"Thai Prime Minister under fire over reopening of Australian gold mine", 7 February 2020

The reopening of a contentious Australian gold mine in Thailand is causing controversy five years after it was ordered shut [...].

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Kingsgate, whose Thai subsidiary Akara Resources had operated the mine since 2001, always maintained it was not responsible for water and land contamination [...].

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But less than a fortnight before the ruling from the arbitration tribunal in Singapore was expected to be made public last month, Kingsgate said it had been awarded four 10-year leases allowing it to re-start the Chatree mine, which is on the boundary of the northern provinces of Phichit and Phetchabun.

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[...] [F]orensic scientific institute and a university that had found many locals with higher than usual traces of heavy metals in their blood. More than 300 people were later named in a class-action lawsuit brought by villagers against Kingsgate’s subsidiary Akara that is still before the courts.

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But Kingsgate chairman Ross Smyth-Kirk said [...] there had never been any substance to claims linking the mine with chemical pollution.

“There is no evidence whatsoever and that was proven in the tribunal,” he said.

“No one has ever been able to produce any evidence ever. The whole thing has been a furphy from day one and it’s very disappointing because the mine was of real benefit to the local economy. If you go up there you can see the difference it made to the locals.”

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