Armed standoff leads to legal battle in Peru

Vancouver – A metal gate manned by armed guards blocking a road leading to mining claims held by two different companies has led to a legal stand-off in Peru

In June workers for High Ridge Resources (HRR-V) found their way barred when they tried to access the companys two groups of claims in the San Mateo district, Huarochiri province.

High Ridge acquired two properties in San Mateo over a few months early this year. The larger group of claims, called the Rosicler El Domo property, includes a relatively untouched 3-km long exposed quartz vein system with an associated strongly-altered volcanic done. The smaller group of concessions, called the Pacococha-Germania property, involves several epithermal vein systems that have been previously mined but never drilled.

Grenville Gold (GVG-V) also started acquiring property in the San Mateo district in early 2007. In essence, the High Ridge claims and the Grenville claims cover the district in a complex, interlocking pattern. In the areas around the four past-producing mines in San Mateo, the puzzle of claims involves parcels only a few hundred metres across.

A single road leads through the heart of the old mining area, servicing both companies claims. One day in June, High Ridge workers showed up to find armed guards and a locked gate barring their way, working for Grenville Gold.

In late August Grenville claim responsibility for the blockade, adding a paragraph onto a press release regarding blasting permits that explained the closure was because loose rocks destroyed a portion of the road that led to properties over a high ridgeAccess to the properties is impossible at this time. In the release the company explains that the road closure in no way hampers Grenvilles current plans.

Then, on October 15, having been denied access to their properties for four months, High Ridge issued a press release announcing that criminal proceedings had been commenced. The proceedings have been commenced against Leonard De Melt and Paul Gill, respectively Chairman and CEO of Grenville Gold Corporation, and three local employees of Grenville Gold’s Peruvian subsidiary Inversiones Minera Alexander S.A.C., says High Ridge president Gary Anderson in the release.

In an interview a few days later, Anderson said the road is a public one and therefore any blockade is illegal. Blocking a road is a felony in Peru, he says. Its a public road, and both parties know of that. What theyre disputing it on is for them to know. We just went through the legal system.

Anderson declined to elaborate on what criminal proceedings were underway, but was confident that High Ridge would come out on top of the dispute because the blockade was illegal from the start. While waiting for the legal system to initiate the criminal proceedings against Grenville, a system Anderson says moves at a different pace than the Canadian equivalent, High Ridge signed agreements with two of the four communities in the area securing unrestricted access to the land where they hold mineral claims.

Interestingly, around the same time Grenville Gold bought almost 3,400 hectares from one of the other local communities and claimed that the purchase gave them unrestricted access to their claims.

Grenville Gold management did not respond to requests for an interview.