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BOLIVIA was developed with local cooperatives and COMIBOL; it employs more than 300 people, according to a company statement, while contributing $22 million to the local economy. Most significantly, in 2011, the Idahobased company received public assurances, widely reported in the media, that Bolivia's second-largest silver producer would not be nationalized, so long as Morales was president. Under a 1990s deal with COMIBOL, Canada's Pan American Silver likewise runs the San Vicente project with less controversy, producing more than 3 million oz of silver in 2012. The same has been true of Canadian miner Apogee Silver Ltd. with its Pulacayo-Paca project and The China National Gold Group. Vancouver's New World Resources Corp. similarly enjoys a "positive" relationship with COMIBOL, in a 60:40 joint venture with its Lipeña-Bonete coppergold concession in southwest Bolivia while successfully navigating a "difficult political environment," said CEO John Lando. But the Vancouver-based company's Bolivia presence, he added in a statement, differs from other foreign companies, hav- www.e-mj.com ing partnered with a "successful" private Bolivian mining company, Empresa Minera Marte S.R.L. And while New World Resources "looks forward to the future development work by our partner at the Lipeña copper-gold project, the company is currently focused on acquiring new projects in jurisdictions with clear mining codes, and long standing track records of respecting investment," Lando said. Although Bolivian resource nationalization is a highly erratic enterprise, note analysts, the outcomes are usually the same. "Jindal was not actually nationalized like Sinchi Wayra and Malku Khota (which were) struggling with outbursts of violence from indigenous groups that wanted the state to take part," Bernardo Prado, a La Paz mining consultant told The Financial Times. "But in the three cases the government's hardline position did not help and now they are all in the hands of COMIBOL." None of this seems to have deterred South Korea's state-owned Kores, which discovered some $8 billion in silver, copper and indium reserves, COMIBOL officials have reported. Future, Past and Present Kores officials announced that COMIBOL will have 50% ownership in a joint venture, followed by construction of the country's first lithium plant. Bolivia is estimated to have more lithium than any other country on earth. But the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, still ranks Morales' Bolivia third from the bottom in a survey of 65 countries in foreign mining industry appeal and 57th for security investment; only Venezuela and Zimbabwe were lower. Frustrated foreign mining companies are now learning the hard way how poor Bolivia's past—despite being one of the planet's most mineral-wealthy countries— keeps colliding recklessly with attitudes about its future. Bolivia, for one thing, wasn't always a landlocked nation: Through the departure of Spain's conquistadores and 1809 independence, the country lost significant chunks of land through wars with neighboring Chile, Paraguay and Brazil. In the end, a local saying may sum it up best. "Good comes from far away," according to a historic Bolivian proverb, "evil is close at hand." APRIL 2013 • E&MJ; 103