amend the Mongolian minerals law, passed in 1997, which protesters say favours foreign mining companies.
"We demonstrated during the last two weeks to establish a just and transparent government, and as a result they have listened to us," said S. Ganbaatar, an activist with Radical Reform, one of several civic groups that claim to represent Mongolia's poor and unemployed.
The company under the spotlight, Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., has not been accused of improprieties. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company discovered the massive Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold deposit in the Gobi Desert and is negotiating an agreement with the government on tax and other policies to develop the project.
Ivanhoe got its licenses in 2003 "based on transparent and rigorous compliance with all Mongolian laws, policies and procedures," Layton Croft, executive vice-president for corporate affairs for Ivanhoe Mines, said Monday.
Ivanhoe has said the project will generate 117,000 jobs and boost the economy.
Copper mining is a major part of the economy of this former Soviet satellite that is sandwiched between China and Russia. The country and its 2.5 million people have suffered a steep economic decline since radical free-market reforms were launched in the early 1990s.
Politicians have clashed repeatedly over how to exploit the mineral resources. The opposition accuses the government of giving away Mongolia's wealth and wants the law changed to give the government a large share of all foreign-owned mines.