Thai villagers battling a Canadian company's 12-year effort to dig a massive mine beneath them are preparing for the conflict to turn fatal, as the company, Asia Pacific Resources (APR), intensifies its efforts to obtain its long-delayed mining lease...Five leaders of the Udon Thani Conservation Group have been receiving death threats since late March from representatives of companies promised contracts by APR, said activist Suwit Kularbwong...A spokeswoman for APR declined to discuss the death-threat allegations, but did admit that relations with villagers living above the planned 25-square-kilometer mining site took a turn for the worse on March 24, when APR surveyors had to call for police assistance after being "blockaded" by a group of villagers...APR applied for its mining lease in May 2003, but its environmental impact assessment (EIA) set off a furor among academics, environmentalists and some politicians in Bangkok. A committee assigned to study it found it to be deeply flawed.