2010.12.22: December 22, 2010: Mongolia RPCV Layton Croft, who left the Asia Foundation in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Mongolia: Peace Corps Mongolia : Peace Corps Mongolia: Newest Stories: 2010.12.22: December 22, 2010: Mongolia RPCV Layton Croft, who left the Asia Foundation in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines

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Mongolia RPCV Layton Croft, who left the Asia Foundation in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines

Mongolia RPCV Layton Croft, who left the Asia Foundation in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines

Layton Croft's experience working with and for the big NGOs -- Soros Foundation, Mercy Corps, PACT, USAID, TAF -- certainly enhanced his next career move. Since 2005, Layton Croft has been the Executive Vice-President for Corporate Affairs and Community Relations at South Gobi Resources, an Ivanhoe Mines/Rio Tinto megaproject, and he is an "advisor for investor relations in Asia and corporate social responsibility" for Ivanhoe Mines. Alison Croft, his wife, works in 'community relations' with Ivanhoe Mines. As the newly hired public relations executive for Ivanhoe Mines, Layton Croft wasted no time in accusing Mongolian civil society groups -- including some of his former allies when he worked at TAF -- of betraying the public. One of his first major public relations whitewash came in April 2006, when the effigy of 'Toxic Bob' Friedland was burned by My Mongolian Land, the Green Movement, and other civic groups.

Mongolia RPCV Layton Croft, who left the Asia Foundation in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines

Western Complicity in the Extinction of Mongolia's Nomads

THE NAKED FACE OF CAPITALISM: GOLDMAN PRIZEWINNER
SHOOTS UP FOREIGN MINING FIRMS IN MONGOLIA - WESTERN
DECEPTIONS AND THE EXTINCTION OF THE NOMADS

by Keith Harmon Snow

Predatory capitalism has invaded Mongolia -- the savage western hordes overrunning the land -- and but for the recent Hollywood movie spectacle Mongol [1] and colorful travel magazine articles no one in America hears much of anything about the place.

Behind the bells and whistles promoting 'democracy', 'conservation', 'human rights', and a 'free press', Mongolia is under attack and the people suffering a world of hurt. The same companies destroying Mongolia are destroying Congo and Canada and everywhere else they appear.

Meanwhile, three years after winning the Goldman Environmental Prize -- the 'Green Nobel' -- Mongol herder Tsetsegee Munkhbayar shot at foreign mining operations and thus he is denounced and shunned by the same foreigners who recognized him as a hero. This is a story about the killing of the earth, the killing of truth, the killing of hope -- and the killing of the nomad's way.



[For complete article features, please see original at Consious Being Alliance here.]
In early September 2010, a small band of Mongolian citizens armed with hunting rifles opened fire on gold mining equipment owned by two foreign mining firms operating illegally in northern Mongolia. One of the four armed activists was Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, a 2007 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize -- the 'Green Nobel' -- awarded annually to pivotal environmentalists taking a stand around the globe.

"With unwavering passion," reads the National Geographic Emerging Explorers profile of Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, "he inspired thousands of local villagers, held press conferences, organized town hall meetings, lobbied legislators, and led protest marches -- mobilizing an unprecedented level of grassroots participation among citizens who previously felt they had no power to shape government policy." [2]

Three years after winning the award -- and a whole lot more illegal mining and pollution later -- Munkhbayar's little gang of four and their militant actions against the capitalist invasion remain in complete media whiteout in the western press: it's as if the early September shootings never happened. While the civic activists face possible prosecution and extended jail terms -- if not sudden unexplained death -- rapacious mining companies further plunder and pollute the land.

The gang of four -- Tsetsegee Munkhbayar, G. Bayaraa, D. Tumurbaatar and O. Sambuu-Yondon -- are environmentalists from the United Movement of Mongolian Rivers and Lakes (UMMRL), a consortium of Mongolian groups organized to fight foreign extractive industries that have invaded the fledgling 'democracy'. UMMRL was formed in June 4, 2009 after its predecessor, the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC), dissolved in the spring of 2008. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar -- and many collaborators he works with -- was pivotal to the creation of both MNPC and UMMRL.

[Excerpt]

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Substantial efforts (2005-2006) by Layton Croft, TAF's former Mongolia Country Director, and William Foerderer Infante, his successor, to lobby the Goldman Fund paid off when Tsetsegee Munkhbayar traveled to San Francisco, California (USA) to receive the $125,000 cash prize (2007).

