Right now things probably seem much worse than they actually are. It's human nature to feel like that in an environment of fear as opposed to greed. Because of Correa's illconceived moves of a month ago all the more positive news/comments/articles/speculation of the past couple weeks are being ignored by the market. This market needs action 1st in the form of a draft mining law scheduled to come out before May 29th. The key word here is "law". Not only must the content be fair to all sides, it must be enforceable by all sides. Ecuador must portray to the World Investing Community that not only can what they say be believed but that their laws have teeth. Anything less will have much farther reaching impacts than mining, it could destroy their economy.

That is why I think Correa will do the right thing here. The world is watching and he has 1 chance to get it right. I think his motives in doing what he did were probably ok but the way he went about it left a lot to be desired as we all agree. This is his 2nd and last chance imo.

There are actually some parallels to what Flaherty did with the Income Trust fiasco. He totally blindsided the investment community. Perhaps something had to be done but exactly what he did and how left a lot to be desired.

For the time being, I have guarded optimism. I think the workers will be back fairly soon and the 3 concession issue will become a non-issue. Of course the companies know much more than they're saying but need to be tight lipped until the clarity comes to light.