Your theory regarding the Ecuadorians being involved makes a lot of sense.

consider:

a. ARU the only one that stops work while others continue on.

We've been over this already. ARU is not the only one who stopped work. They all did, except CTQ who were already suspended, and the artisan miners who are a separate category.

b. ARU pays "unemployment ins" to the local workers so protests are minimal.

Nothing sinister here. It simply avoids the cost of rehiring and retraining, plus demonstrates commitment to the locals (hearts and minds). As for protests, our people knew very well who laid them off, and they, along with other miners, participated in protests against the govt.

c. Insiders sell large amounts of shares just before the April fiasco.

Now this demands an explanation. Were they tipped off as to what was coming? (someone in the govt. who wanted to maintain good relations, or who simply disagreed with the decision and wanted to soften the impact?) Did any insiders from other companies sell? You need to know this before you can draw any conclusions. Did anyone look into this?

d. K and ARU SP manipulated the the "right" direction a month before the offer.

Check.

e. Even the offer price is paraded as valued at $8.20 when using the crooks own #'s it is only valued at $ 7.13 (the warrants are valued at $0.00 by any sane investor and why ARU SP trades at K SP X .317 and the warrant value at approx $0.00)

Check.

Why the Ecuadorian involved? They get to use this as a positive spin to the political BS they got themselves in the last 3 months.

" Hey look world we must be OK as a tier one international corporation is willing to invest in our country" They also spin this to the locals so they are more inclined to vote YES to the constitutional reforms in Sept.

Perhaps, but it would have happened anyway once the mining law was released, which by all accounts was friendly. This way it just looks bad - sends a message to foreign investors that the govt. is playing favorites. Not the message you want to send if you're truly open for business, is it? And how does it helps the referendum, which is really just a vote on the popularity of Correa - unless you think people are actually going to read the whole thing.

No matter what subsequent offers we get, IMHO the management and Bod have shown that they have no interest of the shareholder in mind. To put it simply IMHO they are crooks and can no longer be trusted.

I'm still puzzled on this point. What did deal maker Andre, who was brought in for just this purpose have to say about a) the deal, b) the effect on his reputation? I'd definitely like to hear from him.

There's another point here that no one's raised. What if the mining law stipulates that the remaining concessions revert to the state upon a) start of production, or b) sale of the project. Do we know the answer to this? Can we guess what it might be, given the previous 3 concession rule? If true, what effect does it have on the value an offer?

I'll just ad my own thoughts on the question of Ecuadorean govt. involvement. They've shown at every stage of the game that they're ignorant of how this industry works, so it's possible they signed off on the deal without realizing it was a rip-off. It's also possible they felt they had to allow it so's not to cause further harm to their reputation. You simply can't draw a conclusion based on the information at hand.

I did get one impression from my extensive reading, and that was that they wanted the existing companies to proceed to production. That would have been in their best interests as far as maintaining control while the industry got off the ground. It would also sell better politically, as opposed to having a big "transnational" come in and take over a project. That doesn't fly well with the Greens, who are still a factor in all of this. As for financing, the Ecuadorean govt. could have directed their own banks to do that, with appropriate guarantees, so that point is moot. Frankly, given that they set up a state mining co. and had studied the Codelco model, I thought that's exactly what they would do. Maybe they still will?

ebear