Robert Redford introduces Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and the other 2007 Goldman Prize winners in the moving Goldman Foundation video. [35] The video applauds Tsetsegee Munkhbayar for his organizational skills and peaceful, collaborative approach. One mining company public relations executive--a Mongolian giving mining a Mongolian face -- talks about restoration done by their mining company, suggesting a progressive mining climate in Mongolia, where companies comply with environmental stewardship, perform due diligence and work with communities. The video paints a happy and collaborative picture over the brutal realities attendant to the clash of civilizations.

And then, at minute 4:18 in the Goldman Fund 2007 video we meet Mr. Layton Croft, who left TAF in 2005 to become Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Social Responsibility, for Ivanhoe Mines.

"The key to [Tsetsegee] Munkhbayar's success as a leader for responsible mining in Mongolia," says Layton Croft, in the Goldman Prize video, "is that he's had the courage to acknowledge that mining could be good for Mongolia, as long as it's done in a very open and participatory way."

Layton Croft began his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia (1994-1997). He later joined the Mongolian office of the big US government and intelligence organization PACT [36], where he was the Program Director for Information Systems for their Gobi Regional Economic Growth Initiative/Mongolia (1999-2002), working for PACT-Mongolia in an alliance with Mercy Corps and USAID.

One of Layton Croft's USAID-backed projects with PACT involved bringing National Public Radio founder Bill Siemering and NPR personality Corey Flintoff to Mongolia to promote the USAID-funded fiction of 'free and independent' media. [37] Another PACT project Croft was involved with created and broadcast a TV sit-com "where marginalized herder and non-herder business operators are learning new skills to manage their diversified businesses for higher returns via a 26-episode educational TV soap opera broadcast on Mongolian National TV." The show had more than 400,000 viewers. [38]

Such foreign created and controlled propaganda is not purely entertainment: like the 'educational' books peddled by TAF and the TV sit-coms created by PACT, these programs rely on 'behavior change communications' -- analyzing and changing local content to change attitudes and eventually change behaviors; creating desire, opening up new markets for western commodities, and selling advertising. [39]

Mongolian girls barbie.jpg


Layton Croft's next career step was TAF, 2003-2005, where he lobbied the Goldman Foundation to recognize Tsetsegee Munkhbayar.

Layton Croft's experience working with and for the big NGOs -- Soros Foundation, Mercy Corps, PACT, USAID, TAF -- certainly enhanced his next career move. Since 2005, Layton Croft has been the Executive Vice-President for Corporate Affairs and Community Relations at South Gobi Resources, an Ivanhoe Mines/Rio Tinto megaproject, and he is an "advisor for investor relations in Asia and corporate social responsibility" for Ivanhoe Mines. Alison Croft, his wife, works in 'community relations' with Ivanhoe Mines.

As the newly hired public relations executive for Ivanhoe Mines, Layton Croft wasted no time in accusing Mongolian civil society groups -- including some of his former allies when he worked at TAF -- of betraying the public. One of his first major public relations whitewash came in April 2006, when the effigy of 'Toxic Bob' Friedland was burned by My Mongolian Land, the Green Movement, and other civic groups.

"We also overturned Ivanhoe cars in 2007 protests," M. Bold from My Mongolian Land told me. "Ivanhoe wanted to get a contract like the government had with the Canadian company Boroo Gold. They [Boroo] were robbing us for more than ten years (1997-2007). In one year of operations they used 800 tons of [toxic] chemicals [40], so they were also destroying the place: it's not useable for centuries. The company produced the only reports about water, for example, and what a wonderful job they were doing." [41]

"The [Ivanhoe] company deeply regrets the fact that civic movements are misleading the Mongolian public by misrepresenting the real facts in order to further their own political interests," said Layton Croft, Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs for Ivanhoe Mines. "As a public company listed and traded on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, Ivanhoe Mines respects the independence and sovereignty of the countries where it operates. To this end, Ivanhoe has not and will not interfere in internal Mongolian political affairs," Croft said. [42]

In 2007, Ivanhoe mines came very close to physically changing the direction of the Kherlan River, but it was the intervention of the Mongolian Nature Protection Coalition (MNPC) that stopped it. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar and Clayton Croft engaged in a heated argument about this at a public meeting.

"Ivanhoe Mines had their own people already elected to Parliament," said M. Bold of My Mongolian Land. "We don't want Mongolia to be a playground for these criminals and their corruption. Our country is in grave danger." [43]




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Headlines: December, 2010; Peace Corps Mongolia; Directory of Mongolia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Mongolia RPCVs; NGO's; Business; Environment





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Story Source: Pacific Free Press

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Mongolia; NGO's; Business; environment

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